Skunk Works Reveals Proposed SR-71 Successor: the Hypersonic SR-72 216
cold fjord writes "Aviation Week reports, 'Ever since Lockheed's unsurpassed SR-71 Blackbird was retired ... almost two decades ago, the perennial question has been: Will it ever be succeeded by a new-generation, higher-speed aircraft and, if so, when? That is, until now. After years of silence on the subject, Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works has revealed exclusively to AW&ST details of long-running plans for what it describes as an affordable hypersonic intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike platform that could enter development in demonstrator form as soon as 2018. Dubbed the SR-72, the twin-engine aircraft is designed for a Mach 6 cruise, around twice the speed of its forebear, and will have the optional capability to strike targets. Guided by the U.S. Air Force's long-term hypersonic road map, the SR-72 is designed to fill what are perceived by defense planners as growing gaps in coverage of fast-reaction intelligence by the plethora of satellites, subsonic manned and unmanned platforms meant to replace the SR-71.'"
Re:SR-71 needed replacing (Score:3, Interesting)
Which, ironically, is probably why they didn't bother upgrading the spy plane until now. Countries that could shoot it down could shoot it and any successors down, and those that couldn't couldn't.
The idea of a new plane to fill the gap, not from earlier planes, but from satellites being shot down, or just not being in the correct spot when you need extremely fresh data, is interesting.
Re:SR-71 needed replacing (Score:4, Interesting)
What makes you think that they can't shoot an SR72 down?
Ballistic missiles and satellites are less maneuverable, but faster. And it doesn't take a lot of damage for a Mach-6 bird to disintegrate.
On the same topic, I'd really like to see a Mach-6 weapon deployment.
Re:SR-71 needed replacing (Score:5, Interesting)
I assume that a plane flying Mach 6 would turn a human pilot into chunky salsa with any kind of maneuvering. Generally, an aircraft can be a lot smaller and cheaper if you don't have to worry about keeping a person alive inside of it. Same thing with spacecraft.
Re:Mo money, mo money (Score:1, Interesting)
Doesn't matter, unless the Tea Partier was forced to bring the set amount of cookies only to have them taken away. Most Tea Partiers are angry about what they were forced to bring only to see it wasted, not upset about what other people might offer them.
Re:SR-71 needed replacing (Score:5, Interesting)
Shooting down a Mach 6 aircraft is extremely difficult.
Lets say an SR-72 was going to go the full length of Iran, and Iran had recently deployed S-300 missiles from Russia. The S-300 is considered a world-class air defense weapon (despite having never been fired in combat). It has a 5 minute deployment time and a 24 mile range.
Mach 6 is roughly 4,567 Miles/hour or 1.26 miles every second.
It will cover the 48 mile engagement envelope of an S-300 (24 miles each way), in 38 seconds. What this means is a missile site can't detect and engage the target. Someone has to detect and transmit targeting information to air defense sights in the path of the plane, so they can be ready to lauch, when it gets within range.
Just some moderate maneuvering and route planning, keeps the SR-72 out of range most of the time.
There was rumor that the SR-71 was detectable with long range radars, but stealthy to weapons guidance radars. Add in stealth characteristics and the task becomes even more difficult.
From looking at a map, the absolute longest flight path over Iran appears to be about 2000 miles. Meaning the SR-72, worst case, would only be over Iranian airspace for less than 30 minutes. If a plane came in over the Caspian Sea, crossed over Tehran, then turned for the nearest border, they could be in and out of Iran in less than 5 minutes.
All in all, a very challenging exercise.
Wrong, wrong, wrong (Score:1, Interesting)
Wrong, members of the Tea Party are far better versed in science (proven recently by a liberal professor's study -- a guy who believed the propaganda like you do), history, and the Constitution than most. That's why they are in the Tea Party. It's not a place for people who do not know history or the Constitution, i.e. it's not a place for most liberally leaning people who are simply told what to think by the media and dutiful believe the propaganda.
Re:I wish (Score:5, Interesting)
NASA R&D made this possible (Score:5, Interesting)
It wasn't the DoD spending money all over the world with whoever was interested in scramjets since the 1980s - that was NASA. Trickle down had nothing to do with this. It was about direct funding and then the DoD getting interested some time in the last five or ten years - more than thirty years after successful scramjet model tests in shock tunnels.
Re:Mo money, mo money (Score:5, Interesting)
The Tea Party, like any political group, is a mix of people with a varied political mindsets. You have many very reasonable Tea Party members, a few "far right" (shutdown the gov, defund everything, etc) and a few "far left" (support the unions, regulate everything, etc). The same can be said of any political group. There is no doubt that the Republicans have tried to co-opt them as a wing of their party, but every Tea Party rally I've ever seen (admittedly only a few) has been equally disappointed in both mainstream political parties. The Tea Party in and of itself is probably never going to bring about meaningful change, but the fact that they have shook up the political landscape a little, forcing some of D.C.s issues (debt, waste, pork, political favors, etc) out into the open I feel is a very good thing and hopefully will continue for many years to come.