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We know the US is working on hypersonic weapons. It makes a lot of sense to put that same technology in a reusable UAS. This doesn't seem like such a stretch a
by enkid 5y ago
We know the US is working on hypersonic weapons. It makes a lot of sense to put that same technology in a reusable UAS. This doesn't seem like such a stretch as to be instantly dismissed. I would take reports about it with a grain of salt, and the SR-72 designation is there to grab headlines, either from the news source or Lockheed Martin, but it's very feasible for them to be building the thing described in the article.
- whalesalad 5y agoYou are correct. Hypersonic, autonomous aircraft and weapons? Yes. Will it be the SR-72? No.
- enkid 5y agoSo is your problem the designation, or the actual concept that is being developed? Because, frankly, who cares what it's called. The important thing is what it can do.
- whalesalad 5y agoMy problem is with neither - it’s with the way the aviation community will jump on theories and build them up into big snowballs that are usually not even remotely close to reality or might even be talking about an aircraft that simply doesn’t exist. So I don’t get stoked about news headlines like this because generally it’s just fun masturbatory stuff that doesn’t hold a lot of truth in the real world.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- colechristensen 5y agoA release like this has to be a chess move or entirely made up. You don’t just share weapons platform plans for no reason. You underpromise, overpromise, lie, brag, or misdirect in order to achieve some outcome. You see it and ask yourself “why?” and “how much is BS?”
- croutonwagon 5y agoTo explain all the UFO hoopla /s I guess that /s may be optional??? I agree though. Things like this dont come out of SKunkworks before they are operational.....or sometimes even after for that matter.
- devoutsalsa 5y agoBy hypersonic weapons, do you mean missiles? Are they even useful? To follow the curvature of the earth, they have fly higher than a subsonic cruise missile, making them fairly easy to spot. Not sure how hard they are to shoot down.
- ceejayoz 5y ago> Not sure how hard they are to shoot down. Judging from anti-ballistic missile efforts, quite hard.
- bumby 5y ago>Are they even useful? Potentially, yes. For example, for the same reasons you list, they are capable of being used in space-defense, like anti-satellite or ballistic defense.
- enkid 5y agoSomething going mach 5+ is going to be extremely difficult to shoot down. Typically, they boost up to high altitudes then come back down to lower altitudes to actually strike the target (boost glide). Looks like the air force is also developing a cruise missile which would fly at lower altitudes.
- sudosysgen 5y agoIt's not that hard to hit something going Mach 5 or so at high altitude. That translates to speeds of just over 5000km/h. The really hard thing is to hit targets that go close to orbital velocity (for example when trying to hit a hypersonic missile going 11 000km/h+ or a ballistic missile going 20 000km/h.
- colechristensen 5y agoFlying very high and very fast poses timing challenges, in order to shoot it down you have to see it, make the decision to shoot it down, and then have an interceptor which is fast enough to make up for the detection lag, get to altitude, and get to location. For something that could cross the continental US in a half hour or less, you can imagine there is not a lot of room for delay.