Finally, They might release a SR-71 Successor!

I Personally love the SR-71 Blackbird, and it was sad to see it put to sleep without a killer replacement. But hopefully a blck aircraft will be out of hidding soon. This thing could be used alto with supersonic speeds and the capablities of a UCAV.

SR-71 Successor

Wait there was no successor to the SR-71 But seriously I cant wait to see the next black plane they roll out. I wonder if this will be the infamous Aurora we have heard so much about.

''But unlike the SR-71, this new �black� bird would be capable of deploying an array of weapons from high-precision munitions to devices that can emit pulses of electromagnetic energy to wreak havoc on everything from power grids to electronic equipment.''

If this turns out to be true this is going to be one hell of a plane. I bet some speed and altitude records are going to get smashed when this thing comes out.

Maybe its the Aurora?

Listen trust me if a local newspaper or the air force is telling you the plans and specifications about a stealth done its not top secret. The Black bird successor has been and is still flying and we will be shocked when its unveiled. But any project that you can get this much detail on before it even begins is not a black project.

If this plane is a true successor to the Blackbird then it would have already been in use for about 14 years since 1990. So since it would have been well over a decade since its been in use I could see the some tidbits of info comming out now. There is not really anything that is all that secret in that article its alittle vague .

Why people thought the SR-71 was retired

the three most commonly known reasons are:

1The SR-71 is getting too old to maintain and/or it was too expensive

2Satellites could do it all

3Never stated officially, but was widely believed, was that the Blackbird was being retired because a superior replacement was entering service
(Aurora?).

At least two of those reasons don't hold up:

1Maintaining: The Blackbird was in good shape. There were more than enough of many components (including engines) in storage to last as far out as you wanted to project. In fact, there are still hundreds of millions of dollars of parts, already paid for, in stock.

Cost: Regarding cost, the SR-71 was not cheap. The cost of running the SR-71 fleet in the 1980s was $260 million annually. ABC News has stated that the cost of a single reconnaissance satellite is about $1 billion. It isn't cheap, but it isn't too expensive. It costs $50,000 an hour to fly the SR on a routine basis.

2 It wasn't a lack of work that sent the Blackbirds into retirement, there were far more requests for SR-71 time than there were aircraft to fly the missions.

3 The Aurora? Maybe�


Why it was re-activated

1 Blackbird supporters said this all was a big mistake, but really no one listened to them

2 Less than a year after the record flight it became apparent that it was a big mistake. When Desert Shield began, Gen. Schwarzkopf was reported to have asked for the SR-71 very early on. It is known that very soon after Saddam moved into Kuwait, USAF approached Lockheed and asked how long it would take to restore SR-71 operations. Lockheed's response was that depending on the priority and if USAF could supply the sensor packages (USAF had them and even Lockheed didn't know where they were), the first one could be operational in 14 days and the next one around thirty days after that (remember, they hadn't been out of service that long at this point). There was no response for a number of weeks and then Lockheed was directed to forget the whole thing.

I already posted it on ATSNN:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

You should read the globalsecurity.org article as well.

I read somwhere, dont know if this is true or not, that the fuel tank was design with gaps in it. So that after it reached high speeds it would fuse together... is that really true? i find that really hard to believe. But this quote coms from FAS. Can anyone provide some light in this area?

"Because the Blackbird was designed to expand during flight, it has had a history of fuel tank leaks on the ground. "

If it is true how much fuel leakage did it have. Im also pretty sure it needed to refuel after it got air borne. Shes one hungry motha, the dropping fuel thing couldnt possibly help either. Im almost positive a sr-71 replacement is flying today.

The heat caused by the high supersonic speeds cause the aircraft to expand (I believe by more than an inch).
So during take-off, it leaks leaks fuel, thats why it always took-off with almost empty fuel tanks. It refueled shortly after take-off and then accelerated to its cruise speed and altitude.
When it reached the required speed, all leaks were sealed due to the heat.
So they deliberately designed the fuel tank to leak.

A successor to the Sr-71 BlackBird has been designed, defined, and built and shutdown.

It was a black project its entire life and still is, it is unclear to what it actually is.

There were 5 models, 4 of them Lockheed and 1 made by Sweetman.

Link to Aurora Information

That should clear alot of things up on about the Aurora.

It was cancelled.

Shattered OUT...

hmm, so yea if it needed to refuel right after take off im thinking that didnt help its operating costs. There had to be a better way of going around that problem though And isnt that highly dangerous if the jet fuel goes all over the place? Or is it the type of jet fuel that needs extremely high temps to combust, (cant just throw in a match and go boom). Must have been a mess to clean up though...

Originally posted by RealisticPatriot
hmm, so yea if it needed to refuel right after take off im thinking that didnt help its operating costs. There had to be a better way of going around that problem though

And isnt that highly dangerous if the jet fuel goes all over the place? Or is it the type of jet fuel that needs extremely high temps to combust, (cant just throw in a match and go boom). Must have been a mess to clean up though...

The type of fuel that it used was known as JP-7 (most military aircraft use JP-5). It had a much higher flashpoint than any other type of aviation fuel and was also used to help attenuate heat from the airframe. To my knowledge that is the only aircraft I know that used its fuel to help cool itself.

Hope this helps.

Fuel wise, tactical aircraft have been transitioning to JP-8-100 for some time. Aircraft with high performance (read high temperature) engines need the extra thermal stability and anti coking properties of that fuel.

I am really excited to learn more about the SR7's replacement. I have always loved the Blackbird and I can't wait until the gov declassifies the next plane eventually.

Originally posted by bzap
I am really excited to learn more about the SR7's replacement. I have always loved the Blackbird and I can't wait until the gov declassifies the next plane eventually.

Don't expect that information to come out in this lifetime.

And I highly doubt they have a successor to the SR-71, although it is an amazing aircaft, it has been the end of its technology branch, but from that branch will emerge an entirely new type of aircraft.

So what ever comes after the SR-71 probably won't be its successor, it will probably be an entirely new aircraft that does the job and other things more efficiently.

Shattered OUT...

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies


There were 5 models, 4 of them Lockheed and 1 made by Sweetman.


That should clear alot of things up on about the Aurora.

It was cancelled.

Shattered OUT...

Sweetman?
The way you have this worded it sounds like you think Sweetman made an aircraft... please tell me I am mistakened... surely you aren't that misinformed.

By the way, didn't Intelgurl go into an ISR project and afterwards she stopped posting on ATS?
Maybe she is somehow involved with this project?
Doubtful, but possible?

Originally posted by bios
By the way, didn't Intelgurl go into an ISR project

What is an ISR project?

Originally posted by kinglizard

Originally posted by bios
By the way, didn't Intelgurl go into an ISR project

What is an ISR project?

intelligence, surveilance, reconaisance
spy planes/satelites

Originally posted by bios
By the way, didn't Intelgurl go into an ISR project and afterwards she stopped posting on ATS?
Maybe she is somehow involved with this project?
Doubtful, but possible?

That would explain why I havent sen her post in a while....

It's a shame, she was one of my fav posters

Originally posted by RealisticPatriot
I read somwhere, dont know if this is true or not, that the fuel tank was design with gaps in it. So that after it reached high speeds it would fuse together... is that really true? i find that really hard to believe. But this quote coms from FAS. Can anyone provide some light in this area?

"Because the Blackbird was designed to expand during flight, it has had a history of fuel tank leaks on the ground. ".

That's because if fules tanks and body would had been made tight heat expansion would have breaked plane.

If it is true how much fuel leakage did it have. Im also pretty sure it needed to refuel after it got air borne. Shes one hungry motha, the dropping fuel thing couldnt possibly help either.

Actually Blackbird is most efficient airplane flying speeds over Mach 3 because it's engines are much more efficient at high speeds than conventional turbojet/turbofan powered planes requiring afterburners...
Neither talking about durability of other planes' "conventional" engines at power/afterburner levels required for those speeds.
Pilots were forbidden to exceed Mach 2.5. There was a total of three engine instruments and the airspeed indicator was redlined at 2.8 Mach.
Above Mach 2.8 the engines would overheat and burn up. The Americans had clocked a Mig-25 over Israel at Mach 3.2 in 1973. Upon landing in Egypt, the engines were totally destroyed. We did not understand that the engine destruction was inevitable. (www.wvi.com...)

www.aerospaceweb.org...

Although the internal turbomachinary design is primitive by modern standards, the design point is certainly unique! In cruise it operates as a ramjet, reaching speeds of Mach 3 to Mach 3.5
www.mobiledyne.com...


But blackbird still has nice afterburners... and nice engine temps.


www.wvi.com...


And about leaking fuel:
At rest on the ground, fuel leaks out constantly, since the tanks in the fuselage and wings only seal at operating temperatures. There is little danger of fire since the JP-7 fuel is very stable with an extremely high flash point
www.sr-71.org...

You can put a cigerette out in a dish of JP-7. The fuel is designed to be hard to light because the airframe skin in the vicinity of the fuel tank is 500 - 600 degrees F at cruise. Even worse, the fuel is actually used as the hydraulic fluid in the engine actuators! The idea is, a steady supply of "cool" fluid arrives from the fuel tanks and gets used in hydraulic devices around the engine. Hydraulic fluid in a closed system would soon get as hot as the parts through which it ran
www.mobiledyne.com...

Somehow I like this pic:
www.mobiledyne.com...