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The 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 Will it be superseded by lo
by uniqueuid 5y ago
The 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 Will it be superseded by loitering munitions, drones and super fast rockets?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.