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SR-72 ‘Son Of Blackbird’
- uniqueuid 5y agoThe question is, of course, for which mission profile you even need a manned and/or large plane like this. Will this be autonomous? Will it be superseded by loitering munitions, drones and super fast rockets? Another nitpick: > similar size and range as the SR-71 and will likely engage in the same missions. The SR-71 was an espionage plane, not an armed one as far as I know.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jhgb 5y agoTechnically the YF-12 was armed.
- sambe 5y agoThe article states that it's unmanned and emphasises intelligence capabilities. I thought SR-71 had some strike capabilities, but I could be mistaken.
- uniqueuid 5y agoThanks, you're right. That raises the interesting question of how large, hypersonic UAVs are expected to be used. What kind of intelligence mission benefits from a fast flyby but cannot be performed by a satellite? What kind of attack is fast but cannot be from a guided weapon?
- 7952 5y agoMaybe geolocating cell phones or WiFi?
- germinalphrase 5y ago“ What kind of intelligence mission benefits from a fast flyby but cannot be performed by a satellite?” Perhaps they expect the spy satellites to be immediately blown up in this conflict.
- VLM 5y agoAll you have to do is lase them. Like handling security cameras... you can fire an artillery shell at a security camera, but most of the time security cameras are mission ineffective if you just shine a bright enough flashlight (or laser) at them. There's no need to cause an international incident by blowing something up when all you need is a bright light for a couple easily predictable minutes. On the other hand a stealthy hypersonic flyby is probably invisible. Another military aspect civilians never want to talk about is photo analysis depends on illumination and rando satellite passes can't see into valleys and get messed up if the shadows are weird enough. Just because technically a satellite passed within range of Afghanistan as a whole country, doesn't mean you can see what's happening on the wrong side of a mountain with bad illumination and bad view angle. There's a lot of satellites but not THAT many. Afghanistan used to have boots on ground to launch UAVs but not so much anymore.
- knute 5y agoThere are a limited number of spy satellites, and their orbits are fairly fixed. If you need to look at a site you have to wait until a satellite passes it (and the people at the site will be able to know quite far in advance when a satellite is coming). And there's no way to delay the pass until the cloud cover clears.
- sterlind 5y agoYou could potentially hide a satellite from radar observation the same way you can for planes. That's apparently what the Misty program [1] did. Synthetic aperture radar could take care of clouds, though you lose color. Agreed about maneuverability I think. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misty_(satellite) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misty_(satellite)
- numpad0 5y agoThey probably won’t send in U-2 or MQ-9 to stick ninja swords through the roof of a luxury sedan past rings of S-300 SAM batteries few hundred miles from shores.
- fmajid 5y agoAre you referring to the Hellfire R9X "flying ginsu"? https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a30175425/cia-blade-missile/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a30175425/...
- goodcanadian 5y agoWhat kind of intelligence mission benefits from a fast flyby but cannot be performed by a satellite? The orbits of satellites are known. The target can arrange activities to occur when there is not a satellite overhead. A fast flyby can occur at any time with little or no warning.
- pge 5y agoSatellites were great during the cold war when the targets were consistent, and the satellites could be put in orbits with good coverage of those areas (eg Russian military bases). Spy planes like the SR71 and U2 that fly high and fast to evade detection or destruction are essential for getting immediate photos of an area that may not have regular satellite coverage.
- runjake 5y agoYou may be thinking of the YF-12, which was based off the closely-related-but-not-the-same-at-all A-12 precursor to the SR-71. Brag: I've actually seen a YF-12, up close, at Edwards AFB. NASA used them for testing for many years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_YF-12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_YF-12
- Arrath 5y ago> The SR-71 was an espionage plane, not an armed one as far as I know. That would be the YF-12, a prototype interceptor built off of the A-12, the A-12 being the base from which SR-71 was also derived.
- whalesalad 5y agoHaving family and friends deep in the industry, and a dad, grandfather, uncle and grandmother who worked at Lockheed and specifically the Skunk Works - this is not real. This stuff gets made up all the time. The real stuff being done at the Skunk Works is not stuff you will ever ever hear about.
- uniqueuid 5y agoCongratulations on an interesting family then! I guess the public will eventually learn some things. Personally, I'm not so much concerned about technology that I don't see as much as about technology that is cheap and effective enough to be out there: remote controlled sniper rifles, bomb-dropping drones, chemical weapons.
- whalesalad 5y agoI don’t know the good stuff either. I know stuff that’s been unclassified but everything else is a mystery to me as well. My family has great stories but they are also committed to the integrity of the mission.
- atonse 5y agoHave you read the article about how Israel remotely assassinated an Iranian nuclear scientist? [1] Not a sniper rifle but remotely controlled and AI assisted. It was right out of a movie. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/18/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-fakhrizadeh-assassination-israel.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/18/world/middleeast/iran-nuc...
- uniqueuid 5y agoYes that's what I was referring to. It seems we are catching up to some scifi fast. Let's hope it's not the Daniel Suarez version.
- rich_sasha 5y agoThat's what I would say too if in fact all I had was an Iranian cooperative, or Israelis on the ground.
- chinathrow 5y ago> The SR-71 was an espionage plane, not an armed one as far as I know. And a very fast one. https://theaviationgeekclub.com/sr-71-blackbird-pilot-tells-story-behind-famed-ground-speed-check/ https://theaviationgeekclub.com/sr-71-blackbird-pilot-tells-...
- numpad0 5y agoProbably be used to deal with nuclear TELs and people on backseats in sedans? YF-12 and M-21 variants of A-12 had bays and launchers but none of Blackbirds had necessary cameras for air to ground weapons.
- lumost 5y agoThe yf-12 was a fighter version of the SR-71 cancelled during the Vietnam war. Missile launch platforms greatly benefit from high speed and high altitude. A hypothetical Mach 6 aircraft at 100k feet will likely have at least double the A2A missile range of an F-16 at 30k ft launching the same missile . Given that most long range A2A missiles peak at Mach 5 it would be extremely difficult to engage such a platform.
- aerostable_slug 5y agoNot just A2A. There were studies done on arming SR-71s with SRAMs in the chines — both downrange and crossrange performance was massively improved. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/EmV9xz0SUL1NW08RDs3ZcJxlMtr_Jzo6BL4_mwWIsXLhkV1BLfC-WWXsjE_T2T4dGyNzlg5zI4ghp3-X4zaqhJ8juYoIJE1Paq50z6lN5zdCzYk https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/EmV9xz0SUL1NW08RDs3Z...
- AlbertCory 5y agoYou missed the opening: The Lockheed Martin SR-72, also known as the “Son of Blackbird,” is a hypersonic unmanned aerial vehicle btw, the Blackbirds are in lots of museums. I've visited one in Tucson and another in Seattle.
- ceejayoz 5y agoRelated? https://twitter.com/rubenhofs/status/1440594839481946129 https://twitter.com/rubenhofs/status/1440594839481946129 https://twitter.com/TheDEWLine/status/1440806852560707587 https://twitter.com/TheDEWLine/status/1440806852560707587
- runjake 5y agoThat airframe, while super super intriguing, isn't a hypersonic airframe style. It's most likely something for NGAD [1] purposes. 1. https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2021/9/21/air-forces-ngad-program-progressing-per-plan https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2021/9/21/a...
- tclancy 5y agoGiven satellite technology and ICBMs, can someone explain why my tax dollars are going to this science fair project for adults?
- JanSolo 5y agoICBMs are a large, blunt weapon. Their value is primarily in their deterrence. The concequences of actually using them are so unthinkable, that we don't really consider it unless it's a very-last-resort kind of situation. Most of the time you want a precision, guided munition that can destroy a house or a truck or something small without causing too much collateral damage. Until now, that has meant an airbase or a carrier nearby to launch aircraft to carry these munitions. However, with the XR-72, we can do away with those and just launch our precision strikes from the US mainland. It's cheaper, just as effective and hopefully will give emerging superpowers (like China) pause when planning their defence scenarios.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y agoHow is China supposed to know if one of these is carrying cameras, conventional bombs, or a warhead?
- lmm 5y agoThey aren't. But the trajectory means they can see it isn't aimed at Beijing.
- mmcconnell1618 5y agoICBM go up and down in a predictable arc. Sometimes they have the capability to shift their path actively but not by much. Hypersonic controlled flight vehicles have the ability to be unpredictable and therefore offer more protection from countermeasures.
- arethuza 5y agoFOBS does allow you to at least change that arc so you can effectively come at a target from any direction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment...
- aj7 5y agoIf it can carry armaments, who will tolerate it as an intelligence gathering plane? And how can one know what its mission is in real time?
- Arainach 5y agoTo not tolerate it, you need something fast enough to shoot it down.
- throwaway210222 5y agoIncorrect, you shoot down something else afterwards.
- Arainach 5y agoThat's generally not how these things work. Shooting down a plane that you feel invaded your territory is one thing; shooting down something else makes you the aggressor. This was well established with U-2 and SR-71 flights in the cold war.
- Youden 5y agoSending the U-2 or SR-71 is like sending spies. Something most countries do and so expect and tolerate of others. The SR-72 has strike capability. It's more like sending an assassin or rolling a tank into a foreign country. That's an act of war.
- Arainach 5y agoUnless it actually strikes, no country is going to escalate an overflight to a different hot strike. Air powers regularly fly along the borders and intrude and have for the last 70 years. Overflights were deemed acts of war during the cold war as well - that's why the USSR tried to shoot down all of the U-2 planes they could (ultimately succeeding on Gary Powers' flight) and any other things they considered spy flights (such as the KAL-007 crisis). At no point did they escalate in other areas. War is hell, and countries go to great lengths to avoid it - even when they're angry.
- cdolan 5y agoI thought the true top speed of the SR-71 is either highly classified or truly “unknown”. How does the article justify saying the 72 will be roughly 2x the speed of the 71?
- Arnt 5y agoIt was seen by Soviet pilots and radar (it was poorly visible but not invisible). As to top speed, from what I've heard that's a matter of how much wear and tear you're willing to incur.
- cdolan 5y agoSo in theory, could be Mach 4-6 already in an SR-71?
- Arnt 5y agoIf the SF71 was like many other military aircraft, then it could be flown far beyond the long-life envelope. Overclocked, if you will, getting extreme performance for an hour at a cost of years' wear on the engine and body. You can see how this approach might make sense for an SR-71 where one might sensibly want to sacrifice the aircraft to get some pictures out. You can also see how this complicates defining "top speed".
- noisy_boy 5y agoYou don't have to know the actual speed to say, "whatever the (classified) speed was, we will double it".
- goshx 5y agoOff-topic: what a terrible mobile experience. You have to dig for the content between all the BS ads.
- bloopernova 5y agoOn Android, I highly recommend Firefox with the ublock origin extension. On apple mobile devices, I bought "Adguard pro" which seems to work pretty well.
- themadturk 5y ago1blocker is good as well on apple devices.
- jb1991 5y agoZero ads here in iOS with FF.
- wmeredith 5y agoSame using Brave
- bloopernova 5y agoSomewhat on-topic, have there been any updates from Skylon or SABRE engines lately? Single stage to orbit seems so sci-fi I wonder if we'll ever get close.
- AlbertCory 5y agoMaybe someone here happens to have a link to the video by the US pilot who was shot down in Vietnam and severely injured, told he would never fly again, and yet became a Blackbird pilot. Fun stories about flying it. It's long, but well worth it, I promise. I'm not sure if this [1] is the one I'm thinking of, but it's the same guy anyway. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ndamj_Ewod8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ndamj_Ewod8
- tyingq 5y agoUnmanned, 98 feet long, and mach 6 sounds like a lot could go wrong. Lot of kinetic energy there. I know we already have (close to) this with missiles, but they tend to have A->B missions.
- MichaelMoser123 5y agoHow do the intelligence gathering capabilities of the SR-72 compare against that or the various reconnaissance satellites? Why do they need this plane, if they can get comparable information from space?
- _3u10 5y agoOne of the main advantages of the plane is ease of refueling. You either have to wait for a satellite pass or maneuver the satellite which eats into its very limited fuel. The information may be comparable but the latency is not. Think of it like playing CoD on satellite internet vs fibre.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- joshAg 5y agoThe sr72 has 2 advantages over satellites. 1) satellites are very predictable, so it's possible to hide things from them. 2) satellites are very very far away, so the sr72 can get better pictures by dint of being closer. This article touches on both examples where satellites were predicted and planned around and some discussion of satellite imagery limitations: https://www.npr.org/2019/09/05/758038714/can-president-trump-really-tweet-a-highly-classified-satellite-photo-yep-he-can https://www.npr.org/2019/09/05/758038714/can-president-trump... This one has a bit more focus on resolution and capbilities: https://www.universetoday.com/143298/thanks-to-trump-weve-got-a-better-idea-of-the-capabilities-of-us-surveillance-satellites/ https://www.universetoday.com/143298/thanks-to-trump-weve-go...
- ncmncm 5y agoAnd the X-men have one that hovers, too. And even fly into the back of. You may object that the X-men and their plane are not real, but then you get dangerously close to the truth.
- torginus 5y agoFrom the article, it's unclear to me that this plane exists or will ever ever exist in a practical form, for that matter I don't think it's a given that reusable practical scramjet engines will ever make sense.