SR-72 Confirmed: Mach 6 Project Blackswift

its crazy to think that technology has only allowed us after all these years and trillions of R and D to travel at mach 6....we are apparently being lied to come on...when was the sound barrier broken...and all we have progressed is six times that....

and besides the pulse wave contrail caught on satelite picture claims to be traveling at like mach 9 or 10...much faster than mach 6

Maybe if you happen to be looking out of the Space Shuttle window...

it may look like this....





maybe.... lol

I was actually reading through Ben Rich's memoir book this morning (one of the fathers of modern stealth, former Lockheed exec). He basically stated in no uncertain terms that the future of the battlefield would be fought by drones and remote vehicles. Looks like his prediction is right on the mark. This plane seems to be an unmanned solution to both the B-2 and SR-71 mission profile.

Get in, do the mission, get out, and outrun, out-distance, or countermeasure any potential defense against the plane by going faster/higher than any enemy defense.

Personally though, I've heard some pretty reliable insiders claim that the SR-71 could go Mach 6 (though not for any real length of time), so I'm betting this new plane is actually much faster, probably by about 3 magnitudes.

UPDATE

Air Force 'Hypersonic' Jet Sets New Speed Records
Published May 27, 2010
www.foxnews.com...

The Hypersonic X-51A WaveRider
www.foxnews.com...=1

Interesting, Mach 6 for 200 seconds. That Boeing scramjet didn't seem like it was designed for much more than testing though.

I have to think that Intelgurl's initial post was right on the money....an unmanned stealth drone is the perfect successor to the mission profile of the Blackbird (heck, even the Blackbird had a drone that could detach)...so they've likely had this for a while....probably since the second retirement of the SR-71....

How many do they have cause I see high flying trail maker every day.
Wish we could get a good id on these but all I see is a dark cloud in front
of the trail.

Seems to make sense that we would have another Blackbird type aircraft waiting in the wings. With nervousness over our orbiting recon assets, and their vulnerability to either man-made or natural interference, it is prudent to have atmospheric assets available. Having all your recon eggs in the one orbital basket is not an optimum situation. Keeping the new aircraft in EMP hardened hangars so they can be launched in the event of a loss of most, if not all of our orbiting assets means we maintain at least some critical minimum level of recon capability. Too bad no one will get to fly in it.

reply to post by bdn12


F22's have been bought by several foreign nations, not many, but 2 or 3 here and there. The new F35 (ugly piece of crap) is being sold world wide as a NATO Joint Strike Force Fighter.

B2's and SR-71's are solely ours though.

Originally posted by Gazrok
I was actually reading through Ben Rich's

Personally though, I've heard some pretty reliable insiders claim that the SR-71 could go Mach 6 (though not for any real length of time), so I'm betting this new plane is actually much faster, probably by about 3 magnitudes.

Mach 6 sounds way too fast until that is, you remember the Bell X-15 from the 1960's did Mach 6.7.

I would put a bet on it that the Blackbird went way faster than Mach 3, especially as Nasa had a few for, cough, Research at High Altitude purposes!

An we're now talking nearly 45 years ago, before the US has spent $100 billion per year on Black Projects.

Should be interesting if we ever find anything out about it. Maybe the Rocket that just came back from 9 months in Orbit was testing a few systems for our new SR-72?

Originally posted by minkey53

Originally posted by Gazrok
I was actually reading through Ben Rich's

Personally though, I've heard some pretty reliable insiders claim that the SR-71 could go Mach 6 (though not for any real length of time), so I'm betting this new plane is actually much faster, probably by about 3 magnitudes.

Mach 6 sounds way too fast until that is, you remember the Bell X-15 from the 1960's did Mach 6.7.

I would put a bet on it that the Blackbird went way faster than Mach 3, especially as Nasa had a few for, cough, Research at High Altitude purposes!

An we're now talking nearly 45 years ago, before the US has spent $100 billion per year on Black Projects.

Should be interesting if we ever find anything out about it. Maybe the Rocket that just came back from 9 months in Orbit was testing a few systems for our new SR-72?

I'm sure we can make faster aircraft than both the SR-71 and the X-15. Both were toned down to human tolerable levels. Although if I remember correctly, the X-15 can be faster than the SR-71 considering it's most like a ramjet with wings attached.

Originally posted by Canada_EH

Originally posted by ADVISOR
Looks like the Aurora has a new name, or I could be way off. Either way this gets my

for a heads up, and current news development.

Good to see you around Intelgurl, have always looked forward to your posts. That's a high altitude craft, by far above the competition.

The USAF knows how to push a black project thats for sure.

As for Aurora this wouldn't be it but it fits the roles that it could of filled. The Aurora project name either had to do something with the B-2 programe or was a test vehicle for this type of aircraft. If they plan to go operational with this SR-72 Blackswift then I'm 90% sure that there was a test aircraft before this oone much like the HaveBlue etc.

I know that only a week ago there was a article on flight global about the new release for the Blackswift model and there was a hint that it could be the rumoured SR-72 project. With your soruce intelgurl this really has clout along with the expansion at Area 51.

well the first thing i thought of when i saw the second model (pictures in op) was how much it looked like a sexier version of the b2, i cant wait to see that thing in flight and in action

This is a very cool aircraft. Would definitely like a manned version to take for a spin.

As for the Aurora. I was told that this particular aircraft did not fly any faster than the SR-71. I was asked the question, "Why would you replace the SR-71 with an aircraft with the same performance?"

Fill in the blanks as to what the differences could be. Most people, I hope would jump to the most obvious answer.

Originally posted by Canada_EH

Originally posted by ADVISOR
Looks like the Aurora has a new name, or I could be way off. Either way this gets my

for a heads up, and current news development.

Good to see you around Intelgurl, have always looked forward to your posts. That's a high altitude craft, by far above the competition.

The USAF knows how to push a black project thats for sure.

As for Aurora this wouldn't be it but it fits the roles that it could of filled. The Aurora project name either had to do something with the B-2 programe or was a test vehicle for this type of aircraft. If they plan to go operational with this SR-72 Blackswift then I'm 90% sure that there was a test aircraft before this oone much like the HaveBlue etc.

I know that only a week ago there was a article on flight global about the new release for the Blackswift model and there was a hint that it could be the rumoured SR-72 project. With your soruce intelgurl this really has clout along with the expansion at Area 51.

Interesting enough it does appear that the U.S. may have reopened the BlackSwift project. I just happened to be perusing a Russian news site and it has a article stating it was restarted.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/a19b49e485b7.jpeg[/atsimg]

The United States decided to breathe new life into the previously frozen project of Blackswift hypersonic aircraft. The Pentagon has been dreaming lately about the appearance of non-nuclear weapons, which could quickly (within two hours) strike any object in any part of the globe.

Provda.ru

Have not been able to confirm this with any U.S. media information.

Rhain

reply to post by AlteredTom


I think any aircraft going Mach 6 would get too hot and gobble fuel like crazy.
A ramjet engine would get you going pretty fast.
The Russians have ramjet engines on the new antiship missiles.
U.S. Navy countering with LASER weapons on ships.
CWIS range is too limited.

Has anyone else noticed the similarity of the Northrop Nightstalker 2 patch to the outline of the Falcon HCV.

wouldn't be the first time that the shape of things was revealed on a patch would it.

Cosmic...

reply to post by Eurisko2012


As to hypersonic aircraft getting too hot....

...heat absorbing ceramic tiles seem to have worked on the shuttle for 30 yrs.

Cosmic...

Originally posted by bdn12
Bhadhidar, do you really think we would sell such a cutting edge piece of equipment to foreign countries? Some things are best left in the nations hands that builds it, and this is one of those things, just as the SR-71 was and the B-2 and F-22 are. Not everything that the US builds has to be sold to foreign countries.

If the US is selling this kind of technology then we either have something better OR the design is more than likely going to be copied and reversed engineered to an operational aircraft. We might as well make some money off of it. From an aircraft enthusists point of view it stll looks like a test vehicle or technology demonstrator for a high altitude low orbit vehicle, look how rounded off the nose and bottom are, kind of like the recently retired shuttle.

Originally posted by Cosmic4life
reply to post by Eurisko2012

 

As to hypersonic aircraft getting too hot....

...heat absorbing ceramic tiles seem to have worked on the shuttle for 30 yrs.

Cosmic...

Exactly, ever see these tiles on a SR-71? Shes made out of Titanium not ceramics so Mach 6 in a Blackbird is PROBABLY not possible. Titanium will ignite and burn at aboat 2200 F in an open air environment. I cant seem to find how hot the 71's skin gets at Mach 3. (Little help you guys) Even through technically it was Titanium alloy i doubt it could stand against the heat.

If there's is any advantage to this project that I can see is that it's tactical vs strategic in nature. With something like the X37 parked in orbit with it's autonomous capabilities, and that payload bay, it doesn't take to much of stretch of the imagination that the X37 is basically the next iteration of the "predator" drone concept. Dropping smart weapons from space makes more sense if you think about it. Having somethiong bizzing through the atmosphere at M.6 is really not that covert if you think about it.