Fueling the Aurora Issue

SR71 < Aurora < Falcon

SR71 was Mach 3+

Aurora is not a hypersonic aircraft being Mach 5 or 6

Falcon is designed to be Mach 8-12 (Hypersonic)

Shattered I think since DARPA is releasing some info on Falcon that quite possibly in the next 2 to 3 years we might get a real public release on Aurora.



[edit on 15-6-2006 by robertfenix]

I missed the studio discussion but saw the video. I have to say that there have been rumours flying around for years that the TR-3B Manta (which some claim to be behind the flying triangle reports) is based somewhere in Scotland. Frankly I find it more plausible that something like that (which doesn't require a runway and is reportedly extremely quiet) could be based there rather than something like the Aurora which, (as I understand it, and am open to correction on this) uses pulsed jets which make that ripping sound and leave the "doughnuts on a rope" contrail.

The Manta, now THAT's the kind of craft I'd like to think was flying around out there.

I watched the BBC clip...they didn't really say anything juicy.

Flight Global has an article about it as well.
Existence of secret 'Aurora' hypersonic sucessor to SR-71 Blackbird 'revealed' in UK defence ministry UFO report

However Newsnight found two omissions to the censor's pen, buried deep in the UFO report, which stated that the US Air Force plans to produce "highly supersonic vehicles at M4-6" as well as hypersonic unmanned air vehicles. It also reports a USAF priority plan to produce an air-breathing aircraft with a M8-12 capability. Two photographs have been blacked out on the public version of the once-top secret report and several paragraphs of text also been crossed through

I think the Blackbirds successor was likely a mach 6 aircraft, likely a turbo/ramjet.
The Mach 8 - 12 one is probably a PDE, and is responsable for the do-ropes.

I hope that a black aircraft gets revealed soon...and hopefully the next Black release is the mach 6 secret spy plane. Then all the Aurora hype can be put to bed.

Here's another source for this information:

www.theregister.co.uk...


Within it is a pdf version of the report itself:
Exotic technologies

The projected (USAF) priority plan is to produce unpiloted air-breathing aircraft with a Mach 8-12 capability and transatmospheric vehicles which can operate between the upper air-breathing and sub-orbital flight regimes, as well as highly supersonic vehicles at Mach 4 to 6.

By Air-Breathing, do they mean Ramjet?


props, btw, to member neformore for spotting The Register article.

[edit on 16-6-2006 by Nygdan]

My god, if they are permiting the release of all this 'suggestive' material, what in the world do they have under dark black cover?????

Originally posted by Nygdan
By Air-Breathing, do they mean Ramjet?

basically anything other then a rocket (which carries its Oxygen on board)

But they are refering to Ram-jet & scram-jet & PDE.

I personally would love to see a new black aircraft release and have it be powered by PDE. Then finaly we would get loads of new info about how well it works, there top speed, things like that. I dont know what the theoratical limit of PDE's are, but I think they can go at least mach 8.

Originally posted by robertfenix
SR71 < Aurora < Falcon

SR71 was Mach 3+

Aurora is not a hypersonic aircraft being Mach 5 or 6

Falcon is designed to be Mach 8-12 (Hypersonic)

Shattered I think since DARPA is releasing some info on Falcon that quite possibly in the next 2 to 3 years we might get a real public release on Aurora.



[edit on 15-6-2006 by robertfenix]

I thought Falcon was always public knowledge, and Hypersonic starts at Mach 5.

Shattered OUT...

I watched the programme last Wednesday with the Paxman grilling the MoD official & to his credit he admitted US/UK joint research (the Brits are numero uno stealth wise apparently these day) programs & saying the blanked out pictures & text in the MoD report were because "maybe a new wing shape that people might not be used to". He said in the past the Nighthawk & the Spirit we "possibly" the cause of the 'UFO' sightings in Scotland circa 80s 90s & when Aurora was mentioned he went cold & denied completely that such a craft could ever exist. I laughed quietly to myself when he said the SR71 was retired because of US Satellite capabilty & that in his opinion an "Aurora type craft" would be a waste of money.
$200+ billion black budget monies go a long way Fella, well thats just my opinion.

The thing with a satelite is that you know when it is going to fly over. If you're out there, practicing setting up your scud, thinking its safe because the spy satelite is not overhead - then your attention is diverted by a ripping sonic boom and the infamous 'donuts on a rope' contrail. "Crap, they got us...." You can't shoot it down - it's already in another country by now - assuming you had a missile fast enough.... I'm not aware of anything outside of a Gauss/Rail gun that can offer a solution.

I think Aurora is old news - really. Sure - it's probably pretty cool - but what else has been going on while everyone is out chasing after the Aurora? I think they are just keeping it classified because it continues to entrance black project fanatics and works well as a cover for other projects.

Originally posted by Aim64C
The thing with a satelite is that you know when it is going to fly over. If you're out there, practicing setting up your scud, thinking its safe because the spy satelite is not overhead - then your attention is diverted by a ripping sonic boom and the infamous 'donuts on a rope' contrail. "Crap, they got us...." You can't shoot it down - it's already in another country by now - assuming you had a missile fast enough.... I'm not aware of anything outside of a Gauss/Rail gun that can offer a solution.

I think the idea now is to be quick & camoflauged. If you need a secret plane to takeoff, its best to paint it camo, and to get it out of the hangar and up in the sky as quick as possible. There are so many sats up there now that you can no longer play that waiting game, wait till there sats gone and take-off...theres to many of them, they are constantly over your head...but the odds of a sat looking at the exact spot the plane is while its taking off is very very rare.

Would you even hear the planes sonic boom, If it passes over your country at 100,000+ ft?
If they did a good job with IR, and flew high enough where you couldn't see or hear them, and were stealthy...then they would basically be invincible.

BTW, missiles can hit a hypersonic plane. Hell, the US & Russia's missile shield has missiles that can hit a ICBM...and those travel at over mach 20.

Originally posted by Primary Mover
I watched the programme last Wednesday with the Paxman grilling the MoD official & to his credit he admitted US/UK joint research (the Brits are numero uno stealth wise apparently these day) programs & saying the blanked out pictures & text in the MoD report were because "maybe a new wing shape that people might not be used to". He said in the past the Nighthawk & the Spirit we "possibly" the cause of the 'UFO' sightings in Scotland circa 80s 90s & when Aurora was mentioned he went cold & denied completely that such a craft could ever exist. I laughed quietly to myself when he said the SR71 was retired because of US Satellite capabilty & that in his opinion an "Aurora type craft" would be a waste of money.
$200+ billion black budget monies go a long way Fella, well thats just my opinion.

'fraid your wrong with the assumption us brits are numero uno when it comes to stealth mate. I work for a certain UK miltary aircraft manufacturer and beleive me - we're having major problems with the yanks refusing to share their knowledge of stealth technology. They have a far bigger annual budget than us for this type of research hence they currently lead the pack.
The JSF while not exactly a "stealth aircraft" per se, certainly has a degree of such technology and our US friends are being very cagey about letting us in on any of it, so much so apparently that we've threatened to pull out of the project before now, if they aren't more forthcoming.

Regards,
Nikki Sixx

The SR-71 WAS retired because of sattelites. The operating budget was overinflated to make sattelites look more attractive, and the argument was used that a sattelite goes around in an orbit every 90 minutes, so you're going to have a camera overhead very quickly, where an SR would still take hours to get to where you wanted it.

That was the official line, but as you can see, not that many people here give it much credence.

And where does the "doughnuts-on-a-rope" contrail come from? It's been photographed and even traced to Nevada before now.

Personally, I think there are many black aircraft we know nothing about, and it's kind of interesting that there are certain areas of investigation that simply disappear off the radar very quickly: electrogravitics, for example, and there's another one which has relevance to stealth technology - Quasicrystals. This avenue of research was getting some net coverage a few years back and then... everything just went really quiet very quickly. No "cold fusion it's all nonsense" stuff to explain why, the results of research just weren't public any more.

OK from the newsnight website I got to the actual report on the MOD website. Here it is. I found the parts of particular interest, these are Volume 2, Parts F and G.

It does have some very interesting parts in it. I'm taking the blanked out part 3, to be regarding some classified aircraft, then the report goes on to discuss the way that unclassified aircrafts profiles could appear unusual from some angles. Then there is the next blanked out part 6.

Next there is a part which I found very interesting regarding Russian developments, specifically something called the Thermoplane, a saucer shaped craft, that I havnt heard of before which was apparently announced in 1992 and being developed in the Ulyanovski Aviation Industria Complex. There is even a picture of the craft which appears to be badly photocopied and features cant be made out but there are diagrams. Is it designed to be neutrally buoyant?

In the figures section there are two photos (or diagrams) blanked out which I assume to detail currently unknown aircraft, followed by diagrams of the F-22, F-117a and B-2.

There is also a diagram of a UAV (which I recognise but don't know the name of) which is described as using the "Roll-Over Method to reduce RCS". From the diagrams I take this to mean it takes off and lands with the air intake below the craft and then during flight flips over so the intake is above the craft. I think this is an innovative method which allows for the fuselage to direct air into the engines when it is most needed and then hides the intakes from ground-based radar during flight. I've never heard of this before but I'm sure you guys have.

Anyway thats it. I don't have time to read the entire report but I'm sure there are some more jems of info in there somewhere.