4 ms·

I dunno. I don't have any sort of inside info (of course), but it just seems weird to me that the US designed aircraft in the late 1950s (XB-70 Valkyrie) that c

I dunno. I don't have any sort of inside info (of course), but it just seems weird to me that the US designed aircraft in the late 1950s (XB-70 Valkyrie) that could cruise at Mach 3+, but now our stealth capabilities are so good (or drones so effective in replacing reconnaissance aircraft) that those high-speed capabilities are no longer required. I can only offer speculation. The subject of mysterious military aircraft is of course a rumor mill and field of conspiracy theories like no other. :-) https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/rumors-secret-warplanes-preceded-mach-6-sr-72-spyplane-22556 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/rumors-secret-war...

PeterisP 8y ago
Improvements in satellite imaging have reduced the need for cruising at mach 3+; the same job can be accomplished with very different hardware.
aurailious 8y ago
> (or drones so effective in replacing reconnaissance aircraft) It's a combo of this and satellites. The only credible rumor I believe is that a even stealthier variant of the F-117 was used in the "gap" between the SR-71 and modern drones. But since then almost all ISR is done by drones, with the rare exception when the U2 is still flown. Otherwise satellites had gotten to the point in the 90s that they could provide real time feeds so it destroyed the need for a high end recon platform like the sr-71 and all other ISR could be done by cheap drones.