USAF Developing New "SR-72" Supersonic Spy?

Kadin2048 writes "According to an Air Force Times article, the famed Lockheed Martin 'Skunk Works' may be hard at work on a new supersonic spy plane (with 'artist concept') for the U.S. military, to replace the SR-71 'Blackbird' retired a decade ago. Dubbed by some the SR-72, the jet would be unmanned and travel at about 4,000 MPH at as much as 100,000 feet, with 'transcontinental' range. Some have speculated that new high-speed spy planes could be a U.S. response to anti-satellite weapons deployed by China, in order to preserve reconnaissance capabilities in the event of a loss of satellite coverage. Neither the Air Force nor Lockheed Martin would comment on the program, or lack thereof."

Comments

better hope it's real stealthy

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the size of the thing, and the speed and height it flies at, that's going to look a lot like a missile. Might not be the best thing for an already paranoid enemy to see.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[moderatorrater]

If it's anything like the SR-71, it won't be an issue whether they see it or not, they'll just accelerate. The Blackbird was a horribly un-stealthy plane, seen from hundreds of miles away by radar. However, while they were shot at quite frequently, they were never destroyed by enemy fire because of their speed and altitude. If a new version is in the works and this isn't just the same rumor that's been passed around for years, then it could easily incorporate the same defense mechanism.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[Stringer Bell]

Ballistic missiles aren't that small, and cruise missiles don't fly that high or fast. A paranoid enemy spotting this thing on radar is more likely to say to himself "WTF?" (or the Arab/Russian equivalent thereof.)

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[Anonymous Coward]

I recall reading (I think it was in the book Skunk Works by Ben Rich) that stealth characteristics aren't particularly valuable for a plane with such massive engines. For example, the exhaust trail of the SR-71 was so hot that the heated air actually was visible on radar, even if the aircraft itself wasn't.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[icegreentea]

apparently its almost impossible to make something that fast stealthy, as the gas shooting out of it is superheated to the point where it actually reflects radar. thus, they're going to detect a couple hundred mile long radar contact moving at speeds lower than a ballistic missle, and in a non ballistic path.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[MadUndergrad]

What about laser weapons, though? They weren't nearly as advanced back when the 71 was flying, but (iirc) they can destroy satellites with them now. Wouldn't targeting a high-flying plane like the 72 be similar to hitting a satellite? I can't imagine the maneuverability would be very good at those speeds.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[rogerborn]

One. It is not the SR-72. It is not even the SR-75 or the 79. Those designations are already being used for other vehicles. Nor is it likely called the AM-11 or the A-17, nor even the 'Stealth Triangle.' To the rest of us, its designation is unknown.

Two. It does not generate heat through the atmosphere, nor does it require 'fuel' in the normal sense.

Three. It is not exactly stealthy, since it 'glows' somewhat at night. However, due to its tremedous speed and its operating silence, it still maintains an element of surprise with a target.

Four. The basic shape is triangular, but that is not its only shape. You would not believe that the Air Force or any other branch of the government would reveal the stealth fighter (F-117) and the stealth bomber (B-2) to the public and the world, if they did not already have something much more advanced and in production, did you?

What can we gather from all this? Evidently, the great secret and the power of the new craft are its propulsive 'engines' which may or may not be magnetic in nature. Therefore, if they are so radical, I wonder if they can only work within the atmosphere, or if they indeed have been used to go to other nearby bodies in space?

But, what do I know? I just live near a base where they test out its weapons delivery. Your mileage may vary.

"If it doesn't work out the way you want it to, it will work out the way its supposed to be."

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[moderatorrater]

Assuming such lasers exist, shooting down a satellite is much, much harder than hitting any airplane. The satellite has a known trajectory that doesn't change much over the course of weeks, making it very easy to plan exactly how to fire the laser. Also, a satellite will change a few degrees per second at most.

On the other hand you have an aircraft traveling at mach 6. This requires you to accurately plot the trajectory, get the laser in place and aimed and firing for however long it needs to be concentrated on the same spot, all in a matter of minutes. Assuming the laser needs to be concentrated on the same spot for 1 second, the aircraft will have traveled nearly a mile. Not an easy task.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[Anonymous Coward]

The current official response from the US Playbook to an attack on American space assets is WWIII. Everyone would lose in such a scenerio, but not like Bejing would.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[Carbonite]

Assuming such lasers exist, shooting down a satellite is much, much harder than hitting any airplane.

From the rest of your argument, I think you meant that shooting down a plane (with a laser) is much harder than hitting a satellite.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[Anonymous Coward]

Weapons delivery on a recon plan? what do you know, indeed.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[rogerborn]

Who said this vehicle is a replacement for the SR-71 and that it is used only for recon?

The Air Force is not 'hard at work' developing this craft. It has been in use for at least a decade now.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[glitch23]

Given the size of the thing, and the speed and height it flies at, do you really think you are going to be able to see it with the naked eye? Commercial airliners are small enough as it is when they are flying at 35k feet. The enemy is always paranoid and we already had the SR-71 with no issues. Even if you could see it with binoculars you would then be able to see enough detail that you would know it isn't a missile.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[moderatorrater]

yes, yes I did. *hangs head in shame*

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[Anonymous Coward]

We (or at least, I) forgive you. To err is human...

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[644bd346996]

What could the laser do? Heat up the plane? It's already going to be transonic, so it would take a very powerful laser to do more than friction alone.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[vought]

If by "shot at quite frequently" you mean seven times, then that's true. I don't consider seven launches against the plane during dozens of missions over Vietnam to be all that frequent, considering what B-52s went through while bombing the north.

The SR-71 had a cesium additive in its low-volatility JP-8 fuel to reduce the signature of it's exhaust plume and employed some very early stealth technology, but speed and altitude were it's main defense against radar guided missiles. No SR-71 was ever lost to hostile fire, but as a type (counting A-12s and all other derivatives) it was a finicky and dangerous jet to fly.

One SR-71 did catch a hot piece of metal from an exploding SA-2 "telephone pole" missile over Vietnam - though not part of the warhead, the fragment could have caused more damage had it impacted somewhere else on the airframe (it was lodged in the rear aileron, I think).

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[WED Fan]

Google has been flying this thing for photo recon already. How the hell do you think they get those shots of women with those ever lovely thong handles?

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[rsmoody]

Um, actually, the SR-71, for its time, was quite stealthy. The chines were constructed to reduce radar signature and it was coated with an early RAM material. About the only time you could see it well on radar was during a turn as the underside was poorly designed with regards to radar signature and would reflect a massive radar signature. Several of its accidentally stealthy characteristics are what brought on the interest in the creation of Have Blue, the predecessor to the F-117. They correctly deduced that these radar absorbing and scattering characteristics could be amplified with a correctly shaped object, thus was created the "Hopeless Diamond" which was a computer modeled object that when placed on a radar range, directly reflected almost no radar signature. In fact, during the test, they thought that the model had come off the stand and were prepared to go down the range to fix the issue, about this time, a small bird landed on the model creating a radar signature. This was their eureka moment. Regardless, radar lock was certainly possible to acquire on the SR-71, however, do defend itself, the pilot simply needed to add power for a few seconds and it would accelerate out of the missile's range very quickly.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[Anonymous Coward]

The Air Force is not 'hard at work' developing this craft. It has been in use for at least a decade now.


Chris Carter called. He said you're paranoid.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[moderatorrater]

According to the wikipedia article, it would have been stealthy if it weren't for the fact that it was going so darn fast and so hot that they could see it from hundreds of miles away and it appeared to be the largest thing in the sky. While it had some stealthy parts, it was horrible at it in practice.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[digitalchinky]

Now I'm all for conspiracy theories and the intrigue of a good old spy thriller, but here's the rub. I spent a decade in the military, then a bit more working as a civilian for the department of defense, the entire time I held a TS security clearance and had access to perhaps far more than I should have - mostly because I'm a curious little bastard. That said, never once did I come across the public release of information for specific hardware simply because there was better equipment in the pipeline. As close as it ever gets would be RADAR. Common sense dictates that certain modes are rarely, if ever, switched on so as to prevent 'the other side' from getting a good look.

Skunkworks or not, one thing I learned was that secrets don't stay secret forever. Release of information is most frequently intentional, far reaching, but only intended for a few key individuals. Far less often is it accidental or malicious. Conspiracies are few and far between.

Besides, those grey's don't even know how to make coffee, they do nothing but sit down in the basement and blink all day long.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[rsmoody]

Good points, however, it was never it's primary goal to be stealthy, most of it's stealth characteristics were accidental. Still, it lead the way.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[ThisIsForReal]

The government didn't talk publicly about the U2 Spy Plane until the SR-71 was in operation (which the public didn't know about).

The government didn't talk publicly about the SR-71 Spy Plane until...well, there's something else out there, which we won't know about until it's replaced by something else.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish you'd use stealth apostrophes in your "possessives". It's == it is. Its is already possessive and doesn't require an apostrophe. After all, do you ever write hi's, her's, our's, their's?

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[Tablizer]

Given the size of the thing, and the speed and height it flies at, that's going to look a lot like a missile. Might not be the best thing for an already paranoid enemy to see.

It *could* be a missile. The distinction between an unmanned spy plane and a missle are only what's in the payload. Obviously this is gonna make countries nervious.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[CrazyClimber]

I'll validate the "we."

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[hitmark]

no need for coffee when one have perfected a "half-sleep" state.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[Anonymous Coward]

It's ok. CRUSH the Chinese!

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[DerekLyons]

Given the size of the thing, and the speed and height it flies at, that's going to look a lot like a missile.

It's not going to look anything like a missile - because a ballistic missiles trajectory is pretty near vertical. An aircraft flies horizontally.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[bdjacobson]

What can we gather from all this? Evidently, the great secret and the power of the new craft are its propulsive 'engines' which may or may not be magnetic in nature. Therefore, if they are so radical, I wonder if they can only work within the atmosphere, or if they indeed have been used to go to other nearby bodies in space? No. Just no. The energy requirements for running what is the equivalent of a giant Ionic Breeze air purifier at that scale at that speed are astronomical, literally. As is flying a nuclear reactor. (Can be done; this has been discussed previously in relation to attaching lasers to Boeing 747's.) But you've got to find a way to keep it cool, too (same issue they're trying to overcome now with the laser/747 project).

Nice try for informative mod points though.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[DerekLyons]

You would not believe that the Air Force or any other branch of the government would reveal the stealth fighter (F-117) and the stealth bomber (B-2) to the public and the world, if they did not already have something much more advanced and in production, did you?

Yeah, I would believe they would do so. Mostly because there is no reason to do otherwise and historically they have not done so.
 
 

But, what do I know? I just live near a base where they test out its weapons delivery. Your mileage may vary.

Who care where you live? I live near an SSBN base - but I'm knowledgeable to near expert levels not because I live where I do, but because I served on 'em for ten years and have spent twenty years studying them.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[smilindog2000]

The Blackbird was a horribly un-stealthy plane, seen from hundreds of miles away by radar

That might be true from hundreds of miles away, but I don't think that's true once it gets close. Ever notice the king-cobra shape of the plane, with what looks like a funny hood extending out around most of it? Most people assume that somehow helps the plane fly, but I've read that it was an early form of stealth meant to reduce it's radar signature from below (not hundreds of miles away). I'll read on down this list of posts, but I'm surprised I haven't seen discussion of the current secret ultra-sonic plane that replaced the SR-71. BTW, that picture is pretty, but doesn't look anything at all like an ultra-sonic plane to me. Is that tiny intake going to do the job? Not if this thing is a SCRAM-jet. Is it hydrogen/oxygen rocket powered? Possibly, but that tail V looks funny, too. This picture looks like a stealth sub-sonic drone to me, very similar to the non-secret one Boeing developed. I'm afraid the article is fun, but I'm filing it in the BS folder.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[rickshaf]

A few thoughts: (-1) I'd suspect that an aircraft moving along at Mach 6 would be pretty bright in the infrared region of the spectrum. Its advantage would be in simply arriving over the target to be surveiled so quickly that a missile defense system would be unable to react to its presence in time to intercept it. (0) Believe it: ALL of our "paranoid enemies" already know a LOT more about this craft than the article reveals. (1) If the media are reporting on this craft, it's likely a lot farther along in its development than the article implies. It may, in fact, be already operational. (2) OF COURSE it's a missile, as in "cruise missile". It's also a pilotless airplane That the various intelligence folk conceived of such a craft is entirely unremarkable. After all, we've been using pilotless reconnaissance aircraft for battlefield surveilance for some time now. The only difference between these craft and the "SR-72" is the speed and the range. (And, yes, I understand that the differences aren't trivial in their execution....)

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[smilindog2000]

In the lengthy F-22 vs JSF debates, I read that the F-22 stealth sounds great, but while doing super-cruise, it'd be easy enough to spot from it's heat. I'm a big fan of the F-22, but if it's hard to hide that thing, I have to imaging it'd be just about impossible for a hyper-sonic plane.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[smilindog2000]

Yeah, "magnetic engines" gave me a laugh, though the guy deserves some informative points. The hard problems, as you've stated, were claimed in the book on the stealth fighter's development to be unsurmountable. What BS. Lockheed Martin just a few years later then proposed the Venture Star, which they claimed solved all the hard problems. What a coincidence.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[smilindog2000]

I watched a great program on TV about the original cruise missile design from the 60's. The design was super-sonic, flew near the ground, and lobbed nuke after nuke at multiple targets. The thing would launch them upwards, and it would be long gone before the nukes landed. The think was so aggressive that the project was reportedly canned so as not to intimidate the USSR into a first strike. Yeah, advanced missiles can make countries nervous. I doubt this one would be all that scary though, as it is a recon craft, as you say, rather than a missile. I'm not sure I see the point of it relative to the current generation of ultra-sonic planes we most likely already fly, other than to reduce the danger to would-be pilots, or of a pilot being captured.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[pato101]

You would not believe that the Air Force or any other branch of the government would reveal the stealth fighter (F-117) and the stealth bomber (B-2) to the public and the world, if they did not already have something much more advanced and in production, did you?

Unless you are pretty sure that the rest of the world won't be able to match your weapons in a long long period of time, and you want to use them as propaganda right now in order to:
a) Scare your enemies.
b) More probably, make your population feel "secure".

I'm not sure if they have something else in production, but I agree that they have several concepts and things in investigation/development.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[Anonymous Coward]

SA-2 missiles often flew within 300 meters of the SR-71 over North Korea and China, not hitting due to jamming. If they really wanted to score a hit, commies could launch their "flying pole" with a nuclear warhead, which nixes anything within one mile radius.

As a bonus you shouldn't forget about the giant SA-5 Gammon missile as well (russian code S-200 Vega). That thing is larger than a MiG-21, weighs 10 tons and flies slightly faster than Mach5. It has a very high-powered radio ground control system which cannot be effectively jammed. Because of its large size and huge inertia the SA-5's missile cannot catch highly manouverable fighterjets, but the SR-71 at Mach3.2 top speed and 24km altitude is barely able to turn in the thin air. The SA-5 has exhaust nozzle steering, so it can hit its targets even at 30-40km altitudes.

The SA-5 is huge cost because of its massive ground support infrastructure with bunkers and generators and whatnot, but it was in service across the WARPAC and the SR-71 did not dare to come near anywhere a Vega, which nominally has a 250km range and targets 175km away were regularly felled with it on live fire excercises held in the USSR. The kills Libya did against USAF were all scored with SA-5 Vegas.

All in all, anything airborne can be killed with SAM missiles. In fact the new S-400 system of the russkies (a vast development over the Patriot-analog S-300) has specifiec abilities to catch hypersonic airborne targets. Me thinks this new SR-72 may very well end up at a Moscow exhibition just like Gary Powers' U2 did. Not worth the effort to build a mega-SR71.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[PerMolestiasEruditio]

Can't be stealthy, the skin temperatures at that speed will be up to around 900K = 600+ deg C, or a nice bright orange colour, you just can't cool all that surface area, so it will stick out in IR like the proverbial canine's gonads. You can also forget stealthy radar absorbant coatings. Temperature also makes it extremely difficult to do things like communications, radar, landing gear, and especially optics at speed without heavy cooling (fuel cooling is the only real option, and there isn't that much fuel available). You also have a ridiculously bad lift to drag ratio - about 5 if you are lucky, (concord was 8 and 747 about 18), which of course means that you have a lousy range of maybe 2-3000km. Noise is also going to be huge, with a power output of more than twice what the blckbird was, even if you can't see it, you will hear it once it is 100km past you. I think the difficulty of hitting this baby is also overestimated. You don't need a Mach 6 missile, you only need an accurately guided Mach 2-3 missile with a range of 50-100km lying in the path of the SR72 and an integrated aerial defense network that is smart enough to fire the missile to intercept. Think something a little like the Patriot which is 30 year old tech. SR71A might have survived in an era of primitive missile defence systems, but no longer. Weapons deployment is also likely to be hugely difficult at such speed, given how finicky hypersonic aerodynamics are, and the added kinetic energy of 1800m/s is still only about half the energy content of TNT per kg, so it's of doubtful benefit. Development cost would be huge, and utility against other than low tech enemies (like maybe middle east) is probably not great. For the same money you would be better off creating a reusable sub-orbital rocket powered ballistic craft that could be both faster and stealthier (aerodynamics less important) as it does its fly over. It could be built to have long range efficient subsonic self-ferrying and it would be a much much more difficult target to hit. It could also deploy weapons, bigger better optics and other sensors without having trouble with hypersonic vibration and heat. And as a final added bonus, might help develop tech for the naescent space tourism/RLV industry.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[olman]

On the other hand, the satellite is much much higher up and orbital speeds are pretty snazzy. And AFAIK the lasers of today are just able to overload/burn the extremely sensitive sensors of the satellites, not to damage the lump of metal itself.

Chinese did pop a satellite with kinetic kill eg lump of metal rammed into the satellite.

I do doubt it will be very long until you get missiles/interceptors that can intercept the new spyplane - After all russkies developed Mig25 to hunt Valkyrie. Crap plane but can fly really fast really high.

100kfeet is something like 30km? Wouldn't that be a job for Ramjet engine?

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[infolib]

Assuming the laser needs to be concentrated on the same spot for 1 second, the aircraft will have traveled nearly a mile.

Another thing is that the plane will have less problems getting rid of the induced heat. A sattelite can only decrease the temperature in the laser spot by conducting it to elsewhere on the sattelite, and/or radiating it into space. We can compare this to the plane which is stuck with much of the energy released in the engine, and must cool itself in the air flow.

An enemy firing a laser must either put enough power into so small a spot that it cannot be conducted to elsewhere on the plane, or he must put in a total power comparable to that of the plane's engine which is hard to do on a reflective surface.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[fnj]

Given the size of the thing, and the speed and height it flies at, that's going to look a lot like a missile. Might not be the best thing for an already paranoid enemy to see.

Since you're posting as an anonymous coward, you don't need to be defensive if I point out that you're an ignoramus. An airplane like the one postulated looks nothing like either an ICBM or a cruise missile.

1) It's traveling some 4000 mph. An ICBM is traveling some 4 times as fast. A cruise missile is traveling about 1/7 as fast.

2) It's cruising at around 100,000 feet. An ICBM doesn't cruise at any fixed altitude, but it peaks at least 250,000 feet and is very obvious that it couldn't possibly be a plane. A cruise missile cruises at around 50-100 feet.

3) At the most the plane can climb or descend at maybe 300 feet per second; very seldom more than 50 feet per second. An ICBM dives onto the target at well over 10,000 feet per second.

4) The plane will be traveling singly. In their entire history of use, there may have been two SR-71s in the air at one time - tops. Do you really think a single object is going to look like a massive attack warranting a massive response?

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[Kadin2048]

no need for coffee when one have perfected a "half-sleep" state.

I keep telling my boss the same thing...

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[Valdez]

We've got em... tracking system, laser, and all.

Behold the Northrup-Grumman M-THEL.

MTHEL has been shooting down rockets since 2000, and mortar shells since 2002. It's been on my personal list of Cool Shit(tm) for quite a while.

Here's a video of it in action. Not great quality, but cool 50's style advertising: "MTHEL: Stops Mortars!"

Not to mention, they're working on an airborne version mounted in the nose of a 747.

I'd be interested in seeing what implications such a system would have on the spy plane. Laser systems are LOS... and lose power based on range. If you can get over the horizon, you're safe... but @ 100k ft you've got quite a horizon. They also have to stay concentrated on a small area of the target for a specific time, easy to do when you're shooting at a ballistic object such as a mortar shell, but much harder when your target can realize it's being fired upon and manuever to evade.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[turgid]

I wonder if they can only work within the atmosphere, or if they indeed have been used to go to other nearby bodies in space?

That, sir, was your turd-in-the-punch-bowl.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[turgid]

Yeah, "magnetic engines" gave me a laugh

But but but.... Mannekin Skywalker has magnetic engines in Star Wars 1.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[noshellswill]

It has been ... for the last ten (10) years ... hehe

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[kylegordon]

This whole argument avoids the inherent problems behind atmospheric disturbances and thermal variations. Go back to square one. Do not collect $200.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[rogerborn]

Dear Stick,

Thank Goodness! I was wondering how far I could push this.

A turd in the punch bowl isn't so bad. I was afraid they would say I screwed the pooch.

Still, some of the things you can see around here, after midnight, make you wonder just what it is that they do have.
It is not hard to imagine many other things, from all this. I hope we all live long enough to see these things revealed.

What happened to sarcasm these days? Doesn't anyone understand it anymore?!

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmmm . . . so you think "missile" == "ballistic missile"?

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[Castar]

Four. The basic shape is triangular, but that is not its only shape.

So it's More Than Meets The Eye, then?

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[Anonymous Coward]

Such lasers don't exist...well, quite. We know China and Russia, and possibly a few other nations have sufficiently powerful lasers and capable tracking to dazzle a satellite. Kind of like trying to see when someone is shining a flashlight in your face. You can't make out anything in the glare, but there's no damage. They may have enough power to damage the sensitive parts on a satellite, which depending on the satellite could be a big deal or not, but I doubt they have something that could simply take any given satellite out. The Air Force's new Airborne Laser, still in testing phase is probably the closest. I forget the rating on it, but it's in the same order of magnitude as the most powerful laser ever built...which I think, by the way, was built as a prototype for the ABL. This is no small device. It takes an entire 747 to carry the laser, targeting system, power supply, and enough fuel for a few dozen shots aloft. But it's questionable whether the ABL could reliably knock out or render useless even a satellite. It's designed to take out ballistic missiles, and those only in the boost phase. It works by heating the skin of the missiles, which is typically a monocoque load-bearing structure, thereby weakening it. It then collapses under it's own mass and the force of thrust accellerating it at around 10 G's (give or take). Unlike this case with a ballistic missile, an aircraft in level flight isn't experiencing its peak loads. Of course, a 4000 mph airplane is going to be designed to endure extremely high temperatures, which might also reduce the effectiveness of that approach. As you mentioned, satellites (and ballistic missiles, too) travel in relatively very predictable trajectories. Aircraft can manuever comparatively easily, and when you're travelling a mile a second, even turning a fraction of a degree back and forth at random intervals can mean the difference between a hit and a miss.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[turgid]

You need to take some pictures and post them on the intarweb. I love all this secret technology stuff. I'd love to work on it myself, but I'd never be able to keep my mouth shut :-)

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[StikyPad]

I'd bet dollars to donuts that the bird story is a myth. The return signature (from what I've found online) is roughly that of a small bird. I could find no other references to a bird in relation to Have Blue or Project Harvey. It was mentioned that visual confirmation had to be made of all radar tests, but nothing about a bird being used (accidentally or otherwise) as a substitute.

Moreover, without visual confirmation, how would they have known that a bird landed on the plane? In other words, if they could see a bird, surely they could also see that the plane was still on its test stand.

Re:better hope it's real stealthy

[MousePotato]

Actually the government didn't talk about the U2 until one piloted by Francis Gary Powers was shot down. At which point the cat was really out of the bag anyway. They had no intention of talking about it but found at that point they had no choice.

Actually, in Ben Rich's excellent book "Skunk Works" he mentions that the morning Gary Powers was shot down was the first time he could ever tell his wife what kind of work he was doing. He told her "I built that plane that they are talking about..." Her reply was something like "I figured as much"

Pilot not required?

[stevesliva]

I'd assume they wouldn't want or need a pilot, but that's not mentioned.

Re:Pilot not required?

[MonorailCat]

I believe the full article said it's designed to be unmanned, regardless, reconnaissance aircraft are the best candidates for going unmanned, the missions tend to be simple, tedious, often dangerous, and requiring little extemporaneous thinking.

Re:Pilot not required?

[HaeMaker]

I agree, especially since most of our satellites are unmanned. /I just couldn't pass that up. //I say most, because of the ISS.

Re:Pilot not required?

[Lord Crc]

And, I guess, if they're shot down, there's no pilot captured by the baddies, which is a tad harder to explain away than a bunch of debris.

Re:Pilot not required?

[Original Replica]

Add to that other bonuses of not having a human on board, like not worrying about g-forces and being able to self destruct if need be.

Re:Pilot not required?

[SparkyFlooner]

*sigh*

Ok fine. I'll fly it.

Re:Pilot not required?

[The Great Pretender]

They'd probably just find a piece with "Made in China" stamped on it.

Re:Pilot not required?

[Anonymous Coward]

And, I guess, if they're shot down, there's no pilot captured by the baddies, which is a tad harder to explain away than a bunch of debris.


We are talking about overflying other countries without their consent and explaining it away when we get caught, but they are the "baddies?"

Moral compass for sale. Will point whichever way you want it to.

Re:Pilot not required?

[iamhassi]

"I'd assume they wouldn't want or need a pilot, but that's not mentioned."

what do you mean it's not mentioned??

FTFA:
"The new jet -- being referred to by some as the SR-72 -- is likely to be unmanned"

looks like it was mentioned to me...

Re:Pilot not required?

[moderatorrater]

That does highlight the one area in which you'd want a pilot, though, and that's to make sure that no real technology falls into the enemy's hands. If there's one thing that can't go wrong, it's the contingency of having one get captured.

To the person with the "clever" moral compass comment, just because the US is performing reconnaissance doesn't make them the bad guy. Or are you saying that all through both world wars and the cold war the US was morally wrong to perform flyovers?

Re:Pilot not required?

[sweetlipsbutterhoney]

We all know the pilot is going to be D.A.R.Y.L.

Re:Pilot not required?

[Teifion]

To the person with the "clever" moral compass comment, just because the US is performing reconnaissance doesn't make them the bad guy. Or are you saying that all through both world wars and the cold war the US was morally wrong to perform flyovers?
I believe he is commenting on the fact that though the US and indeed, just about any country, portrays themselves as "the good guys" to their citizens, these same countries would perform spy operations on the enemy country, maybe even in times of peace. I don't really think he said or meant (though he might have) that they are the goodies, just that the contrast between the two isn't quite as clear cut as it's made out to be.

I sadly do not know a lot of about the Cold War but I'd say that as long as such flyovers do not raise tensions or create annoyance, they are a good idea as they provide proof that the country being flown over is not preparing something big.

Re:Pilot not required?

[Anonymous Coward]

To the person with the "clever" moral compass comment, just because the US is performing reconnaissance doesn't make them the bad guy. Or are you saying that all through both world wars and the cold war the US was morally wrong to perform flyovers?


There is no need to explain away anything when doing legitimate reconnaissance. If a reconnaissance flight is shot down over hostile territory, then we just send another.

What we are talking about here is the difference between reconnaissance (Action during war. No excuses or explanations needed) and spying (and lying about it when we get caught). If Iraq were to overfly the US on a "reconnaissance" mission today, we would be frothing at the mouth with moral indignation.

And Yes, much of what the US and USSR did in the cold war was morally wrong. Most of today's problems that can't be traced to the British drawing a line on a map can be traced to the US and USSR playing chess with the world.

I'm not saying that it might not be convenient to know what everyone is doing (even during peacetime) But to excuse any action that we deem "necessary" while hurling judgmental titles like "baddies" at others smacks of a lack of self awareness.

Re:Pilot not required?

[Anonymous Coward]

To the person with the "clever" moral compass comment, just because the US is performing reconnaissance doesn't make them the bad guy. Or are you saying that all through both world wars and the cold war the US was morally wrong to perform flyovers?

Well, normally when you send your military forces into another country without permission it is called an act of war.

Of course, the Russians and the Chinese spy on the USA all the time. They don't tend to use spy planes though.

Re:Pilot not required?

[Ironsides]

That does highlight the one area in which you'd want a pilot, though, and that's to make sure that no real technology falls into the enemy's hands.

That's what the C4/Thermite is for. Debris isn't worth much when all that's left won't even fill a teaspoon.

Re:Pilot not required?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's Kim Jong Mentally Il who intentionally murdered 2 million of his own people while sipping cognac and building shoddy nukes then yes, they are the baddies. From your vernacular I see you are from England, just remember, in WWII the Allies dropped plenty of bombs on the Nazis, and yes, the Nazis were still the baddies. (and don't even try to give me that moral-equivalency the UK has nukes so therefore it's only 'fair' that North Kore have them, this is Slashdot, not a playground for retarded 4 year olds).
    As for this plane, it could single handedly save the lives of a whole bunch of North Koreans or Iranians. Yes, I said save their lives, since having proper intelligence could avert a war, which with nutball countries like those could force the U.S. to use some pretty nasty weapons. Proper intelligence is what prevented the Cuban Missile crisis from getting out of hand, and if it had been available then Iraq might not be in the shape it's in now either.

Re:Pilot not required?

[moderatorrater]

While I agree that it was wrong of the US and USSR to play chess with the world, would it have been any better if the US hadn't played at all? If the US hadn't opposed the USSR, what would have stopped them from raping the world as they saw fit?

Re:Pilot not required?

[JPribe]

http://blackbirds.net/u2/blackcats/u2deployedpics. html

http://blackbirds.net/u2/blackcats/blackcats.html

Re:Pilot not required?

[Anonymous Coward]

...this is Slashdot, not a playground for retarded 4 year olds

You really make it easy, Baldrick.

Re:Pilot not required?

[Skye16]

Maybe he thought that meant they were going to castrate it?

Just a thought...

Re:Pilot not required?

[really?]

Or use only female pilots??

Re:Pilot not required?

[greenbird]

That's what the C4/Thermite is for. Debris isn't worth much when all that's left won't even fill a teaspoon.

You know, at 4000mph I really don't think C4 or Thermite would be needed. I think friction would do the trick if there were to be any unplanned aerodynamic manipulations.

Re:Pilot not required?

[Hal_Porter]

You know, at 4000mph I really don't think C4 or Thermite would be needed. I think friction would do the trick if there were to be any unplanned aerodynamic manipulations.

It's not strictly necessary, but the guy that wrote the OpSec/UAV/Self Destruct guidelines really liked C4. In fact if it wasn't for damn brass, he'd be out on the airfield testing an improved self destruct mechanism on unused B1 bombers.

Re:Pilot not required?

[Kyojin]

McBride? God help us...

Re:Pilot not required?

[Anonymous Coward]

... unused B-1 bombers.

Isn't that redundant?

Re:Pilot not required?

[Scratch-O-Matic]

- I flew into Osan (the base pictured in your links) many times in the 90's. The Patriot batteries were handy references to North.

- They had two Ford Mustangs that would drive alongside landing U-2's to catch the wing tips.

- I went there once and saw a U-2 nose down in a ditch, tail raised about 45 degrees. The pilot had ejected. It was a woman...not that that's relevant.

Re:Pilot not required?

[The One and Only]

That does highlight the one area in which you'd want a pilot, though, and that's to make sure that no real technology falls into the enemy's hands.

Nonsense. Gary Powers and his U-2 spy plane were captured by the Soviet Union because Gary Powers believed in self-preservation. A robot doesn't, and will destroy itself on command.

Re:Pilot not required?

[smilindog2000]

Good intel is a great way to save lives, and I'd mod your post insightful if I weren't in the discussion and if I had points. I suspect that the end of the Cold War was partly due to both sides finally having excellent real-time intel on each other's big projects (clearly visible from space). The Cold War fed on fear and paranoia. As for England dropping bombs on German cities, yeah it happened, and war sucks. Why is it that we Americans seem to think we held the moral high-ground in WWII bombing? In Europe, we bombed mostly military targets in daylight, at huge cost to our pilots, while England did much night bombing of cities (an outstanding book about this is one my step-father edited: "No Foxholes in the Sky"). However, we dropped napalm on Japanese cities at night, and later nuked them. I'm not saying we were wrong for what we did, but it's just impolite to keep reminding our English friends of the awful things they did in the war. War sucks, and we have zero moral high ground in how we fought the war. However, we share with England the moral high ground in what we fought for. That's what made us the "good guys" and the other side the "baddies", and it's why I'm so proud of "the Greatest Generation", and all of their efforts and sacrifice.

You haven't touched on the Iraq war, but slashdot is for flaming: I think Bush would like us to think of Iraq as a war where we hold the moral high-ground. Come on... what the hell are we fighting for over there? We simply don't have a clear moral mandate. It's hard to say who the "baddies" really are. Are the Sunni bad, yet the Kurds and Shiites good? Yeah, right. I think most people living in that region would identify us as the "baddies". Had we stopped with Afghanistan, we would have retained the moral high-ground, as well as world-respect. Similarly, if Israel had either naturalized the Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza, or had they simply pulled out of those regions after winning the '67 war, they would still hold the moral high-ground today. The Middle East is a damned mess, and if we can't figure out who the "baddies" are, we should just get the heck out.

Re:Pilot not required?

[smilindog2000]

Yeah, the Cold War days were awful, but it had to be fought. I feel like we should make the day that the Berlin Wall fell a national holiday, not to take credit for it, but to celebrate the end of the Cold War. It's funny how most people I talk to in NC can't even remember who was president on that day (Bush Senior).

Re:Pilot not required?

[smilindog2000]

I heard many years ago that the self-destruct mechanisms on the equipment in some of our aircraft had a major flaw: if you set them off, it would destroy the sensitive equipment, but if couldn't get out of the plane fast, you'd die. Kinda discouraged people from actually setting them off. Have we fixed this by now?

Re:Pilot not required?

[smilindog2000]

Yeah, right. Get in line :-)

Re:Pilot not required?

[Hal_Porter]

Do they even have self destructs I wonder? In Blackhawk Down (the book) they actually had guys go back and chuck in themite grenades into the helicopters. And in Iraq I heard the same thing about disabled M1A1s. I even heard of the USAF dropping napalm on downed equipment to destroy it. But all this is from journalists, so maybe it was bullshit.

Seems like if you had a self destruct, the guys that abandoned them would just have set a timer before they left. Maybe the safety issue makes it stupid idea in practice.

I dunno really. On one hand I think military stuff is full of explosives anyway, so a few small charges to destroy sensitive stuff is no problem, on the other I can see that it might be hard to do this if the inside is packed tight with soldiers and equipment, and maybe there are high tech ways to accomplish most of the effect of a self destruct if the computers reformat themselves and keys get revoked back at base. You certainly don't see the bad guys being able to use captured hardware, and it's not like al Qaeda will be able to reverse engineer it like the Russians could.

In that case, lobbing a thermite grenade is just to destroy any paperwork that might be left. I suspect there's an element of anthropomorphic thinking too, fragging equipment is sparing it the indignity of being captured.

Re:Pilot not required?

[John Hansen]

Gary Powers and his U-2 spy plane were captured by the Soviet Union because Gary Powers believed in self-preservation. A robot doesn't, and will destroy itself on command.

This is, of course, one reason why it's a very bad idea to use a self-aware android as a weapon.

Re:Pilot not required?

[The One and Only]

It's also bad to use pixie dust and Maxwell's demons as weapons, but the main reason it's a bad idea to use these things as weapons is that we have no idea how to make them.

"Developing?"

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet the fact that they leaked that a contract had been awarded means the damn thing is already flying.

Re:"Developing?"

[Ruprecht the Monkeyb]

That's just what they want you to think. Much cheaper than actually building one.

A few comments...

[Valdez]

The new jet -- being referred to by some as the SR-72 -- is likely to be unmanned and, while intended for reconnaissance, could eventually trade its sensors for weapons. I'd be interested to see what kind of weapon they're planning to pop out the bottom of this thing @ Mach 6. Doesn't seem like a terribly bright idea...

Second, friction at high speeds could reduce stealth. At some point, you don't need the stealth, because by the time anyone realizes you're coming and gets some sort of weapon 100k ft into the air, you'll probably have already landed.

I hate to state the obvious, but the article is pretty sensational... I can summarize:

Cower before our unmanned 6000mph stealthy black aircraft! If the Mach 6 shockwave doesn't get you, the nuclear handgrenades it carries will!

Re:A few comments...

[ravenshrike]

Eh, I suppose it could have a hatch situated between the engines on the rear of the plane, but anything it would drop would be extremely small an realatively very light as they wouldn't want to weigh down the plane any more than necessary. All in all, a very inefficient way to go dropping ordinance on people.

Re:A few comments...

[Martin Blank]

There's work being done on lasers that are eventually intended for mounting under the F-35, so it may not be that much of a stretch to see one or two of those mounted in something like this. I don't know how badly 20 miles of atmosphere would attenuate the beam, but if it's for surgical strikes against soft targets (where a soft target could even be relatively heavily armored, but not under 30 feet of reinforced concrete), such a pinpoint ability could be exceedingly valuable in hitting targets in urban areas without the collateral damage of even the Small-Diameter Bomb (which still weighs in at 250 pounds).

Re:A few comments...

[Anonymous Coward]

The SR 71 was a reconnaissance aircraft, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR71 . It was equipped with infared camera's and ECM's. I would think the plane would probably smack its self into any payload it carried. The new one would probably be used for the same purpose.

Re:A few comments...

[LabRat]

http://www.wvi.com/~sr71webmaster/yf12~1.htm

Re:A few comments...

[Fishead]

Seems like an efficient way to intercept an ICBM. Shouldn't be a problem mounting a 50 calibre machine gun on the belly.

Re:A few comments...

[Anonymous Coward]

I could see the weapon system being a high powered laser...

Re:A few comments...

[sconeu]

You've still got to worry about dwell time. It's not enough just to hit the target for a fraction of a second, you have to hold on target long enough to pump enough joules into it to do damage.

Re:A few comments...

[Paradigm_Complex]

Stealth is still most definitely necessary, irrelevant of speed. Okay, so she won't get shot down even if she's spotted - the enemy will still know that it flew overhead and saw whatever was going on. Hell, what if it isn't technically an enemy being spied on? - the plane being seen is a good way to make them one.

Re:A few comments...

[Rakishi]

Well I hope no one tells the rest of the world about all the spy sats taking pictures all the time.

Re:A few comments...

[cheater512]

Bullets dont go at Mach 6 last time I checked.

Re:A few comments...

[magarity]

I'd be interested to see what kind of weapon they're planning to pop out the bottom of this thing @ Mach 6. Doesn't seem like a terribly bright idea...
 
A metal dart like a large version of a tank sabot round. The kinetic energy at that speed is nuts - the explosive power is like a small nuclear explosion. This is what was proposed for a bomber version of the SR71 back in the 60's but the generals at the time wanted 'real' explosives from a 'real' bomber so the taxpayers got fine worthwhile programs like the Valkyrie.

Re:A few comments...

[vought]

Seems like an efficient way to intercept an ICBM. Shouldn't be a problem mounting a 50 calibre machine gun on the belly.


No kidding. Where do I find these magic 4200 m.p.h. bullets? At Mach 6.1, this thing will be traveling over a mile per second.

Re:A few comments...

[vought]

I would think the plane would probably smack its self into any payload it carried.

This happened with the M-21 drone delivery version of the A-12, which was the predecessor type to the SR-71 Blackbird. While practicing the drone release, the drone bounced off of the shock wave (despite the prodigious thrust of its ramjet) and impacted the M-21, essentially ceaving the jet in half.

Any payload released at these speeds or altitudes has to get past the shock wave first - and that's a problem so intractable that Lockheed gave up on it....in the 60s.

Re:A few comments...

[db32]

The Predator had the same life. Initially recon only, then they stuck a single hellfire missile on it for targets of opportunity because frequently if it sees something that really needs to be hit it will be able to engage the target LONG before any kind of support would be available. That said the Predator is not designed to engage anything beyond small targets of opportunity. I would imagine that this is exactly the same thing except it goes faster now. That being said, go look at the latest generation of stealthy aircraft, they don't carry weapons on the outside because it screws up that whole stealth thing. I suspect that this thing would never be armed for real use beyond a small target of opportunity and I imagine it would probably carry what little armament it might have in a closed bay.
 

Re:A few comments...

[Firethorn]

There are serious plans in the works to reconfigure some of our ICBM stock to conventional munitions. The idea is that we could theoretically hit an extremely high value target* in an area where we don't have more conventional forces very quickly.

Personally, I think that to be somewhat unlikely because of the whole 'nuclear scare' thing. Any country detecting the launch can only refine where it's going so far, and has no way to tell whether it's a conventional or a nuclear. IE China might get scared if they see one launching towards North Korea. Russia and Iran could become concerned about one heading for the middle east.

Compared to that, this would be a piece of cake.

*My first thought was a confirmed location for Osama Bin Laden.

Re:A few comments...

[Martin Blank]

This is true. If I calculate correctly, at 6000mph and 20 miles altitude, given a window of 30 degrees, the dwell time would have to be at most ~6.3 seconds, not including time to acquire the target and aim, though this perhaps would be possible before the firing window opens. The laser being developed is a 100kW variant; would six seconds of dwell time be long enough to kill an unprotected human? How powerful would a laser need to be to go through light armor in six seconds?

Re:A few comments...

[Dun Malg]

The Predator had the same life. Initially recon only, then they stuck a single hellfire missile on it for targets of opportunity because frequently if it sees something that really needs to be hit it will be able to engage the target LONG before any kind of support would be available. That said the Predator is not designed to engage anything beyond small targets of opportunity. I would imagine that this is exactly the same thing except it goes faster now. You're letting your imagination run away with you. There's nothing inherent to unmanned vehicles that creates a logical progression from unarmed to armed. The Predator was armed because it operates in an envelope shared with armed close air support aircraft. I doubt one could name a single armed aircraft that flies at 100K feet at Mach 6. That's recon craft territory.

Re:A few comments...

[afidel]

It wouldn't matter because there is unlikely a plane carried laser can sustain 100kW for anything approaching 6 seconds. Also, the JSF laser system is only rated for 10km at MACH 1, the adaptive optics probably won't be anywhere near good enough for the speed and altitude this thing is supposed to operate at. Oh yeah, and then there's cooling and power production. The JSF laser is expected to use 1MW of power to produce that 100kW beam, which means 900kW of thermal load, something a small scramjet is unlikely to be able to handle since that is the main limiting factor with current research designs. The JSF it supposed to use it's large fuel tanks as a thermal sink for its laser, but in a scramjet that's already the sink for the thermal load generated by engine compression.

Re:A few comments...

[afidel]

Valkyrie was worth it just to make the most beautiful airplane of all time. If you've ever seen it in person at WPAFB you'd know what I mean.

Re:A few comments...

[swillden]

All in all, a very inefficient way to go dropping ordinance on people.

Absolutely. It's much easier just to take a little of the R&D budget and bribe some city council members.

Sorry, couldn't resist. The word you were looking for is "ordnance". Subtle spelling/pronunciation difference, big semantic difference.

Re:A few comments...

[pallmall1]

At Mach 6.1, this thing will be traveling over a mile per second.

So will the ammo, before fired. Doubt if you could use lead for the projectile, however.

That said, at Mach 6.1, the thing is actually a guided missile itself, capable of trailing an incoming ICBM warhead. This would allow a longer time window for locking on to the warhead and an easier trajectory to target.

Re:A few comments...

[megaditto]

The future of anti-laser defence: smoke and mirrors?

Re:A few comments...

[Anonymous Coward]

>I'd be interested to see what kind of weapon they're planning to pop out the bottom of this thing >@ Mach 6. Doesn't seem like a terribly bright idea...

Umm... SPY PLANE! Hello?

Looks a lot like a D21. So nineteen-fifties. But it works, so why not?

Re:A few comments...

[TooMuchToDo]

At some point, you don't need the stealth, because by the time anyone realizes you're coming and gets some sort of weapon 100k ft into the air, you'll probably have already landed.

It's funny you mention that. That's exactly how the SR-71 handled the stealth issue. If you read up on Wikipedia (as well as other sources) you'll note that the SR-71 showed up as a huge radar signature on FAA radar (even with the transponder off). The engines also burned hot and bright, making any stealth efforts negligible. Standard procedure if attacked by surface to air or air to air missiles was to go to Mach 3. Everyone sees you, but nothing catches you.

*misses the SR-71*

Re:A few comments...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but what about the kewel factor of 'Spy Plane'... Are they going with the super-duper codenames that oxcart (the SR-71 codename) had? The engine intake turbine was code named "onion slicer" while the engine impeller was code named "Cabbage Slicer". Jet engines are usually called 'stoves' because they get so hot. Seems to fit with the onions and cabbage. Perhaps the entire unit can be called "hot dog", and it can go with the onions and cabbage. And damn! If I guess right, the stealth helicopters start circling my house, and the G-men start pouring out, shouting pointed questions about what I know of hotdogs, onions and cabbage! Woot!

Re:A few comments...

[DerekLyons]

I'd be interested to see what kind of weapon they're planning to pop out the bottom of this thing @ Mach 6. Doesn't seem like a terribly bright idea...

Why not? The B-71/A-12 (later modified into the SR-71 and the Oxcart) launched weapons at Mach 3 back in the early 60's. Not to mention the relative wind at 100kft at Mach 6 is going to be on the order of a few hundred MPH (because of the lower atmospheric pressure). You certainly won't be dropping by gravity, but ejector/launch systems were pioneered back in the 50's. (And are in use today.)
 
There will be some R&D work - but the basic concepts are well known.
 
 

At some point, you don't need the stealth, because by the time anyone realizes you're coming and gets some sort of weapon 100k ft into the air, you'll probably have already landed.

The Shuttle (which accelerates relatively gently) hits 100kft in about a minute and a half or thereabouts. (The SRB's are jettisoned at roughly 150kft at two minutes into the flight.) With they higher acceleration available to an unmanned vehicle you can fairly easily cut that to under a minute. (Back in the 1960's/70's Sprint could do it roughly 15 seconds, but that's a fairly extreme design.)

Re:A few comments...

[The One and Only]

I'd be interested to see what kind of weapon they're planning to pop out the bottom of this thing @ Mach 6.

That's easy--a scramjet-powered cruise missile. A scramjet is a ramjet that only starts working at very high supersonic speeds, and can theoretically reach even escape velocity. It can definitely exceed Mach 10. If you're gonna have trouble defending against a Mach 6 jet, imagine a Mach 10 cruise missile.

Re:A few comments...

[Richard_at_work]

Task for parent: calculate the energy released when a 1KG lump of lead strikes an object at mach 6.

Re:A few comments...

[smilindog2000]

Wonderful pictures! If you go to the Hill Air Force base, you can actually visit the museum where they have an SR-71, and unlike the one you can see in DC, at Hill they let you touch the plane. I'm sure they think guys like me are weirdos... sitting there with a dumb look on my face, stroking a huge engine. Worth the trip to Utah IMO.

Re:A few comments...

[Anonymous Coward]

(300 m/s X 6)^2 X 1 = 3,240,000 J

Which is roughly the same as the explosive force of a kilo of TNT

Re:A few comments...

[bcmm]

The Blackbird has already reached that point - if they see a missile, pilots are trained to simply accelerate. They can do that fast enough that the missile can't catch up. But they still need stealth so they can spy on people without making them too angry.

Re:A few comments...

[db32]

I fail to see how this has anything to do with my imagination, this was the stated and demonstrated purpose of arming the Predator. And there absolutely is a natural progression from unarmed to armed in unmanned vehicles, it means the squishy human operator doesn't have to risk getting shot at to do the shooting, so I fail to see why you think there is no natural progression there, considering that is exactly what happened. The Predator is a recon craft, my point was that it started with nothing, and they eventually realized that it would really help to have an early engagement capability. I am saying that they probably intend to do the same thing here. They didn't arm the predator because it operated with close air support. The predator is on the scene long before the close air support or ground forces are. The idea was so that for targets of opportunity they wouldn't even have to call ground/air support in to handle it in the first place. It's not like this new thing is stuck doing mach 6 at 100k ft, else it would be terribly difficult to take off and land.

Re:A few comments...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're under the (mistaken) assumption that you'd have to release.

At an altitude of 30km, the EMP radius, is you were to detonate an atomic board on board, would be on the order of 400km.

Re:A few comments...

[TFloore]

At some point, you don't need the stealth, because by the time anyone realizes you're coming and gets some sort of weapon 100k ft into the air, you'll probably have already landed.

The thing about high speed is that you don't turn very quickly. So when a radar site sees you, they notify the SAM battery 400 miles downrange of your track, and the missiles are on the way up to meet you when you get there.

And the missiles are fast enough now to catch you, too.

This is why the SR-71 was retired from reconnaissance missions. When the Soviets developed and fielded hypersonic SAMs (hypersonic == 5 times the speed of sound), they suddenly had missiles fast enough to catch up to an SR-71 from behind. Before that, the SR-71 pilots would barely even notice that they'd been fired upon, because the missiles couldn't catch them. And when they did notice, they laughed, because they knew the missiles were ineffective.

The US had enough of a problem when the U-2 was shot down... they didn't want an SR-71 shot down also.

Stealth matters.

Other than that... correct, the article is pretty sensational.

Anyone remember the Aurora aircraft that was talked about when the SR-71 was retired? I remember comments then that "The Air Force would never retire an aircraft unless they had a replacement already available" and other statements like that. Haven't heard anything about that in the last 5 years. Maybe we will in another 25 years, assuming it exists at all, when it gets declassified.

Re:A few comments...

[EvilBudMan]

--I'd be interested to see what kind of weapon they're planning to pop out the bottom of this thing @ Mach 6. Doesn't seem like a terribly bright idea...--

I think it might work like an ejection system similar to the one that ejects a pilot from an SR-71 at Mach 2. As a matter of fact there could multiple things like this on a single plane dropping nukes on every city the thing decides to pass over. This idea goes back to the 1950's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_Low_Altitu de_Missile

Re:A few comments...

[Weedlekin]

"A metal dart like a large version of a tank sabot round. The kinetic energy at that speed is nuts - the explosive power is like a small nuclear explosion"

Modern tank APFSDS rounds have a muzzle velocity of between 1600 and 1800 metres / second (depending on whose gun is firing them), which is more or less the velocity of this aircraft. Sabot darts weigh around 9Kg, which is significant, but they do not behave anything like small nuclear explosions.

Re:A few comments...

[gatkinso]

>> I'd be interested to see what kind of weapon they're planning to pop out the bottom of this thing @ Mach 6. Doesn't seem like a terribly bright idea...

So depoly them from the rear of the aircraft.

Re:A few comments...

[MrNiceguy_KS]

You can also see a retired SR-71 at the Kansas Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, KS. I don't remember if you can actually touch it, (I think it's mounted too high to reach.) You can see a fairly tiny picture at http://www.cosmo.org/museum/ If you look at the photo of the facility at the top of the page, the SR-71 is in the right-most section with the slanted blue roof. That section was built specifically to house the Blackbird.

I can't recommend this place enough. If you are anywhere within 50 miles of Hutchinson, it's worth visiting. For a true space geek, skip the IMAX and planetarium shows and make sure you've got several hours to go through their Hall of Space museum. I've been through over a dozen times, and I'm still in awe every time I go.

Re:A few comments...

[sconeu]

Don't to account for strike angle and thermal blooming as well.

Re:A few comments...

[Valdez]

I agree... the YAL-1 ABL (Airborne Laser, think 747 with a frickin' laser on the nose cone)... made it's first cross country flight last week... and they've already tested targeting systems while in-flight. They even think they can use it to shoot down satellites...

Trick is, she's got to tote around the chemicals used to power the laser... the current design allows for appx 20x 5-second shots. This is on a Boeing 747-400 "freight" aircraft... but I haven't been able to find out how much the chemical fuel will weigh. Probably more than you'd want to carry around on a Mach 6 stealth spy plane.

I wonder what it take to power a laser that could take out the ultimate soft target... a human being. Don't walk outside, Kim. ;)

fsdf 53tgvzxcreahb fg agasgdgu nbcxfharefdawsggtt

[Anonymous Coward]

fdsagrgv btgv 09rbgq gav bfeasb thgv 7dbt4qbavusvgr98zrab frevbrebtq9r jbv rehbaigbyrvg dsvfd;ghabfsaf fvsdvfblkjrgewangsfaf0ejegkjr0ak0ree3sgdgvasgofans dfnsdafgrg65236 5t3 be3hy5t teerabet63q

Already got one of these

[Skreech]

I already have an SR-72.

http://www.apogeerockets.com/SR72_Darkbird_Kit.asp

It doesn't go 4,000mph, though. It just sits there. I think I was ripped off.

Re:Already got one of these

[feronti]

Heh. I've got that one too... need to get around to flying it though. And I don't think Tim Van Milligan was ever expecting a slashdotting:) Reminds me I need to get back to building and flying... been working too hard.

Particle beam weapon

[hwstar]

I suspect it could be shot down with a particle beam weapon. With the particle beam traveling at a good fraction of the speed of light, it would be vulnerable.

Re:Particle beam weapon

[MrNaz]

It's also vulnerable to psionic telekinetic mutants who could pull the thing to Earth and then disassemble it with their minds.

Re:Particle beam weapon

[Kagura]

I hope you get modded up to at least Insightful +3.

Re:Particle beam weapon

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting comment. I think it should also be pointed out that this plan would be vulnerable to magic, dragons that can fly really fast, and UFOs.

Re:Particle beam weapon

[sconeu]

It's not just a matter of hitting it. You've got to deal with dwell time. That is, keep your DE weapon on-target long enough to pump sufficient joules to do damage.

Re:Particle beam weapon

[still cynical]

You don't need anything that fancy or high-tech. The ability to shoot down a few high-altitude, high-speed targets has been around for quite a while. Sophisticated anti-missile defenses are required for hundreds, if not thousands, of VERY high-altitude, VERY high-speed targets, of which you can't afford to miss a single one because of the destruction it would cause.

Shooting down a high-mach atmospheric drone only requires decent radar and a few dozen surface-to-air missiles. You pop up a bunch directly in front of the target (that kind of a targeting solution doesn't require computer tech beyond the 1980s or so), and the shock from the explosions doesn't require a direct hit. The aircraft is trying very hard not to self-destruct at that speed, you don't need to add much to cause it to break up. Oh yeah, you don't use conventional warheads in your SAMs for targets like this. The USSR and USA had nuclear-tipped ABMs and SAMs as far back as the 60s. As the saying goes "a nuclear warhead solves a whole lot of targeting problems".

Re:Particle beam weapon

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it really doesn't matter because the WMD they will be looking for with this plane don't exist anyways. So there is no imminent threat to the SR-72 (Perhaps sticks and rocks from a 3rd world country?).

Re:Particle beam weapon

[jddj]

Tom Cruise, call your agent...

Re:Particle beam weapon

[ffoiii]

I, for one, welcome our new psionic telekinetic mutant overlords.

Re:Particle beam weapon

[sgt_doom]

It's also vulnerable to psionic telekinetic mutants who could pull the thing to Earth and then disassemble it with their minds.

Damn you, MrNaz, I thought I had that planned that alone and secretly.....

Re:Particle beam weapon

[Anonymous Coward]

this is why i love slashdot, always good for a laugh, it cheers me up even better than going ti IMDB and looking up unprofitable movies

Re:Particle beam weapon

[Anonymous Coward]

While at first this looks funny, but my father was the head bean counter for the lasers division of a former defense contractor (was bought out by a larger defense contractor). We're a bit further down the road with directed energy weapons like particle beams than you might think. Enough so where it's not out of the realm of possbility these days. Not very bloody likely, but not impossible.

Re:Particle beam weapon

[smilindog2000]

What kind of particle beams? Anything carrying charge will diffuse because of it's self-repulsion, and neutrons wont hurt the target enough. Some sort of neutrally charged plasma? I'm ignorant of this area, and it really does sound like mutant territory. Is there anything real? Got a good laugh from the mutant reply, though.

Re:Particle beam weapon

[onedobb]

Jean Grey?

RS-71

[narced]

I'm sure a lot of you guys already know this, but for those that don't...

The SR-71 Blackbird was originally named the RS-71, but it was renamed when Lyndon Johnson accidentally rearranged the letters during his 1964 announcement of the existence of the SR-71 (which he was supposed to call RS-71). Anyway... airplane history for ya'll.

Re:RS-71

[Napoleon The Pig]

Not quite... "Conventional" wisdom now says that then president Lyndon B. Johnson messed up the designation in his public announcement and called it the SR-71 - and nobody wanted to correct the president. Because the strike mission had been cancelled anyway, "SR" was quickly reinterpreted as "Strategic Reconnaissance". However, a first-hand witness of those events recently revealed in Aviation Week & Space Technology, that LBJ did not misread anything. In fact, then USAF Chief of Staff LeMay simply didn't like the "RS" designator - he already objected it when the RS-70 was discussed, preferring "SR-70". When the RS-71 was to be announced, he wanted to make sure it would be called SR-71 instead. He managed to have LBJ's speech script altered to show "SR-71" in all places. Using archived copies of LBJ's speech, it can actually be verified that it reads SR-71 both in the script and on the tape recording. However, the official transcript of the speech, created from the stenographic records and handed to the press afterwards, shows "RS-71" in three places. It seems that not the president but a stenographer did accidentally switch the letters, and thus create a famous aviation "urban legend". http://www.designation-systems.net/usmilav/nonstan dard-mds.html#_MDS_SR71

Re:RS-71

[boster]

According to Wikipedia:

Name and designation

The USAF had planned to redesignate the A-12 aircraft as the B-71 as the successor to the B-70 Valkyrie. The B-71 would have a nuclear capability of 3 first-generation SRAM's (Short-Range Attack Missiles). The next designation was RS-71 (Reconnaissance-Strike) when the strike capability became an option. However, then USAF Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay preferred the SR (Strategic Reconnaisance) designation and wanted the RS-71 to be named SR-71. Before the Blackbird was to be announced by President Johnson on 29 February 1964, LeMay lobbied to modify Johnson's speech to read SR-71 instead of RS-71. The media transcript given to the press at the time still had the earlier RS-71 designation in places, creating the myth that the president had misread the plane's designation.[1][2]

Re:RS-71

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually thats not true, if you read the book called Skunk Works Ben Rich explains that they had already decided to change the name but the documents that the press received weren't updated. Therefore to the press it looked like the President screwed up but really he didn't.

Re:RS-71

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

"Conventional" wisdom now says that then president Lyndon B. Johnson messed up the designation in his public announcement and called it the SR-71 - and nobody wanted to correct the president...

Can we call it the SR-Marisa Tomei?

Re:RS-71

[Idbar]

Interesting, a little bit more of information and beautiful pictures can be found on the page of the Dryden flight research center: SR-71 and YF-12

Re:RS-71

[Brad1138]

In a related (somewhat) story, the Social Security Administration or SSA was originally........

Re:RS-71

[Anonymous Coward]

For those interested in the subject, I found this book pretty decent:
http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir- Lockheed/dp/0316743003

Re:RS-71

[Tablizer]

The SR-71 Blackbird was originally named the RS-71, but it was renamed when Lyndon Johnson accidentally rearranged the letters during his 1964 announcement...

Imagine what our current prez would do to it:

"I would like to announsicate the new S7-R1 Redbird spy....uh.....plane. It is an aeroplane that pies [audiance laughter] uh spies. It looks down and takes pictures of evil doers."

Re:RS-71

[Anonymous Coward]

RS sounds a bit too much like ARSE, for a super high tech, evil empire defeating superplane, to be honest. Whatever the reason for the letter swap, it was probably for the best.

Re:RS-71

[Himring]

"In Mexico, Lyndon Johnson is call, 'El BJ....'" --Jay Leno

Re:RS-71

[flaming-opus]

Don't quote wikipedia in an attempt to dispell misunderstandings about urban legends. Wikipedia is written by the same rumor-propogating folks that post in slashdot forums. Not always the most informed of folks.

Re:RS-71

[Anonymous Coward]

That's good, now we only have to figure out which one of you two in disagreement wrote the Wikipedia entry... ;-)

Did anyone really believe the Airforce's line?

[InsidiousDarkLord]

When they SR-71 was retired, they claimed it was no longer necessary as satellites could do the job. I assumed they had a replacement aircraft in place.

Re:Did anyone really believe the Airforce's line?

[evil agent]

If they really thought that satellites were good enough, they probably changed their thinking once China starting shooting them down.

Re:Did anyone really believe the Airforce's line?

[bill_mcgonigle]

When they SR-71 was retired, they claimed it was no longer necessary as satellites could do the job. I assumed they had a replacement aircraft in place.

Naaw, c'mon, the Air Force stopped designing secret planes after the F117A was unveiled. That makes all kinds of sense, doesn't it? ;)

(BTW, it's about time, guys, to juice up some airshows with some new hotness!)

Re:Did anyone really believe the Airforce's line?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe this is the replacement for the SR-71's replacement which we just don't know anything about.
</tinfoil hat>

Re:Did anyone really believe the Airforce's line?

[mikee805]

I always figured that too. Especially since the tinfoil hat crowd was already talking about project Aurora. Funny to because the other day I was just thinking about how they havent pulled out a surprise recon aircraft on us in a while.

Re:Did anyone really believe the Airforce's line?

[SpaceballsTheUserNam]

If I remember correctly, they did declassify an unmanned fighter plane a few years back, but I forget what it was called.

Re:Did anyone really believe the Airforce's line?

[TodMinuit]

I may be wrong, but several years after it was retired, didn't they bring it back into service? I believe the speculation at the time was that the replacement aircraft was under-performing or had some sort of problem.

Re:Did anyone really believe the Airforce's line?

[__aawdrj2992]

True, antisatellite weapons have been tested and available for some time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon

Satellites also take time to get to a target, as they have to be routed and planned. Sometimes is faster to put a plane over the point you want to see than to wait for a satellite.

Re:Did anyone really believe the Airforce's line?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha, good one! Retiring the Blackbird was more about political payback than about satellite capabilities in the '80's. Google 'SR-71' and 'Cheney'. Yeah, that Cheney. Beyond shutting down the program, he single handedly saw to it that we would never be able to build another SR-71 by having all machine parts destroyed when he forced the retirement of the plane. Bastard.

Re:Did anyone really believe the Airforce's line?

[Slashamatic]

Good point and as the orbital parameters tend to be quite well known, smaller groups (i.e., guerillas/terrorists) can easily avoid them.

erm if you look at the picture

[Anonymous Coward]

that's clearly a submarine. And at 4000MPH, a flaming fast submarine too!

there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[wizardforce]

The new aircraft would offer a combination of speed, altitude and stealth that could make it virtually impervious to ground-based missiles, sources said. Even the SR-71 is said to have evaded hundreds of missiles fired at it during its long career, although some aircraft sustained minor damage.

kind of like how they thought the U-2 was beyond missiles isn't it? The shear amount of heat coming off the plane should be easily noticeable to any system capable of detecting infared. That combined with potential laser defenses [at least in current development] there is no such thing as "out-running" a laser system.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[Ticklemonster]

I guess every laser system they tested against it failed to bring it down. No wait, there aren't any.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[mastershake_phd]

Or perhaps a powerful directed radio signal. I've read that Blackhawk helicopters can crash if they get too close to a radio station. Just one of the downside of fly by wire controls. Can't find a link though.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[BCW2]

Lasers through the atmosphere don't work. Patrticulate in the atmosphere heats and causes the beam to spread, not remain concentrated. Tracking would be very hard and without tracking you can't aim. Speed plus stealth will be very hard to beat.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[TheWizardTim]

You might not be able to our run a laser, however, shooting an object going 2200 mph at 100,000 feet is not an easy task. The tracking system would have to be very precise to get a good shot, and depending on how strong the laser is, might have to stay on target for a "long" (1 second?) time.

Funny story about the SR-71. I don't know if this is true, but it sounds right. The SR-71 would fly over Sweden to spy USSR. Sweden knew when this was going to happen and would scramble jets to intercept. One time, pushing as hard as the jet could take, they got a brief radar lock on the Blackbird. The jet was going as fast and as high as it could, and was in no position to fire even if they wanted to. Later the pilot got a cake from the SR-71 crew that read "Congratulations".

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[Anonymous Coward]

Take the time to stop and think! When human airplane drivers are made redundant, the weakest link in combat aircraft design is eliminated thereby improving survivability and accuracy. That laser requires a human operator and by the time you even consider pushing the uber laser button that airplane will have all the pictures they need and be BVR (beyond visual range). I don't need to waste my resources designing a warp speed capable airplane if by the time a human considers responding it will be too late for that specific site. Not to mention once Americans analyze the pictures, you can expect a rocket propelled AGM-130 from 20 miles out flying nap-of-the-earth. So don't even think about erecting an early warning radar system (I guess now you know why the Russians are upset). Did I mention it is a 2000 lb bomb with remote TV guidance? Bottom line is that uber laser will be retracted into an underground silo only to be broken out for satellite busting. If you need to understand the underlying tactics, see the British about their invincible boats vs cheap airplanes.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[c6gunner]

You can't find a link because it's nonsense. Most military electronics are hardened against EMP, but you expect the Howard Stern Show to knock them out of the air? Not likely.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[LabRat]

Wow, these guys must really feel foolish having successfully tested a system that doesn't really work.
http://www.jinsa.org/articles/articles.html/functi on/view/categoryid/2517/documentid/2488/history/3, 2360,646,2517,2488

I'll correct your statement: It's very difficult to make lasers work through the atmosphere. It's unlikely that our probable adversaries would have such a system in place that could challenge the proposed/rumored reconnaissance plane in a reasonable timeframe.

Fixed :)

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[LWATCDR]

They might have a chance at detecting it how do you use IR to guide the weapon? Kind of hard since the weapons own IR will probably blind it's sensors. Then add in that it will take a big missile to intercept a mach 6 vehicle at 100,000 that can maneuver.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody ever thought the U-2 was immune to missles, they knew that it flew outside the engagment envelope of _current_ Soviet SAM systems but the CIA estimated that by sometime around 1960 Soviet SAM technology would advance far enough to make them vulnerable. When Powers was shot down in 1960 his flight was supposed to have been one of the last to go into Soviet airspace. Simply put they took a chance that they could pull it off one more time and lost.

Second its not enough to just detect the plane to shoot it down, you have to have a weapon that can engage it. The Soviets had known that planes (probaby US) were penetrating their airspace for some time, they just didn't have a weapon that could engage them yet. The higher and faster the plane flies the smaller the envelope of engagment (both in space and time). Altitude and speed don't make a plane invulnerable but they make them harder to hit and possibly invulnerable to _current_ air defence systems. Of course if there is a next-generation plane that can evade current missles then people will start work on next-generation missles (or laser, HPM, ...) to shoot them down.

It's a never ending game of cat and mouse.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[LabRat]

Um, there have been IR-guided weapons for decades. Most apropos being THAAD

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[harrkev]

You underestimate the sheer destructive power of Howard Stern's stupidity.

My guess is the helicopters commited suicide rather than listen to him.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[Shihar]

"Laser defenses" are hardly worth losing much sleep over. In order to hit a target moving the speeds this thing moves and at the height it travels, you will not only need one very powerful laser, but a damn good targeting system. Even then, the laser can only hit what is in its horizon, with stuff on the horizon being extremely difficult to hit and taking even more power. Any such laser would be pretty damn big, pretty damn obvious, consume a very noticeable amount of juice, and be a big fat plump target.

Fears of laser defenses hardly justify much worry. Conventional missiles are probably far more worth worrying about, but even then you are talking about a very fast, very long range missile that probably looks more like a ballistic missile then a normal missile. And if they hit one? Oh no. They just killed a robot. The alternative is to use much larger and slower manned vehicles or rely on satellites... which China has shown it is capable of knocking down.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[LWATCDR]

The THAAD makes it's interception at a much higher altitude than 100,000 feet. Take a look at the THAAD and you will see that the seeker window is protected by a shroud during the boost phase. To intercept a Mach 6 vehicle the missile will need to to fly at around Mach 8. Just think about how hot the seeker window will get at that speed and that low of an altitude. And yes at Mach 6-8 100k feet is low altitude.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[mastershake_phd]

You can't find a link because it's nonsense. Most military electronics are hardened against EMP, but you expect the Howard Stern Show to knock them out of the air? Not likely.

Some radio waves common above the battlefield "will actually affect the electrons within the aircraft's flight controls as well as its fuel controls," he said, either putting a plane into an uncommanded turn or dive or turning off its fuel supply.

http://www.cheniere.org/misc/mixedsignals.htm/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Scarry_and_Ele ctromagnetic_Interference/

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[Anonymous Coward]

PREVIEW YOUR DAMN URLS. And a head's-up to other readers, disregard any crackpottery found on the "cheniere.org" domain.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[LabRat]

You don't need to fly at Mach 8 to intercept a Mach 6 vehicle...simply standing still and letting it fly into you is enough. Besides, I wasn't trying to insinuate that THAAD would be used...merely that IR-sensors in high-speed interceptor missiles was possible and feasible (contrary to your assertion). The fact that THAAD exists proves my point...IR guidance is feasible against such a target with a high-speed kill vehicle that generates it's own thermal envelope via supersonic slipstream compression. In addition, for further education I suggest you begin by googling "hypersonic IR seeker"...you'll see there is a wide body of research in the field for just this type of scenario.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[c6gunner]

An article written in 1989 which says "the service has begun a $175 million program to shield the Black Hawk's flight control computers from such radiation"? WTF? I mean, thanks for the interesting reading, but let's not be silly here...

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[sn00ker]

how do you use IR to guide the weapon?

Could you even use IR for this kind of intercept? Surely the IR tracking would be confused by the huge, and very hot, plume of air behind the aircraft? The suggestion in another post that you don't need to be faster than the "plane" to intercept doesn't work very well when the missile is guided on IR, since it will be chasing the aircraft. If it's not significantly (at least one more multiple of the speed of sound) faster than that which it's pursuing, it cannot possibly catch it before running out of fuel.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[Anonymous Coward]

Any such laser would be pretty damn big, pretty damn obvious, consume a very noticeable amount of juice, and be a big fat plump target.

Yes, and?

Who cares that it's an obvious target if strategic maneuvers are under consideration? The US will have nuked China or Russia into orbit (and vice-versa) before specifically targetting a laser installation.

On the other hand, neither side wants to risk mutually assured destruction. The US has already shown that it won't use strategic weapons to retaliate for a lost spy plane.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[TheGreatHegemon]

You can't outrun the laser, you're right. You can, however, outrun whatever mechanism controls the direction of the laser. Gotta aim before the laser kills anything - and the aiming is on some sort of mechanical base which has a finite speed (and finite accuracy)

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[Rakishi]

Besides, I wasn't trying to insinuate that THAAD would be used...merely that IR-sensors in high-speed interceptor missiles was possible and feasible (contrary to your assertion). No his assertion was that a high speed interceptor at 100k would have very large problems due to its own IR output. Removing the altitude restriction and then claiming you've disproved him is rather stupid. For example in a vacuum you could be at half light speed and still have IR function but that means jack shit in this situation.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[LabRat]

You obviously didn't follow my suggestion to research hypersonic IR seekers. Come back when you learn to read. Further, try learning a little about compressible fluid dynamics before trying to comment on such a topic. THAAD is just one "famous" application for such technology, but there are numerous other projects around the world for lower-tier interception that use IR for final stage guidance that would be applicable. Finally, THAAD does not operate in a "vacuum"...and it must deal with the same thermal envelope problems due to its speed. Such heating has more to do with Mach number than the density of the surrounding air...altitude is largely irrelevant since the Mach number "auto-adjusts" to the altitude due to the relationship of the speed of sound to density. THAAD is not just a out-of-the-atmosphere interceptor..it is designed to engage targets both endo- and exo-atmospherically including short-range ballistic missiles. The IR seeker was designed to function in a an environment exceeding Mach 7 inside the atmosphere...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox- a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs= 4KB&q=thaad+ir+seeker&btnG=Search
http://www.arnold.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=1230516 70

In any case...as I said before...this proves the concept...it *is* possible despite the previous poster's assertions...but I doubt a missile-based defense system would be the most viable against the proposed "SR-72"...energy weapons from perhaps an airborne platform would be my first choice for flexibility and probability of kill.

Try doing a little research before calling someone stupid, next time. Your comment drips with ignorance in the subject.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[644bd346996]

I don't recall ever hearing about the U-2 being relatively immune to missiles. However, the SR-71 has been documented as outrunning missiles. Keep in mind that high speeds are not always better for recon missions. The SR-71 was able to accelerate quite a bit beyond the cruising speed used for the recon missions. Interestingly enough, because of it's ramjet design, the SR-71 got more fuel efficient as it sped up beyond mach 3.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[BCW2]

Due to the speed and stealth involved it is unlikely that the first shot would hit, the tracking and aiming for a target like this are at least ten years away. Repeated shots disturb the air more and make each shot less effective. You have to consider the distance involved for a target at close to 100,000 feet. Then add the speed and remember the target can evade. It might be easier to try a laser from space shooting down.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[LabRat]

Never said it would be easy...just that it can be done. Current prototypes of theater defense systems that can shoot down everything from mortar shells to ballistic rockets show what is possible...and almost always on the 1st shot. Repeated shots won't have the effect on the atmosphere that you claim, since each shot will be through a very different column of air due to the high speed of the target and the subsequent change in angular position from the firing station. Finally, the stealth factor won't make a bit of difference on an optical system. Just aim for the bright spot in the sky, let the LIDAR system hone in on the hard bit, and fire the main shot. Adaptive optics systems developed during the Reagan-era Star Wars program have already proven quite effective in being able to focus laser light through a disturbed atmosphere. All the pieces are here today except the laser with enough power and capability of multiple shots and some semblance of portability. The theater-defense system is a good start, but they'll have to scale it up for anti-aircraft duty when the target would be something along the lines of a SR-72-type plane. I agree..that might be 10 years away depending on funding..but that's really the last piece of the puzzle. Everything else is working in some fashion today in various military research projects that have been publicized. In any case..it's a far cry from your original statement of "lasers through the atmosphere don't work"....blanket absolute statements such as that are rarely accurate.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[TooMuchToDo]

You don't outrun the laser, you outrun the tracking system. 4000mph is more then 11 miles per second. You can predict a satellite's trajectory, but not always an aircraft's. Also take into account dwell time for the laser as well(as someone else noted higher up in the thread), as it takes time to pump joules into a target.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[SpeedyGonz]

That combined with potential laser defenses [at least in current development] there is no such thing as "out-running" a laser system.

Maybe the plane could emit a sort of aerosol mist to diffract the laser beam

Am I watching too much sci-fi channel? :)

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[LWATCDR]

Modern IR missiles are all aspect. They are sensitive enough to track head on as well as a tail chase. You do need to be faster than the target to intercept a maneuvering target.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[Anonymous Coward]

SR-71 outran the agile but comparatively slow anti-fighter missiles of those days, but not the missiles that soon followed. Read up on R-200 and later Soviet "anti-interceptor" missiles :-)

By the way, although it is a masterpiece of engineering, the SR-71 engine is not a ramjet -- there's no turbine bypass in it. Mach 3 is well within reach of a really well-designed jet engine. The MiG-21bis with it's ingenious moving inlet cone reportedly achieved Mach 2.7 when the Russkies modified the cone to retract even more (to close the intake even more tightly in order to prevent the intake from bursting out from ram air pressure) -- although that research prototype suffered severe thermal and fatigue damage from the test, not to mention a few missing intake rivets...

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[LWATCDR]

"I suggest you begin by googling "hypersonic IR seeker"...you'll see there is a wide body of research in the field for just this type of scenario." You mean like this? Read the first line http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001SPIE.4369..662H ". Infra-red (IR) seekers on missiles at high Mach-numbers in the lower tier air defense often suffer from degradation in performance due to aerothermodynamic effects. Yes there has been a lot of research but they are not in production yet. THAAD is radar guided and uses a shroud to protect the IR terminal guidance sensor widow.
"You don't need to fly at Mach 8 to intercept a Mach 6 vehicle...simply standing still and letting it fly into you is enough."
That is true for a none maneuvering target. But when dealing with a maneuvering target traditionally you want a 30% to 50% speed advantage. This aerovehicle will be capable of maneuvering. A laser might work but even that will be difficult since a Mach 6 vehicle will be by definition heat resistant and will be a very hot air flow around it. Then you have the problem of a limited accusation time since you will be limited to line of sight and it will have a low radar cross section.
What it comes down to is it will be a hard target to hit. Nothing is impossible but this will be very tough.
Here are the problems
From the time you acquire the target you will have a very short time to launch an interceptor of any kind. In that time your interceptor must reach reach 100,000 ft of altitude and a pretty high velocity. The UAV will have probably detected the launch and started to jink so just popping up in front of it will not work. Not only that but odds are very good that any interceptor will be large and in a fixed position so the drone will be routed to avoid those that it can and possible destroy those that it can not if it is on an attack mission. To reach 100,000 in a few seconds is not a small task to start with since it is around 20 miles straight up!
So let's do some simple math.
Let's give a generous detection range of 100 miles to your intercept sight.
At 4000 mph or Mach 6 they will have around 1.5 minuets from the time they detect the drone to launch an interceptor and get it 20 miles straight up. And that is only if it is coming right at the launch site! So give a really fast 30 seconds to decide to launch you have a total of one minute to reach 100,000 feet. So the interceptor will have to climb at better than 1100 mph and that isn't allowing for acceleration! That is a very good clip going straight up by anyone's standards. If the drone isn't overflying the launch site then you have to deal with the slant range And then you will still need time to maneuver! After all the interceptor will not stop climbing instantly. Now throw in the drone making a 10 g turn after it detects the launch and you can see the numbers get very ugly.
This would almost always turn into a tail chase and that becomes very difficult.

A Mach 6 maneuvering target at FL100 is a nightmare intercept target. Lasers are still a big maybe.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[Shihar]

Again, you miss the point that any such laser would have a very small arc. At the very best, it could hit everything in its horizon. Unless China feels like plopping down a line of laser weapons that can basically hit into space, the notion is silly. Further to hit something on the horizon would be HARDER then hitting a satellite in space due to the fact that there is more atmosphere when shooting sideways then straight up. As a laser travels through the atmosphere, it not only burns away energy, but it also starts to disperse. To make matters worse, targeting over such long distances is damn close to impossible. Even a 1/1000th of a degree off results in a completely missed shot when shooting a target cruising along at 100,000 feet. Throw on top of that the fact that the target is going to be moving at 4,000 mph, and the idea that you could hit such a target is laughable in the short to medium term. Any system that could hit such a target would basically be a ballistic missile defense system that could take out any target in the air, including satellites and other airplanes.

If the Chinese have some super secret laser defense system that can actually cover a worthwhile area of China with a beam of d00m that can hit all the way into space, the US is already fucked in any sort of conflict. Personally, I will not have most lost sleep for fears that China has a line of massive super secret laser defense systems that they will use to take out spy drones.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[Anonymous Coward]

The Blackhawk isn't fly-by-wire. It has normal hydraulic controls.

It is hypothetically possible for a radio tower to interfere with a fly-by-wire system, but the risk can be almost totally eliminated by using a digital system with decent shielding, redundancy, and a good signal/noise ratio.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[LabRat]

Well, I'm glad you finally agree that it is possible. That was my point. I never said it would be easy. I just hate blanket statements that are obviously false when compared to facts. When you issue an absolute, you have to be right in 100% of all cases. To disprove such a statement, you only need to be right once.

As for your drone doing a 10g turn...good luck at 100,000 feet. If it did manage to pull it off with some sort of vectored thrust (and didn't disintegrate or stall the engines from a high-alpha flight path at Mach 6), it would bleed off so much speed it would be easy prey for missiles. Your post indicates to me you don't have much formal education in aeronautics. That's not a dig..just an observation. I have to deal with lay-people a lot who need a crash-course in compressibles and aerodynamics in order to understand why things work the way they do versus what seems intuitive. I've done significant supersonic and hypersonic research in a University setting...I know what works in that regime of flight. Your "thought experiment" simply doesn't reflect the physics of flight in that regime. You are thinking of fighter-like maneuverability when the altitude and speed simply won't let that happen.

As for your intercept scenario....you are making an assumption that the launch site would be the only sensor. It's likely that a huge array of sensors would be employed to give significant heads-up (and thermal-based triangulation) to set up an interceptor shot (more likely, multiple simultaneous shots from different angles to bracket the target). Hell, the missile doesn't really need much of a seeker of its own if precise enough positional/trajectory data is being fed to it real-time (and optical tracking can be *very* precise from fixed locations). Just a terminal-phase seeker to fine-tune the kill collision/detonation. A missile just has to be at altitude and heading head-on to the target. The drone won't be making any sharp turns...that darned physics thing precludes it. The drone, at that speed and altitude, would have a turn radius measured in hundreds of miles if it wanted to maintain said speed and altitude. If it didn't..well, it would be that much easier to shoot it down with subsequent shots since it would be traveling significantly slower and probably lower. So, you're right...a maneuvering target at Mach 6 & 100k feet would be a nightmare intercept target. Problem is...it won't be maneuvering that much. Best bet for the drone is to just put the hammer down and hope that you are out of the kill zone before the systems can react to your presence...or better to just avoid the kill zone to begin with by having adequate intel that allows you to plan a flight path that keeps your drone out of trouble. The reaction time of detection, triangulation, decision to launch, and time to climb for the missiles compared to the sheer speed of the drone's straightline flight path is what will keep the drone alive...not any sort of uber maneuvering capability.

And to comment on your statements on missile performance and the associated "ugly numbers". An average speed of 1100mph is not a big deal for an intercept missile. Patriot missiles are supersonic within 20ft of the launch tube. So, let's assume that some new intercept missile will have at least the same performance as the Patriot..and go a step further and let's give it an average speed of 2000mph during its climb. A missile would need 34 seconds to climb to 100kft. At a 45 degree angle, it would need 47 seconds. The drone will travel 57 miles in that time. Lets say that some magical technology allows it to pull a *20g* turn at constant speed and altitude (and I do mean magical). At 4400mph (~2000m/s) a 20g turn will yield a 1.75 degrees/second turn rate (and a turn radius of about 120miles). Times 60 seconds (47 seconds plus the automated reaction time...nice round minute to make the numbers pretty)...That's a maximum of 105 degrees of turn. Only 3 missiles, launched from different (and appropriately located in conjun

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[LWATCDR]

It is possible to maneuver at 10+gs at Mach 3. Several Soviet SAMS do it now. I never said that it would be impossible to intercept. Heck F-105s and F-4s during Vietnam where taken down by AK-47s. It only takes a magic BB.
I was thinking in the sense that is would be practically impossible to intercept this drone right now. The sensor grid you describe would be expensive in the extreme.
I agree about spy planes vs missiles but frankly this drone is a missile just a reusable one and of course the read advantage is that the drone doesn't have to overfly the target to get the data. Basically we agree I was speaking practically while you where talking in absolutes. I still say that today any intercept of this drone would mostlikly end up as a tail chase.

I do disagree with attacker vs defender. The attacker has the an advantage in that they can chose accept or decline combat while the defender always has to react. Yes optical sensor triangulation can be very accurate but all it takes is cloud cover to make it useless while the drone could use radar to image it's target or GPS to guide it's weapons. Clouds do block a lot of IR after all. If it is going to attack the target it could use roll back to take out the sensor sites or even attack the defending launchers. Since this is a drone acceptable looses are only a matter of dollars and cents.

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[LabRat]

First, the drone is going Mach 6-ish, not Mach 3. Second, there's a big difference between a cylindrical missile body and a hypersonic recon plane in regards to ability to withstand the aerodynamic forces involved in high angle of attack at such high speeds. Third, as an air-breathing craft, engine flameout is a very distinct possibility at hypersonic speeds in any flight regime that deviates from straight ahead (careful shockwave management is part of the propulsion system)...further limiting its ability to execute a high-g turn.

If the drone did manage to turn around, it means that the missiles were fired too soon. It's like a deer in the road that pops in front of you at the last second...at 30mph you can swerve or stop in time. At 100mph it's going to be sitting in the front seat with you no matter what you try. And even if the drone did escape, it was denied the airspace so mission accomplished.

The array of missiles I'm thinking about are equilateral triangle formations with perhaps 75 miles between each individual missile site (I haven't run the calcs to optimize it). Batteries would be stacked in a truss formation along the edge of the airspace you want to deny the enemy. With enough early warning and tracking, it's trivial to time the missile firing to ensure that the drone can't escape...it will be heading towards at least one of the 3 (or more, if the drone's turn takes causes it to overlap multiple batteries) missiles no matter what it does once it enters the kill zone (which is not inside the geometrical confines of the missile triangle, but off to the side of the drone's approach perhaps 10 miles or so...like I said I haven't run the optimization calcs). My previous calculations didn't take into consideration the closing speed of the missiles in relation to the drone...which will actually drastically reduce the amount of time the drone has to turn. In those 47 seconds of flight of the interceptor missile to reach altitude at a 45 degree angle, the closing speed would be in excess of Mach 8 by the initial "head-on" missile...lets call it 2500m/s. The "containment" missiles start off with a very small close-rate, but if the drone turns, it increases up to a maximum of Mach 8 close rate. With proper firing timing and geometry of launchers, it would be simply impossible for the drone to escape since the drone would necessarily be inside the geometric "triangle of death" no matter what because it simply can't turn around before it breaches that 10 miles from the time the missiles fire and the time it's inside the triangle as it would take over 30 seconds to just turn 90 degrees at 10-g's and Mach 6) Now..the missiles might very well *miss* (hitting a bullet with a bullet can be hard)...but that's another matter.

It wouldn't be all that expensive...CCD IR detectors in automated arrays are practically commodity products...you could buy hundreds of them and stick them everywhere. The hard part is the software that pulls it all together. The missile batteries aren't all that bad either, considering you only need a group of 3 every 75 miles or so (or whatever the optimal triangle size ends up being)...it's all what you figure your strategic "privacy" is worth. Of course, any fixed structures are subject to destruction by strike forces...that's the nature of war. But in a situation of a Cold War...you generally don't have that happen very often.

BTW...small correction on my prior math...a 10g turn results in a turn radius of about 24 miles, not 240 miles..and 2.8 degrees/second turn rate. Damned decimal point (how embarrassing!)...serves me right for doing stuff in my head instead of writing it all down (though you didn't call me on it..which is even worse..always check the numbers yourself!). Using that outside number to design the triangles...easy day to make a trap for such a drone (or cause it to abandon its mission by "chickening out" before it reaches the contested airspace) All of that depends on the tracking and fire control systems that I mentioned before..it would

Re:there's a good reason they dont use the SR71

[LWATCDR]

Sorry about not catching the math error. It has been way too long since I have been willing to that kind of math just for fun. As I said I agree that an intercept is possible just not likely or practical.
BTW clouds messing up a recon mission? You really think they would be using just optical sensors? Never heard of SAR? Often SAR imagery or ESM data is just as important as pictures.

Breaking USAF news:

[PurifyYourMind]

I just pooped my cute little pants.

Huge penis failure

[Anonymous Coward]

In your pants.

What about the Aurora?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.fas.org/irp/mystery/aurora.htm

What about the SR-91 Aurora?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its existence hasn't been officially confirmed, but there is some evidence that a successor to the SR-71 already exists.

Re:What about the SR-91 Aurora?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been hearing about the "aurora" for literally 20 years...(since middle school)...it seems to be a catch-all for anything stealthy or secret.

New Name

[El Torico]

I was wondering when they'd have an official designation for Aurora.

Re:New Name

[lawpoop]

How come this link to Aurora has [abovetopsecret.com] appended automatically to it by slashcode, but parent's doesn't?

Forgive me if my link does have the appendage; it didn't in preview.

Re:New Name

[45mm]

It's a conspiracy.

Sensationalist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like the beginning of another cold war.

Necessary?

[T-Bucket]

Is this really even necessary? Un-mothball a couple SR-71s. Is there even anything that can bring one of those down?

Re:Necessary?

[run_w_xcors]

You mean like budget constraints?

Re:Necessary?

[vertinox]

Is there even anything that can bring one of those down?

Energy based weapons?

I mean, if they can knock a MIRV out of orbit then they can knock a SR-71 out of the sky.

Of course that would depend if the Russians or Chinese had such a system.

Re:Necessary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup there is. Way back when 2 pilots flying an SR-71 over russia had the missle lock light come on. They realized a russian missle was tailing them and catching up. They throttled it up the whole way, and the jet hit about mach 3.2 IIRC, which is faster than the jet was suppose to go. They barely got out of that situtation. There was also another time in Isreal where it almost got shot down when it was refueling because they wouldn't identify who or what they were.

Re:Necessary?

[gwern]

Not sure they *can* un-mothball them. Assuming they even still have the people around, I had heard that after the decommissioning, all the special molds and machinery and documentation were destroyed, so I doubt they'd even be able to make replacement parts, much less operate them effectively.

Re:Necessary?

[siddesu]

how bout software bugs? the same kind that put the brakes on the F22 as discussed here: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/25/203 8217

Re:Necessary?

[dixie_flatline_000]

Have a look at the Russian S-300 family of SAMs (NATO SA-10 GRUMBLE/SA-12 GLADIATOR and successors). Max engagement altitude is ~100k ft, and top speed is in excess of Mach 6. The SR-71 lives near the edge of the S-300's engagement envelope, but it's close enough to be a real hazard, and the S-300s are pretty widely deployed. It's at least as much of a threat as the SA-2 GUIDELINE represented to the U-2.

Re:Necessary?

[TooMuchToDo]

Bring one of them down? Probably not. But they're extremely expensive to run. Don't get me wrong, I love them. They're extremely cool. But I'd prefer a more efficient aircraft design, one that doesn't drip super-expensive boutique jet fuel on the runway as the body heats up to form together properly.

Re:Necessary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this really even necessary? Un-mothball a couple SR-71s. Is there even anything that can bring one of those down?

Me.

Incorrect according to wiki

[Blahbooboo3]

Sorry, no dyslexia for LBJ :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-71_Blackbird#Name_ and_designation

USAF Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay preferred the SR (Strategic Reconnaisance) designation and wanted the RS-71 to be named SR-71. Before the Blackbird was to be announced by President Johnson on 29 February 1964, LeMay lobbied to modify Johnson's speech to read SR-71 instead of RS-71. The media transcript given to the press at the time still had the earlier RS-71 designation in places, creating the myth that the president had misread the plane's designation.

Movie stealth

[asadodetira]

"In the near future, the Navy develops a fighter jet piloted by an artificial intelligence computer. The jet is placed on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific to learn combat manuevers from the human pilots aboard. But when the computer develops a mind of its own, it's the humans who are charged with stopping it before it incites a war" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382992/

Re:Movie stealth

[TubeSteak]

But when the computer develops a mind of its own, after being hit by a lightning bolt that scrambles its programming, it's the humans who are charged with stopping it before it incites a war

Fixed that plot summary for you.

Even the most 'intelligent' AI software is going to be constrained by whatever its programming is, so that really isn't anything to worry about. Especially since something as expensive as a long range recon aircraft is going to have 3 or 4 redundant systems.

Re:Movie stealth

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, I forgot about that movie.

One of the stupidest movies I have ever seen.

Re:Movie stealth

[Jarjarthejedi]

Exactly, it's really quite amusing to consider that a lightning bolt would happen to strike an AI's core in such a way as to either

A: Copy/Paste code around into a sentient computer, then somehow debug it, something we can't even do right (the debugging that is :P)

or B: Write code from scratch to make the airplane sentient.

The day anything like that happens we'll have flying AI pigs divebombing a frozen Hell while the Spice Girls sing...and people enjoy it. Course that doesn't make it any less of a fun movie, I enjoyed it. It's just amusing to me that some people, probably not the GP but I have seen people, can think that something like that is actually possible and worry about it...

It will *never* surpass the SR-71

[DoofusOfDeath]

In coolness...

ahref=http://www.cnw.mk.ua/weapons/airforce/razv/s r71/image/sr71ff.jpgrel=url2html-9407http://www.cn w.mk.ua/weapons/airforce/razv/sr71/image/sr71ff.jp g>

ahref=http://perso.orange.fr/romain.g/sr71-1.jpgre l=url2html-9407http://perso.orange.fr/romain.g/sr7 1-1.jpg>

Will never be as *cool* as SR-71

[DoofusOfDeath]

(My previous post had bad links. Sorry.)

http://www.cnw.mk.ua/weapons/airforce/razv/sr71/im age/sr71ff.jpg

http://perso.orange.fr/romain.g/sr71-1.jpg

Re:Will never be as *cool* as SR-71

[Anonymous Coward]

The SR-71 was a flying petrol tank, with wings so dangerously big, they were close to snapping off.
One wonders if such manned low safety margin planes will ever be built again. You can guess the fuel economy was not good. Now they could use carbon fiber and whatnot, smaller, more efficient engines, but math says it would not be a big improvement, plus going faster really stuffs fuel consumption, and if enough brute force is used, the 'plane' then becomes a rocket. It is hard to beat perfection.
Using something like an A380 to lift and drop a new plane remains a feasible idea, but then you have the issue of heat tiles falling off. Adding a cryogenic booster stage, would make the SR71's look cheap to fly in comparison. The only certainty is it would not seem a good use of money, not while iraqnam is still going. Bang for buck, having the odd Ariane on standby would be a smarter option.
Finally, the SR71 was built on a cost plus budget, that came in on budget. Nothing has come in on budget in the last 40 years, so why sponsor another money pit.

Concept sounds a lot like "Aurora"

[DragonWriter]

Except there was never any suggestion that Aurora was "crew optional". Nothing solid provided by the article, but no one should be surprised if it turns out to be true.

That's no plane...

[popo]

... its SeaQuest DSV!

I think the AC's point was retaliation

[benhocking]

As in Mutually Assured Destruction, if the SR-72 were falsely interpreted as a nuclear missile. I doubt that would happen, but I believe that was the point of the "first post".

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[gujo-odori]

That was the point (although China Vs. the US or Russia in a nuclear shootout would not result in MAD, it would results in the US or Russia being mauled and China being utterly destroyed), but the AC was a complete tool, and so were those who modded him Insightful. The only kind of missile with a similar flight trajectory would be operating at a much lower altitude - say, 50 - 100 feet - and at subsonic speeds.

An ICBM, unlike a cruise missile or an SR-71, has a very steep angle of ascent, and comes down pretty steeply, too, doesn't have much of a heat signature on the way down, and since most (or all?) of those held by the US and Russia have MIRV warheads, the things coming down will also be far, far smaller than an aircraft. A spy plane looks nothing like a missile on radar.

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[lpq]

What type of tool are you? You claim complete destruction for China and "only" heavy mauling for the US or Russia. Considering that because of population and building densities a much smaller nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India could trigger globally deadly nuclear winter, what would be the effect of the complete destruction of China -- which has at _least_ as many people as Pakistan-India? Wouldn't resulting soot fallout from China be, minimally, equally deadly in weather effects, if not more so?

You might get survival of some government types in a well stocked bunker somewhere, but life as we know it would be severely damaged or destroyed by the resulting nuclear winter. Most likely, if things shifted by several degrees, even if for a "short" while -- the increase in earth's reflectivity due to increased ice & snow coverage could easily trigger and maintain a long-term ice age for the planet.

Of course, we can always keep this plan as a "backup" failsafe should global warming become too threatening... ;^ 'Sides, from what I've read, according to new figures, China passed the US in global warming emissions last year, so mutual destruction or harming of the US & China might not look so bad to the other nuclear powers. Such a conflict would be an ideal time for global-climate/global-future minded nations to take out the victor as it is weakened in such a strike. Ug...that sounds excessively ugly, but given the way ugly is increasing in the world...

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[ShaneThePain]

nuclear winter is a myth. The U.S., Russia, and several other nations have collectively detonated over 2000 nuclear weapons. About 150-200 were thermonuclear. Wheres the winter?

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[bdjacobson]

(although China Vs. the US or Russia in a nuclear shootout would not result in MAD, it would results in the US or Russia being mauled and China being utterly destroyed) No it wouldn't.

Too many politician in the pockets of businessmen. They'd never let that happen.

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[Anonymous Coward]

They were not all above-ground tests, they were not all multi-megaton warheads and they didn't detonate them all at the same time. "Nuclear winter" is based on well supported evidence gathered from weapons testing in the 50's & 60's.

Your argument is about as sensible as "It was cold today, so there is no such thing as global warming." I.e. your locality of reference is way too narrow.

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[gujo-odori]

Whether or not it would be allowed to happen is another question altogether. But if it did happen, China would come out on the worst end of it. They have enough nuclear capacity to act as an effective deterrent, but not enough to make an offensive attack and succeed.

Fortunately, the major nuclear powers have reached a point where they are all pretty against having war with each other. Unfortunately, we have guys like Ahmahdinejad in Iran, steadfastly denying the Holocaust while at the same time working their butts off to make deliverable nuclear weapons as part of their planning for the next Holocaust.

While that is unlikely to trigger a confrontation between the major nuclear powers, it is likely to trigger an Iranian attempt to nuke Israel, and
whether it's successful or not, retaliation in kind by the Israelis. I think there is no doubt that the Israel response would be successful and devastating. Sometime between now and when Iran can actually build nuclear weapons, that building needs to be prevented. By peaceful means if possible, but by any means necessary if peaceful means don't work.

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[gujo-odori]

Congratulations, that's the best change of topic I've seen all day. Whether there would be a nuclear winter or not has nothing to do with who would come out worst in the exchange. But since we're on the topic, nuclear winter is pretty debatable. Modern nuclear weapons don't produce a lot of fallout and are mostly set as airbursts that wouldn't kick up all that much dust. The economic chaos caused by a nuclear exchange between any of Chinak, Russia, and the United States would most likely be a far worse problem than whatever level of global cooling might or might not happen from that exchange. The world economy would be screwed if the exchange were between China and Russia and completely shattered if it were between China and the US.

Fortunately, that's not very likely to happen. The Middle East is the place most likely to have a nuclear exchange. It would be smaller, but still pretty bad for the global economy. We'd better get drilling more in Alaska and California and anywhere else we've got oil, so when the Iranians get nukes and the Israelis vaporize them in self-defense, we'll still have enough oil to get along on until we're really up to speed on non-oil energy sources.

But I digress. Nuclear winter or no nuclear winter, anyone who thinks the Chinese couldn't tell the difference on radar between a high-altitude spy plane and a re-entering MIRV is still a tool :)

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[PurPaBOO]

so when the Iranians get nukes and the Israelis vaporize them in self-defense

What, like the 'merkins vaporized the Iraqis in "self defence"?

Gah ...

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm afraid you're the tool, because you missed a crucial point.

"The only kind of missile with a similar flight trajectory" is true right until this thing is deployed.

Afterward, there would be 2 more: the recce one, and the one that carries a bomb. Just how difficult exactly would it be to substitute an atomic weapon for the cameras? It's not like you have to drop it. 100000 feet makes for a nice EMP weapon, and I, for one, believe that the US military (and others) is waayyy competent enough to have thought about that.

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[Shakrai]

Whether or not it would be allowed to happen is another question altogether. But if it did happen, China would come out on the worst end of it. They have enough nuclear capacity to act as an effective deterrent, but not enough to make an offensive attack and succeed.

Kudos for that argument. I made it for the EU awhile back when some EU tool stated that they could "atomic-bitchslap" the US and Russia and nobody wanted to listen to it. Russia and the United States are the only two nations that can play offensive nuclear war with any chance of success (albeit, "success" in nuclear war probably implies millions of deaths on your side and total genocide for whomever you were going after).

Unfortunately, we have guys like Ahmahdinejad in Iran, steadfastly denying the Holocaust while at the same time working their butts off to make deliverable nuclear weapons as part of their planning for the next Holocaust.

That guy scares me more then Kim Jong ever will. At least Kim's motives are obvious and somewhat understandable (survival of his regime). Ahmahdinejad's goals remain a mystery.

it is likely to trigger an Iranian attempt to nuke Israel, and whether it's successful or not, retaliation in kind by the Israelis

The Israelis have a couple hundred missiles that can be nuclear tipped and reach any point of Iran. They can completely destroy Iran if they choose to do so. One can only hope that it doesn't come to that....

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[cayenne8]

"The Israelis have a couple hundred missiles that can be nuclear tipped and reach any point of Iran. They can completely destroy Iran if they choose to do so. One can only hope that it doesn't come to that...."

Hmm...if that happened, all that oil over there would be A). Radio active B). Up for grabs?

Just was wondering if that happened, if we could somehow use radioactive oil in some kind of combo internal combustion/nuclear engine....talk about efficient,eh?

:-)

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[djasbestos]

They are great in video games, but nukes are unethical as hell. Despite their enmity, I'd hope that the Israelis realize that a LOT of people in Iran "hate the fucking Ayatollah" (both of the Iranian gentlemen I met in Germany last year said this, one verbatim, one in a roundabout way). The desires and actions of governments and the people they govern are often quite different, as we are well aware in the United States.

Gah indeed.

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[lpq]

Darn tools all over the place -- need a tool belt! The original article talks about how the same "spy-plane" may be able to be "repurposed" by removing some of the sensor equipment and replacing it with weapons.

How good are radar detectors in telling which cargo the SR-72 is carrying: recon or attack? You believe the Chinese or "whoever" would be able to reliably tell the difference between two SR-72's carrying different cargo?

Tell me the SR-72 doesn't look like a next-generation cruise-missile designed to carry recon or weapons at extremely high altitudes. Maybe it is a non-issue and the SR-71 was also designed to carry a weapons cargo, so it won't be any different with the SR-72, but that isn't clear. It appears the SR-72 may carry weapons which may make it more of a threat than an SR-71, no?

Sincerely, Screwdriver :-)

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[SvnLyrBrto]

I find myself remembering a certain line from Futurama right about now... ... the one about how global warming eventually happened, but thank god it was counteracted by nuclear winter.

cya,
john

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[sumdumass]

If you could make a combination reactor and internal combustion engine with any efficiency, it probably would have been done by now and we would probably be using it. As for the safety, there are areas where oil fuels are used that could accommodate any inherent risks like power generation and large ocean ships and such.

Now, if the oil does become radioactive, I suspect is won't be disregarded, it will just be reserved for some specific application were the risks can be contained. Military and bulk energy production is probably one area. And I assume it would drive the costs up in many ways. But on the other hand, it might drive the pursuit of a way to clean the radiation from objects fast and efficiently. This is sort of scary because one of the deterrents from using nukes like hand grenades is the lasting effects of them. If it is ever found that we could walk into an area hit by a nuke and clean it up in five years or so, that deterrent isn't really a deterrent any more.

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[sumdumass]

The most sense I have seen in one paragraph in almost forever when dealing with something like this. Wow, outside the slight bit about ethical, I'm really impressed.

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[jafac]

There is no vehicle or platform that you could put a useful surveillance package onto, which you could not also put a nuclear device onto.

That said - ANYTHING you can fly over an enemy's territory, can be considered a threat of immediate nuclear attack.

Except, maybe a spy satellite.

And even then, the only assurance a potential target has, is the international ban, by treaty, of nuclear weapons in space. And given Bush's proclivity for declaring certain inconvenient international treaties as "obsolete" - there's really no assurance you can give a truly paranoid nation, that they are not, at any given moment, in the crosshairs of a pre-emptive nuclear strike.

Take from that whatever political message you will. Bottom line is; it's a fact.

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[JockTroll]

Nobody hates the "fucking Ayatollah" because the Ayatollah can't fuck, he's impotent and has a minuscule penis. That's why he's so pissed off at the world.

So, let's say everybody hates the "un-fucking Ayatollah". Please, be accurate in your statements.

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[Darlantan]

Yep. You make a good point, and it is cropping up more and more in the news.

If Iran is left along long enough, there's a really good chance that the citizens of Iran will toss the problematic faction in charge out of power. Even if they try and appear to be failing, it'd make for a much more graceful way for an outside government to step in and give support to get the job done.

The big question here is will it happen before Iran's nuke program gets far enough along to turn something weapons-grade out.

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[lpq]

Global winter may be too extreme to be used as hyperbole, but Global Cooling is documented much more recently in this Feb-2007 articlefrom Science News. Of note:

Finally, the results of today's climate simulations--which are much more sophisticated than those that were available in the 1980s--suggest that even a nuclear exchange of just a few dozen weapons could cool Earth substantially for a decade or more.

It seems it would be a matter of "degree" -- how many weapons are targeting cities if it ever happens. Hopefully owners of such toys will be responsible and only choose low soot/low dust targeting.

Frankly, the world would be a MUCH better place to live if all the money and resources we wasted against fighting each other was turned into positive investment in standard of living -- I think most wars stem from a real or imaginary need for more "resources". Just recently, New Scientist carried an article on "local" rainfall records' (as a measure of drought) as a possible predictor of "local" wars as "local" governments clash for resources.

Where would society be, now, if we had not needed to spend so much in the various wars that have happened (ignoring issues of the differences of opinion that started them). [Waxing Phillisillisophically...]

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[PurPaBOO]

Even if they do get to the point of turning out something "weapons grade", they won't actually be using it.

They're not that stupid.

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[Shakrai]

This is sort of scary because one of the deterrents from using nukes like hand grenades is the lasting effects of them. If it is ever found that we could walk into an area hit by a nuke and clean it up in five years or so, that deterrent isn't really a deterrent any more.

I don't think that's the real deterrent. We sent troops into Japan within days of the atomic bombings. Dropping one nuke on a city does not render that city inhabitable by any stretch of the imagination.

The deterrent from using nukes like hand grenades is the fact that it will drive every country in the world to try and obtain them if you use them on a non-nuclear state. Using them on a nuclear state obviously subjects you to retaliation.

Re:I think the AC's point was retaliation

[sumdumass]

I don't think it would be using them like hand grenades in the same sense. It would be a complete destruction of the threat if it was more then what our forces could easily handle or cope with.

I don't think it would push more countries into getting them. Currently there are too many economic barriers involved in going nuclear. And I'm not talking about the expense of making the bomb either. Trade sanctions and all, they have too much to lose when they know that almost all trade partners would come to their aid if they were attacked. Kuwait was an ally of the US and Europe way before we helped them with Iraq the first time (actually, our helping Iraq and giving them weapons during it's war with Iran was at the request of Kuwait who was paying Iraq for protection from Iran at the time). This is a prime example of why they didn't need Nukes. Of course it would have been nice to have been able to stop Iraq before they caused as much damage as they did, but it wasn't anything that couldn't have been repaired for the most part. Japan, Germany, Russia, India (with the exception or pakistan) and probably even China would see an onslaught of help if they were invaded and weren't the aggressors.

The US is in a position it shouldn't be in, but the thing is, we aren't defenseless.

Leary Jet

[synonymous]

Seems to be that this is possible already and has been for much time.. Ask John Lear

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKRYnswV8ow&feature =PlayList&p=15994175C5080991&index=0&playnext=1

USAF + Skunkworks + Google

[meccaneko]

*I* heard it was going to be used by Gooogle to do the next run of Street views...

1. supersonic stealth spy plane
2. Google Streets
3. ???
4. Profit!

wouldn't be easier

[recharged95]

to make a more maneuverable/agile LEO satellite? And the lessons learn can be applied to the [manned] space program and vice versa...

Re:wouldn't be easier

[rickb928]

After the several comments about how vulnerable an SR-72 would be to particle beam or laser weapons (and is there a difference?), a LEO bird would seem to be a sitting duck comparatively.

What sort of LEO satellite would be more agile than an SR-71? And I'm assuming an SR-72 would be an improvement - always a questionable assumption dealing with the military. The Skunk Works will probably get it right.

ps - Sign me up to fly this puppy.

pps - This is forseeable. The X-Prize contestants have demonstrated several ways to accomplish this mission, all simplified by removing the need to carry tourists and crew. Way to go! Basic research is rarely this cheap for a spy plane!

Re:wouldn't be easier

[icegreentea]

they can already move around, and i guess you could call them kinda agile. just no matter what, satellites must carrying all the fuel they're ever use in their lifetime in one liftoff, limiting just how much fuel you can carry. also, as the problem appears to be energy weapons, "dodging" the beam is nonsense. you can aviod them, but that means if china just throws up some of these energy weapons near every sensitive sight, they just created a big hole in your intelligence capabilities.

Re:wouldn't be easier

[dswartz]

Your comment reminded me of an story in which a general requested a LEO reconnaissance satellite be over a particular target 24 hours a day.

Re:fsdf 53tgvzxcreahb fg agasgdgu nbcxfharefdawsgg

[CommunistHamster]

Gentlemen, this may be the very first sighting of this new spyplane on Slashdot. Observe the shape made by the bold text under a resolution of 640*480 @ 60Hz.

Already got one?

[benhocking]

ARTHUR: Go and tell your master that we have been charged by God with a sacred quest. If he will give us food and shelter for the night he can join us in our quest for the Holy Grail.
GUARD: Well, I'll ask him, but I don't think he'll be very keen... Uh, he's already got one, you see?

remember kids...

[Thaelon]

If the headline ends in a question mark, it's not news.

Ok, so...

[jd]

They are probably building a waverider that uses a ramjet (4,000 MPH is way way too slow for a scramjet) with some sort of launch assist mechanism - there are several they can choose. Though they could also use a turbine-assisted ramjet or variant. Again, there are several.

Does it matter? Well, the first to build a working waverider aircraft was a Scottish amateur rocketry group. Story has it that when NASA and Boeing engineers saw footage of the vehicle flying, they were staring at the screen in sheer envy. They'd got no further than theory. We also all know the story of the New Zealander who has jet-propelled go-karts and his own low-cost cruise missile. And the Gauss Rifle linked to above didn't look too complex, either.

Although amateurs are very unlikely to be building supersonic or hypersonic spy planes in the near future, none of this looks so complex that it could not be done by other nations in comparable time. Don't think it won't happen - too many potential benefits. Variants will also inevitably be adopted by commercial space planes, as it's so much cheaper than using vanilla rocketry and should be much more reliable.

To me, the only question I think worth asking at this point is who will be there first? Lockheed-Martin, China or Rutan? (And after Lockheed's disastrous hovering shuttle replacement in the late 1990s, it's not wise to just assume they'll automatically win such a race.)

Re:Ok, so...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Story has it that when NASA and Boeing engineers saw footage of the vehicle flying, they were staring at the screen in sheer envy."

Doubtful Since NASA built one in '63 that has to be scrapped because funding went into bomber design.

Re:Ok, so...

[drgould]

(And after Lockheed's disastrous hovering shuttle replacement in the late 1990s, it's not wise to just assume they'll automatically win such a race.)

I think you're confusing the hovering McDonnell Douglas DC-X (which was a successful test vehicle until NASA got ahold of it) and the Shuttle replacement Lockheed Martin X-33 (which was a diaster).

Re:Ok, so...

[AK Marc]

I imagine it would be hard (everything at those speeds is hard) but what about a convertible engine? All a turbojet is is a ramjet with a compressor on the front. All a scramjet is is a ramjet where the internal air speeds never drop below supersonic. So, come up with a design where the turbine blades turn completely perpendicular to the flow of air and the turbine stops and the thing becomes a ramjet. Or have smaller turbojet engines that retract and a scramjet engine that kicks in at supersonic speeds. Or the hybrid turbojet/ramjet engines that are retracted when the scramjet kicks on. I suspect it would be close to impossible with current technology to make a reliable engine that could convert from ramjet to scramjet, but maybe someone out there smarter than me could figure that one out and mate it with my turbojet/ramjet hybrid idea.

Re:Ok, so...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Story has it that when NASA and Boeing engineers saw footage of the vehicle flying, they were staring at the screen in sheer envy."

Doubtful Since NASA built one in '63 that has to be scrapped because funding went into bomber design.

That was the old "can do" NASA. This is the "let's create a feasability study into creating a committee into writing a proposal..." NASA.

News, but not really

[DynaSoar]

We've known it's been in the works for a while. Several interim projects were specifically to test portions of the technology, such as the pure evil on the wing looking Bird of Prey (http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2002/q4/nr_02 1018m.html). The SR 72 design (often called Darkbird, though that's not official) is pretty much frozen. Air Force Times has an artists' rendering which is probably pretty close to the final result (http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2007/06/airforc e_sr72_070617/)

Cold wars and hot wars start the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

Cold wars and hot wars start the same way.

Tired of the same approach

[tachyonmirror]

"The new aircraft would offer a combination of speed, altitude and stealth that could make it virtually impervious to ground-based missiles, sources said. Even the SR-71 is said to have evaded hundreds of missiles fired at it during its long career, although some aircraft sustained minor damage" 1) Engine is an air-breather. 2) Uses aerodynamic lift. Why couldnt we/enemy create either nano or biological (or both) spreadable agents/clouds to reduce oxygen in the vicinity of travel so the engines fail. Why couldnt we/enemy counter this with abrasive nano-particle(diamond based) clouds (kinda like nano-flak) to eat away the surfaces as it flies

No joke.

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

Seriously.

The SR-71 is easily the baddest mofo of any item in either the Smithsonian's downtown Air & Space or Air & Space II in the big hangar out by the airport [which is where the SR-71 sits, right smack in the middle of the floor, dominating everything else around it].

Badder than the Wright Bros' biplane, badder than Lindbergh's Spirit of St Louis, badder than Apollo 11, badder than the Space Shuttle.

Just one great big Samuel Jackson Pulp Fiction Bad Mofo of an airplane.

Re:No joke.

[jjk3]

I personally think the Enterprise trumps the SR-71, but there is no denying the bad assness of the last flight of that SR-71.

According to the Smithsonian - http://www.nasm.si.edu/aircraft/lockheed_sr71.htm

"On March 6, 1990, the service career of one Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird ended with a record-setting flight. This special airplane bore Air Force serial number 64-17972. Lt. Col. Ed Yeilding and his RSO, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Vida, flew this aircraft from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. in 1 hour, 4 minutes, and 20 seconds, averaging a speed of 3,418 kph (2,124 mph). At the conclusion of the flight, '972 landed at Dulles International Airport and taxied into the custody of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. At that time, Lt. Col. Vida had logged 1,392.7 hours of flight time in Blackbirds, more than that of any other crewman."

3,418 kmp = Mach 2.79, pretty bad ass. I though you were not able to break the sound barrier over the US, either a special circumstance or I am just wrong.

Re:No joke.

[Nimey]

Not badder than the A-10, which *is* badder than Leroy Brown.

Re:No joke.

[lawpoop]

In an article a few weeks ago about physics, a poster asked what force moved then other end of a pole when you tug on the end close to you. Several repliers responded that is it was basically waves moving at the speed of sound that pushed or pulled the object along.

So in the case of objects moving faster than the speed of sound, what force keeps them together? Aren't they being pulled along faster than the waves moving in the object can pull its component atoms with it?

IIRC, this was one of the original concerns about faster-than-sound flight -- that the whole craft would disintegrate, because you would be outpacing the waves that keep the molecules of the object together.

Re:No joke.

[rts008]

Indeed!

Having worked with both the A-10 and AH-64, having my bacon saved by both, and having seen both in action...I'm Sooo glad they are on our side!

Sarah Connor hiding from Arnie had a much better chance of surviving!

Re:No joke.

[el_munkie]

The key is that the speed of sound in air and the speed of sound in the metal of the airframe are very different. One source I googled said that the speed of sound in steel is 4512 m/s, while the speed of sound in air at 20 C is a piddly 343 m/s.

Re:No joke.

[qzulla]

Yep. They did this to break the record. If the record had been faster they would have broken that too.

qz

Re:No joke.

[LabRat]

Actually the Mach number is higher than that when you consider the altitude that the SR-71 was flying. The speed of sound goes down as altitude goes up..so a given absolute speed will yield a different Mach number depending on the altitude.

Re:No joke.

[4D6963]

Well I think that what you're talking about only creates vibrations. Then it all comes down to how resistive to vibrations your airplane is. Going faster that the speed of vibration in your plane won't make your plane's molecules separate, I have no idea what got this idea into you..

Re:No joke.

[cowscows]

I understand what you're saying, but I find it hard to believe that even pre-supersonic aircraft, that anyone even moderately well versed in the idea would have though that that could be a problem. It was already possible to propel things significantly faster than the speed of sound. Bullets being a prime example. They obviously did not disintegrate purely due to their high speed, if they did, they wouldn't be nearly as effective as weapons.

I'm not an aeronautical engineer or anything, but I believe the big problem was that as you got to the speed of sound, all those waves that you're making in the air began to build up in front of you, and almost literally created a wall of energy that you had to then move through as you reached mach. Then once you got past that point, it became much easier again, assuming you've already dealt with things like the force of drag, thermal issues, etc...

Re:No joke.

[drew]

Not really. Mach is defined to be the speed of sound at a specific altitude (60,000 feet, IIRc, or maybe 30,000), and is somewhere around 660 miles per hour. So a low flying aircraft might be flying over mach 1 (~660mph), but still under the speed of sound (~710mph at sea level).

Re:No joke.

[drew]

Commercial aircraft aren't allowed to break the sound barrier. I imagine military planes do it quite frequently. Anyway, at the altitude that the blackbird flies at, I imagine that the sonic boom would be barely noticeable by the time it reaches the ground.

Re:No joke.

[LabRat]

yes, really. Mach 1 = the speed of sound in the current density of air. So, Mach 1 at 80,000 feet is significantly slower than Mach 1 at sea level. So, you do not recall correclty. I think you'll find that 2200mph is well above Mach 2.8 @ operational altitude as previously posted if you'll look up the standard atmosphere tables and do the math.

Re:No joke.

[Doctor Faustus]

I though you were not able to break the sound barrier over the US, either a special circumstance or I am just wrong.
Flying at Mach 3 at 100,000 feet is not like flying Mach 1.1 at 30,000 feet. The shockwave has a much sharper angle, and it's a lot higher from the ground in the first place, so it's traveled something like 60 miles before it reaches the ground. That gives it a lot of time to dissapate.

Re:No joke.

[StikyPad]

Also, the speed of anything is relative. We're moving thousands of MPH in relation to the sun, for example. The speed of sound internal to an object would always be measured relative to its length (or a part thereof), so unless it's accelerating faster than its speed of sound, you have nothing to worry about.

That, and planes are generally pushed, not pulled.

Re:No joke.

[drew]

Yeah, my bad. Sorry. I started to second guess myself after I posted and had to go look it up. I know that "speed of sound at altitude X" (must have been 30,000 feet, because now that I think about it, 60,000 wouldn't have made much sense) used to be used as a baseline for something, because I remember an air force officer telling me when I was much younger that most planes capable of breaking the sound barrier (at the time anyway) typically flew at or above that altitude anyway. Unfortunately, I don't remember what it was anymore.

Re:No joke.

[LabRat]

Heh, no worries. Any day we learn (or re-learn) something, is not a wasted day :)

by the looks of it...

[ccbutler]

by the looks of it, there is no way it would be launched from a conventional runway

probably exists now

[192939495969798999]

the SR-71 is a famous example of something very advanced remaining classified for a long time. By the time the public saw them, they were practically retired. I'd guess that this vehicle exists now in classified form, and by 2020 we'll "officially" know they've built and flown them.

Re:probably exists now

[geekoid]

Funny how you could get mattel model of them for years before the public 'knew about them'.
Same with the stealth fighter.

I suspect mattel pays someone to spy no the military...or someone in the military is using mattel as their road path.

Re:probably exists now

[El_Oscuro]

I saw a Blackbird at 1972 at Palmdale when I was six. They also had something on it in the paper. Then again, they were designed in the late 1950s.

Remember throughout the 1980s, there was this big debate about the existence of the stealth fighter/bomber? With the Persian Gulf ware in 1991, all of a sudden they appeared. I remember the comments from the government then: "We have had squadrons of them active for the last 10 years".

Does anyone wonder why after 40 years, there is no [known] plane which exceeds the SR-71 speed and altitude?

Re:probably exists now

[mshurpik]

Remember throughout the 1980s, there was this big debate about the existence of the stealth fighter/bomber? With the Persian Gulf ware in 1991, all of a sudden they appeared.

The stealth fighter (F-117) appeared in 1991 and was produced by Lockheed's Skunk Works. It was top-secret in the 1980's...the closest thing in the public was the F-19 Aurora, which was a combo of UFO and stealth technology. When the F-117 finally debuted, it looked nothing like the F-19.

Northrop's B-2, on the other hand, was never secret. There was a great deal of debate about the bomber's cost, complexity, and usefulness way back in the 1980's. The only secret of the B-2 was that they refused to photograph the engine exhausts for several years.

The B-2 was a nuclear bomber, so it didn't enter service until Afghanistan when it was fitted with GPS-guided JDAMs. The B-2 is actually less stealthy than the F-117, since GPS requires active signaling.

Does anyone wonder why after 40 years, there is no [known] plane which exceeds the SR-71 speed and altitude?

Well, the Air Force stonewalled like this in the 1960's. The X-15, which first flew in 1959, eventually reached Mach-6. Yet the Air Force refused to build a Mach-2 fighter until the F-14/15 in 1972. As per History Channel, many promising Mach-2 fighter programs were cancelled in favor of bombers. I suppose many promising high-altitude planes were cancelled in favor of spy satellites.

Re:probably exists now

[MtViewGuy]

Interestingly enough, the A-12 project stayed classified for only a short period. From the approval of development to the unveiling of the SR-71 in 1964, it was only five years!

Re:probably exists now

[ducomputergeek]

I think you got things backwards. People knew about the plane for a long time. Hell it was supposed to be the RS-71 (As RS was the designation for Recon/survalience at the time), but President Johnston flubbed the line at the dedication ceramony and called it the SR-71. No one corrected him and so the name stuck. So the public knew about the plane since the 1960's.

I think you are getting it confused with the F-117, which was kept pretty well secret until the first Gulf War. There was the "F-19" floating around the aviation community by the mid 1980's, famously described in the Clancy Novel Red Storm Rising, so people thought it existed, but they got the shape totally wrong. (Look up the F-19 flight sim over at Wikipedia by Microprose).

Still, I think something replaced the Blackbird a long time ago. The Air Force really didn't argue when the program was cut. Which tells me they had something to replace it and we've heard about Aroua for years much like the F-19 twenty years ago.

Re:probably exists now

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you Mr. Insightful poster. We've had a mach 3, or whatever, spyplane since the 50s and people don't think we've thought of something better in 57 years or so? Right.

Re:probably exists now

[Slashamatic]

The B-2 is actually less stealthy than the F-117, since GPS requires active signaling.

GPS is a receive only system (the signal is from the satellites) unless the plane is generating GPS corrections for its munitions.

Re:probably exists now

[DerekLyons]

the SR-71 is a famous example of something very advanced remaining classified for a long time. By the time the public saw them, they were practically retired.

Hardly. President Johnson announced it's existence in 1964, I saw pictures of one back in the mid 70's, and it wasn't retired until 1998.

Re:probably exists now

[Kuad]

My first memory of Stealth Fighters in the news was the Panama invasion, at which point it had been in active service for only 6 years. IIRC, the USAF had admitted the the existence of the aircraft the previous year (1988).

Re:probably exists now

[0123456]

"Hardly. President Johnson announced it's existence in 1964, I saw pictures of one back in the mid 70's, and it wasn't retired until 1998."

Yeah, but it first flew in 1927. The official date is just a coverup :).

Re:probably exists now

[DragonWriter]

Funny how you could get mattel model of them for years before the public 'knew about them'.
Same with the stealth fighter.

IIRC, the various toy models of the "Stealth Fighter" released prior to the public revelation of the F-117 bore no more similarity to the F-117 than one would expect from giving an artist access to the publicly available information on what it would take to make a stealth aircraft, and indeed were generally based on different stealth ideas than were used in the F-117 (the actual F-117 was very angular, the "stealth fighter" models I remember used smooth curves, like the B-2.)

There is no B3 bomber.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just so everyone is clear.

No Weapon

[reallocate]

No weapon. It's a reconnaissance craft.

At 4000 mph, it would be able to outrun any anti-aircraft missile.

SR-Thuper-Thecret-Thpyplane

[MrKaos]

Lockhead Martin also refused to comment on a recent purchase 10 million $5000 toilet seats, 52 million boxes of $1000 dollar tissues, and 19.7 million $10000 dollar hammers.:-P It would be a cruel twist of fate it the project was outsourced to china.

Now I wonder scramjet + non-existant unmanned stealth spy plane, and massive development budget hmmmm.

Re:SR-Thuper-Thecret-Thpyplane

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot outsource government contracts to foreign governments.

I don't care...

[serviscope_minor]

I don't care if there are better solutions or if it's expensive or bad for the environment or whatever. The engineer in me just thinks that the SR-71 was too cool to be taken out of service. I look forward to the SR-72.

But wait...

[__aailrp9629]

If it's intended as a satellite-replacement in case of reconnaissance satellites being destroyed by ASAT weaponry, wouldn't there be some issues in remotely controlling an aircraft with "transcontinental" range without relying on communications satellites that would also presumably be destroyed by the point this aircraft is needed?

Re:But wait...

[LabRat]

Good point...

Auto-Pilot with inertial/ring-laser guidance system solves the no-satellite thing. The interesting part is imparting enough smarts to the autopilot to evade interception attempts.

Re:But wait...

[jjohnson]

At 100,000 feet, I would imagine that flying a pre-programmed route is perfectly viable--no birds, mountains, dust-storms around. If the software can control flying itself, it can surely autopilot across Russia or China.

The software guiding cruise missiles does nap-of-the-earth flight with only constant GPS references.

Re:But wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

It probably will need some sort of AI... it's already been demonstrated on Global Hawk....

Re:But wait...

[frogstar_robot]

I didn't think a plane like the SR-71 would do much in the way of evading. They have to fly a particular route to photograph the site of interest. The whole idea was to fly so high and so fast that no gun, missile, or interceptor could match it. That proposition got increasingly dicier as satellites got better. The AI just has to goose the throttle maybe?

Re:But wait...

[LabRat]

Well, I didn't mean "evade" in the sense of a fighter would..but rather controlling speed to make ballistic projectiles miss (the "hit the brakes and he'll fly right by" theorem of Maverick) and minor course corrections as appropriate. Similar to what the SR-71 pilots would do...mostly it's just grit your teeth and hope for the best but there's a little room for "helping".

The Soviets would send up SAM's in salvos in an almost flak-like manner...sending them on ballistic paths hoping that the SR-71 would just run into them. That's where a little pilot skill and the use of what little evasive capabilities of the plane come in handy.

But you're right..there's only so much you can do at that speed and altitude...the proposed/rumored SR-72 would probably have a turn radius literally the size of Texas (or more) at operational speed and altitude.

Re:But wait...

[__aailrp9629]

Right, but a even couple degrees worth of course correction makes ballistic intercept impossible (and greatly complicates guided intercept). You'd have to have quite the missile to be able to hit a target at 100k feet (~19 miles up) in a radius large enough to encompass the places the plane could reasonably get to in the time it takes the missile to climb to altitude.

Re:But wait...

[LabRat]

True..that's why no SR-71 was ever shot down..although the Soviets got close a few times with their SAMs-as-flak approach. However, that also highlights the necessity of having some sort of intelligence built into the auto-pilot. If it doesn't even attempt to turn, shooting it down with the ballistic approach would be fairly straight-forward. That was the point I was trying to make.

Corrected links

[Oswald]

There are spaces in OP's URLs, so they don't work (not to mention they're not links). I'm a kindly soul with time to kill, so here is the Boeing link, and here is the Air Force Times link.

Classified

[R3d M3rcury]

FTFA:

"As a matter of policy, we don't talk about classified programs -- whether or not they exist," Lockheed's Tom Jurkowsky said. If the program doesn't exist, how can it be classified? Or has the military classified everything that doesn't exist?

I'm confused.

Re:Classified

[LabRat]

Actively denying a program gives valuable information (that it doesn't exist). By "neither confirming nor denying" the existence of any such program...inadvertent transfer of viable intelligence through confirming the existence or the lack of existence of a program/vehicle/weapon/capability. They can't control rumors..but they can control the release of concrete information (in either the affirmative or negative) by simply saying nothing.

Re:Classified

[El_Oscuro]

The best way to hide something is to cover it with another "secret". If the Air Force is doing the "no comments" then the Navy probably has a new submarine technology. Or maybe they are trying to divert our attention from the ongoing negotiations with the Ferengi at Area-52. Nice looking bird though.

Re:Classified

[Anonymous Coward]

And taken to the illogical extreme, you could actually develop information about a program based on the distinction between "doesn't exist" and "exists but classified". The conversation goes something like:

Is it true that you've developed a new spy plane that goes 6000 MPH? No, such a program doesn't exist.
Is it true that you've developed a new spy plane that goes 5000 MPH? No, such a program doesn't exist.
Is it true that you've developed a new spy plane that goes 4000 MPH? No comment.

The only way to conceal information is always to answer "no comment".

Re:Classified

[R3d M3rcury]

Well, yes, I can understand that. But then the appropriate comment from the person should have said, "As a matter of policy, we don't talk about programs -- whether or not they exist." The fact that he was talking about classified programs is what caught my eye...

Re:Classified

[aadvancedGIR]

A day in court:

Attorney: have you did xxx?
Defendant: no.
A: have you did yyy?
D: no.
A: have you did zzz?
D: I refuse to answer that question!

Re:Classified

[Poromenos1]

Combine with rule #2, everything is classified until it has been declassified.

Re:Classified

[Jonathan_S]

Well, yes, I can understand that. But then the appropriate comment from the person should have said, "As a matter of policy, we don't talk about programs -- whether or not they exist." The fact that he was talking about classified programs is what caught my eye...

But that isn't quite right either.

Their policy presumably allows them to talk about existing unclassified programs. And probably allows them to explain that no such program exists when asked specifically about a non-existent (supposedly) unclassified program.

So the actual rule appears to be: "We don't talk about or acknowledge programs which are, or would be, or which you claim are, classified -- whether or not they exist." Which is pretty unwieldy.

They meaning China

[ascendant]

but (iirc) they can destroy satellites with them now.

You don't remember correctly.

They used the lasers to light up the satellite, and smacked it down with a missile (kinetic).

They also have the ability to blind some satellites cameras with lasers.

They do not have the ability to destroy satellites with lasers.

Re:They meaning China

[MadUndergrad]

Yeah, I wasn't sure about that one. Considering the 747 ABL project though, an anti-spy-plane laser seems entirely feasible. Granted, these planes are built to withstand high temperatures, but then again since they'll already be hot it won't be as hard to make them a bit hotter, enough to damage them.

Re:What about this one?

[slickwillie]

Aurora:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_aircraft/

A11/YF12/SR71: where to get parts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Un-mothballing a super secret machine like that is no easy feat. Once they retired it, the super secret parts, meaning all the really slick stuff that made it work so well, are destroyed. Shredded. Melted down. You don't want to leave that kind of equipment sitting around in a depot where it might be mistakenly sold off as surplus. Even the design blueprints may have been destroyed. Just because the USAF/CIA is done with it doesn't mean it's no longer beyond top-secret. If there aren't enough planes left to put together a working one plus all the necessary spare parts, you're starting over from scratch. Consider the one on display at the Pima air museum: it has no engines, so that nobody can get a good up-close look at them. Then there's that special fuel blend that only the blackbirds used...

Another option

[gr8_phk]

Since a ramjet is just a specially shaped chamber, you can load it full of solid rocket fuel to get it going. Once that fuel is spent, you start spraying in the liquid fuel for ramjet operation. I recall reading on Wikipedia that some missiles use this method. Now if you could make the ramjet out of an ejectable cowling under the waverider you would:
1) burn solid fuel inside chamber
2) spray fuel inside chamber
3) continue spraying fuel as you release the underside of the chamber.
4) go really fast.

Re:Another option

[Napoleon The Pig]

I think you're thinking of modern cruise missles which use a solid rocket motor which is jettisoned before starting a small turbine engine for the rest of the trip.

The problem with filling a ramjet full of solid fuel is that the irregular shape of the ramjets interior will cause irregular burn speeds in the solid fuel creating uneven thrust. Using certain catalysts the burn rate of the fuel can be managed somewhat, but these burn rate modifiers would have to be precisely positioned inside the ramjet in order to compensate for the geometry changes. Manufacturing such precision solid fuel would be difficult to say the least. Not to mention having a controlled explosion travelling the opposite direction of the typical flow of the ramjet would most likely cause damage to the intricate geometry of the engine.

Re:Another option

[Magada]

I'm sorry, what intricate geometry? I had assumed it's just a tube, vaguely conical. Also, afaik there are solid fuel ramjets in testing/operation (the fuel for ramjet operation is packed along the inner wall and burns in controlled spurts, as dictated, say, by the way the nose cone alters the shockwave). I doubt a two-stage solid/fuel-air engine would be that much harder. If you're concerned about the shape of the fuel, well, you can insert some filler material between your perfectly cylindrical classical rocket at the centre and your oh-so-fancily shaped solid fuel wall to be burned in hypersonic flight.

Re:Another option

[Napoleon The Pig]

Admittedly when I wrote the second part of my previous post I was thinking scramjet not ramjet. You're right that ramjets have fairly simple relatively conical geometries, except for the inlet and nozzle the whole thing is basically one big combustion chamber. The solid fuel ramjets that you mentioned are good for relatively steady velocity applications, throttling is very limited with that particular type of engine due to fuel injection via ablation.

That doesn't mean that rocket powered ramjets would work for this application however. The biggest challenge with an integrated rocket/ramjet is the nozzle requirements for the two stages are completely different. The exhaust gasses from the rocket motor are traveling much faster than the exhaust from the ramjet which means one of two things: You could design a compromise nozzle (or leaving it completely nozzleless) which would provide marginal performance for both, or you could have a separate nozzle just for the rocket portion of flight which would be discarded after burnout of the motor.

The real problem with using this type of application on an aircraft like the SR-72 (or whatever they're going to call it) is you're not going to be able to have a powered landing. The rocket motor will accelerate from rest to a speed at which the ramjet will be able to operate, but unless you're going to destroy the UAV each flight (much like the D-21 drone) you're not going to be able to slow down beyond the lower operating range of the ramjet. Some might consider this a non-issue since it is a UAV and we could always build more... but that just seems wasteful to me.

Re:Another option

[gr8_phk]

Yep, I was remembering a bit cooler situation that I had read about:
SA-6_Gainful
However it remains true that putting a solid fuel rocket motor inside a ramjet is 1970s technology. Putting solid fuel around the outside for solid fuel ramjet operation is newer and I didn't see anything in production. I was trying to stretch the imagination when I suggested ejecting the lower cowling of the ramjet to become this waverider thing :-) I don't doubt it's possible, but I wonder about efficiency - designing the geometry for 2 different modes of operation. An unmanned vehicle could be one-time use which doubles range and also means ejection of part of the system at some point is OK because you don't expect any of it to come back. 3 modes of operation without much redundant mass :-)

Re:Another option

[Magada]

One could decelerate and glide to an unpowered landing ('a la space shuttle) after ramjet burn-off. A non-issue. And as for the nozzle, you could have a variable-geometry one.

Obligatory linguistic correction

[Deadstick]

from the next-comes-high-altitude-flak-cannons dept.

Redundant. Flak is a German-style contraction for Flugabwehrkanone, anti-aircraft cannon.

Guess that makes me a German Nazi...

rj

Re:Obligatory linguistic correction

[Anonymous Coward]

Redundant. Flak is a German-style contraction for Flugabwehrkanone, anti-aircraft cannon.

Except for the wee detail that we're not speaking German, so you're wrong about the definition. Derivation is not the same as definition. Ah well, cue the obligatory quote:

Cornfed: "They're English words, Duckman."
Duckman: "Well we don't live in England, do we!"

Re:Obligatory linguistic correction

[CaseyB]

Guess that makes me a German Nazi...

You just Godwinned yourself. I've never seen that before.

Re:Obligatory linguistic correction

[Hognoxious]

Except for the wee detail that we're not speaking German

Then use the English equivalent, ack-ack or triple-A. Still at least he didn't spell it with a c before the k.

The unanswered question

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this thing in the works at all? The US has plenty of nuclear weapons, but we don't use any of them... so is this just going to be another one of those "cool toys" that never sees battle?

If so, why are US taxpayers footing the bill?

Interestingly enough, the CAPTCHA for me was "fetish."

Re:The unanswered question

[LabRat]

IMHO, recon assets are probably the best bang-for-buck that the taxpayer gets from the defense budget. You don't always have a satellite where it needs to be to see something *when* you want...that's where these come in. Good recon can prevent wars...or at least help keep wars small (dependent on the cowboy factor in the whitehouse, of course). Far different from the nuclear stockpile...recon assets have immediate benefit and impact on national security while being used in an active role. As others have surmised...I'd be surprised if this thing wasn't already operational. I never bought the story that the air force was going to rely 100% on satellites for strategic recon...especially since the Soviets demonstrated ASAT weapons decades ago. The recent tests by the Chinese in that arena have only refocused the public on a long-existing threat to our global surveillance capabilities via our satellite systems.

China

[l0rd.47hl0n]

We should close all trade relations with China that were opened by that ass Clinton. China is getting richer, and acquiring technology it should not have given the type of government it has and its' attitude toward human rights and freedom. Treat China as we did the Soviet Union during the cold war. Isolate them until them break and give in. And start destroying their military satellites ASAP.

Re:China

[Magada]

From the tone, UID and nick, I assume you're about 16 years old, so not necessarily trollish, just misinformed. Here's a free geopolitics lesson, kiddo: if the US embargoes China, Walmart goes titsup. Last I checked, that's the largest employer in the country. Dig?

Re:China

[l0rd.47hl0n]

Magada: Firstly, let me apologize for any tone you may have garnered from my statement regarding China. I am frustrated that China's military buildup, both mechanized and electronic, seems to be missed by the very people that should be on top of it, out government. It is obvious, at least to me, that something very bad is coming our way. My UID, or nickname, was chosen because I can relate to both hardware and software hackers (white-hat), having grown up as one during the mid 70's ... trading my first car, a Chevy Chevelle, for my first computer in 1976. I do not post here on /. to inflame, nor do I do so to try to sway others to my way of thinking. I do so to speak my mind, blow off steam if you will, as is afforded me as an honorably discharged American Veteran, and as a citizen. I take interest in finding others who share my opinion that our country, even the world, is going to hell in a handbasket. So please, don't insult. I am 45 years of age, not 16. Again, please don't insult because your view of the world differs from another. If you'll consult a psychologist about things personally important to people in general, you will find that everyone is right, from their own perspective. Whether my grasp of grammar grants me the ability to compose meaningful sentences or spell correctly, it is not an accurate indication of age. I couldn't care less about Wal-Mart. In my opinion, Wal-Mart has been eroding the fabric of our country for some time now, more so after the morally reprehensible Bill Clinton allowed trade with China. There is so much I could say about this subject, but instead I point you to a PBS NOVA documentary titled, Wal-Mart: Is It Good For America. It is very eye-opening. If you haven't already viewed it, I would encourage you to do so, then form your own opinion about it. Lastly, because my opinion without a doubt will differ from others, though one may possibly hold a degree in Geopolitics, that does not necessarily mean I am misinformed. Grant me the truth that I still may be correct, however unlikely. Thank you.

Re:China

[Magada]

Ok. Sorry about my tone. The point I was trying to make is that mass unemployment would result from a sudden drying-out of Chinese imports. That's never a good thing in my book.

Re:China

[l0rd.47hl0n]

Thank you, Magada. I concur with your point. Approximately 90% of Wal-Mart's product base is supplied by Chinese manufacturers, and losing that would deal a tremendous blow to the American economy. It really steams my loins that it was allowed to happen, and also that Wal-Mart doesn't seem cognicent of the danger. Here we have a smartly run corporation making what many would call a grave error . . . putting all their eggs in one basket. I would think the F.T.C. would have controls in place to prevent exactly this sort of scenario.

Anti-anti-satellite?

[bryan1945]

Ever hear about the ASAT projects? Could this be a platform for taking out the anti-sat sats?

SR71 Taking Damage?

[aztec1430]

"Even the SR-71 is said to have evaded hundreds of missiles fired at it during its long career, although some aircraft sustained minor damage."

Any articles on this? I've not heard of any SR71s taking damage...

Re:SR71 Taking Damage?

[Anonymous Coward]

you ever see what a bird does at 2000 mph?

Re:SR71 Taking Damage?

[LabRat]

that's a hell of a set of lungs on that bird that can climb to 80,000 feet to make contact with a SR-71 at operational speed/altitude :P

Re:SR71 Taking Damage?

[Anonymous Coward]

The MiG 25 Foxbat could exceed Mach 3...

Let me get this straight...

[mbessey]

Oh yeah, you don't use conventional warheads in your SAMs for targets like this. The USSR and USA had nuclear-tipped ABMs and SAMs as far back as the 60s. As the saying goes "a nuclear warhead solves a whole lot of targeting problems". You're seriously suggesting that a country would detonate nuclear weapons over its own territory to prevent an enemy taking pictures of a sensitive area? This makes sense how, exactly?

Re:Let me get this straight...

[still cynical]

I'm not saying it made any sense, I'm saying the weapons existed and were in the field.

A sampling:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Nike
http://www.brookings.edu/fp/projects/nucwcost/talo s.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA-2_Guideline
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA-5_Gammon

Keep in mind that nuclear-tipped SAMs would be detonated at a much higher altitude than a missile intended to strike surface targets. Nuclear-tipped air-to-air missiles were also fielded. Note the test mentioned here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIR-2_Genie which detonated at only 15,000 feet. They had volunteers on the ground underneath it. What their long-term health was I can only guess.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, nuclear-tipped SAMs would have been used against enemy bombers, not recon aircraft.

The bombers would be carrying nukes, and travelling in groups, so it would be reasonable to risk fallout by using a nuclear SAM to take out multiple widely-spaced targets at once.

WOW! *drool*

[kermit1221]

That artist's rendering image just makes me so excited. Pretty impressive design there. Very imaginative too! It's like they took a picture of an SR-71, cut off the wings and moved the vertical stabilizers to the fuselage. Wow! Almost as cool as this image of the fabled Miata SR-71.

Re:WOW! *drool*

[onedobb]

The image has been removed. At least when I looked at it the replacement was SFW.

Those who forget their history...

[gorehog]

From the article...

A new Mach-6 reconnaissance jet being developed for the Air Force would offer a combination of speed, altitude and stealth that could make it virtually impervious to ground-based missiles, sources said.

My response? Francis Gary Powers. Goodnight Folks, you've been a wonderful crowd.

Re:Those who forget their history...

[turgid]

My response? Francis Gary Powers. Goodnight Folks, you've been a wonderful crowd.

He was flying a U2, not an SR-71. Top speed 510mph.

Ummmm... You do realize

[porkchop_d_clown]

that the SR-71 flew over a lot more than Vietnam, and was created in direct response to the U-2 shot down by the USSR?

The soviets tried many times to shoot down the SR-71, but it was simply faster than the missiles.

Re:Ummmm... You do realize

[vought]

The soviets tried many times to shoot down the SR-71, but it was simply faster than the missiles.


Uh...cite a source? I've searched the web and can't seem to find your source for Soviet shoot-down attempts.

And FYI: The Soviet-designed SA-2 missile? 4-4.5 Mach. That's faster than a Blackbird.

Re:Ummmm... You do realize

[rlp]

Uh...cite a source? I've searched the web and can't seem to find your source for Soviet shoot-down attempts

Source: Mig Pilot by John Barron

Re:Ummmm... You do realize

[NormalVisual]

And FYI: The Soviet-designed SA-2 missile? 4-4.5 Mach. That's faster than a Blackbird.

Everything I've seen on the SA-2 indicates a top speed of about Mach 3-3.5, and that's only sustainable for about 20 seconds or so. The records set by the Blackbird are 2,193 mph (Mach 3) and 85,000 feet (right at the edge of the SR-2's envelope), and the SR can maintain that speed/altitude for quite a bit longer than 20 seconds. Practically, I don't see SA-2s being a real threat.

We'll ignore for the moment that the USAF hasn't ever been in the habit of broadcasting the true capabilities of the higher-performance aircraft it operates, and let's just say that I have good reason to believe that the Blackbird's records are not representative of what the aircraft was capable of. I'm also pretty sure you won't be able to corroborate that on the Web. Believe what you will. :-)

Re:Ummmm... You do realize

[smilindog2000]

As this is slashdot, I'll throw out what I've heard without siting a source. I hear the USSR shot plenty of missiles at the blackbird, but at that altitude, the missiles turned into flying bricks, unable to turn effectively. Designed for that altitude, the blackbird simply had to make a slight turn to avoid a missile.

Re:Ummmm... You do realize

[smilindog2000]

I'm also pretty sure you won't be able to corroborate that on the Web. Believe what you will. :-)

I'm feeling too lazy to go do the work, but I believe you can corroborate this very easily. Simply look at the length of time that the USSR held the world speed record, and then look at what US plane then took back the crown. Answer? All the US did to counter new USSR records was send the SR-71 back into the sky and let people see it break the record. The plane was retired while still holding the official record. I haven't even heard a semi-credible opinion on how fast the thing really goes.

Re:Ummmm... You do realize

[Anonymous Coward]

If you believe that the words of someone who is trying to liven up the sales of their little book can be considered a valid source on this kind of thing, then you really have a lot to learn.

You're thinking of Aurora.

[porkchop_d_clown]

The Air Force is not 'hard at work' developing this craft. It has been in use for at least a decade now. The Aurora was developed in the 80's and 90's. I'm guessing that this is a successor to that vehicle.

Re:A11/YF12/SR71: where to get parts?

[lommer]

Doesn't NASA still fly a -71 though for research purposes?

If USAF Is Developing This. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

you morons will be the last to know.

Ha ha ha!

Sounds like D-21 redux.

[MtViewGuy]

I wonder does anyone remember Project Tagboard, the Lockheed D-21 unmanned drone that could fly at around 2,700 mph to fly a pre-programmed course before ejecting its camera pack? While the idea worked it was not a paragon of reliability and the project was cancelled in 1971.

However, thanks to technology improvements since then, this new drone could probably work, thanks to better materials, fly-by-wire systems, and GPS navigation for more precise control of flight path. It would probably be launched off modified B-52 bombers like the D-21 drone.

Re:Sounds like D-21 redux.

[Richard Elmore]

The D-21 had problems being launched from A-12 aircraft at supersonic speed, Kelly Johnson was quoted as saying it was "the most dangerous maneuver we have ever been involved in, in any airplane I have ever worked on."

Launching from a B-52 using a booster rocket to accelerate to the speed needed to start the drone's ramjet engine was another option. One problem there was that the radar signature of a D-21 launch looked a very similar to the launch of a Hound Dog missle so there was concern that somebody might jump to the wrong conclusion and shoot back.

In the end the poor reliability of the drone itself killed the project; of the four operational D-21 missions no film was ever successfully recovered.

FWIW

[Anonymous Coward]

I got one of those "can neither confirm nor deny" statements from..someone who would actually know about such things.. and he said, well implied on my direct questioning, that the internet rumors about "brilliant buzzard" were the closest to reality.

They are always two generations beyond what they admit to. One generation is the prototypes, another is the smaller scale actual deployment as in "suitable for use, and being used".

So yes, I agree with you. I also think, although no way can I prove it, that there exists a black ops pure military manned space force outside of the shuttle.

Re:FWIW

[somersault]

"I also think, although no way can I prove it, that there exists a black ops pure military manned space force outside of the shuttle."

Sounds very useful.. are they up there hotwiring TV satellites so that the russians can all get pay-per-view for free, which will shatter their already poor economy beyond all repair?

National Aerospace Plane anyone?

[GodfatherofSoul]

Conspiracy time, but doesn't the Aurora look a lot like the NAS? I wonder if it was axed to slow the leaking of its technology into the civilian sector.

2020?...

[Retting]

It would seem reasonable that a couple of these could fly by 2012+ They would in turn operate with complete deniability.

Question about the SR-71

[swordgeek]

I've been curious about something for ages regarding a very specific SR-71, namely A-12 #60-6933, permanently mounted on display at the San Diego aerospace museum.

That particular plane flew an insanely short life--something like 68 hours. Does anyone know why?

Re:Question about the SR-71

[doc_u]

According to most of the sites I've seen, A-12 60-6933 racked up 217 flights, and 406.3 flight hours.

http://www.sr-71.org/

that's funny...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the headquarters for halliburton is in dubai. Hasn't seemed to slow down the tax payer cash pipeline to them. Ya, technically not a government, but close enough for government work.

All industry is global now. We give cash aid to israel, they turn around and buy alleged "USA" arms with it, then sell them to china-or try to.

Stuff like that. Tons of examples. Advanced armaments are big business, and cash talks. You got enough cash, you can buy anything, one way or the other.

War is a racket, a congame. Big budget warstuff is just a real big racket, and when it comes to *really* big money, words written on paper mean about nothing.

Stealth heat signature

[cojsl]

In the excellent "Skunk Works" about Lockheed Martin's special projects division, Ben Rich discusses the problem of masking the heat signature from air friction against the airframe of a plane flying Mach 6, saying it would show up like a meteor to a thermal detector. At that speed you can't shoot it down, but the observed can detect it thermally. I recall that he said they put additives in the SR-71's fuel to reduce the heat signature of its exhaust.
It seems that the U2 and SR-71 overflights may have had a calming effect on US military actions, as they allowed the US to better understand the USSR's level of alert, and prevented overreaction to a false belief that the USSR may have been massing for an attack.

Re:A11/YF12/SR71: where to get parts?

[qzulla]

Yeah. NOAA has one too.

I have a friend who used to work on them. We have spent more than a few hours discussing them. Nice plane.

Too bad I can't talk about our discussions.

qz

Answer about the SR-71

[Anonymous Coward]

A-12 60-6933 flew 217 flights for a total of 406.3 flight hours.

http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/flighthours.php

pretty easy though

[r00t]

A satellite can be seen from all over China. It can thus be hit, simultaneously, from all over China.

This is a simple matter. Make lots of lasers. Use them.

Re:pretty easy though

[smilindog2000]

I think all that air in the way is the worst problem, isn't it? Wasn't that why Regan wanted to put his lasers in space?

Math time

[tempest69]

11 miles per second = 660 miles per minute = 39,600 miles per hour..

High end pulse lasers have down to femtosecond dwell times, presumably a microsecond pulse laser could manage some damage. Even so, a good ablative material could reduce laser effectiveness by a substantial margain.

Storm

Re:Math time

[TooMuchToDo]

Ablative = more weight. Also, forgive my math, as I had been up for 30 hours straight. Why not go with a highly reflective surface? A laser can't destroy a mirror.

Re:Math time

[tempest69]

ablative=mirrored surface that stays mirrored after a few layers are burned off. Yup mirrors burn with enough power. sure there are other types of ablative armor but this would be the logical choice.. If the materials Technology is there I would go with a metal/diamond/metal/diamond////// composite, as diamond layers can transmit light and heat to prevent localized heating, and the metals can transmit heat to both layers as they're heated.

I can out troll you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like you have a case of intestinal control problems, here is what you can do to cure your ailment.
Take your pick of one or two
1

• Go Find a Cliff or a bridge somewhere
• Take your entire fucktarded family
• Have all of them jump off to their deaths
• Jump to your death

or

2

• Find a razor
• Run a hot bath
• Slit your fucking wrists fucktard

Once you do either of those you won't be pooping your fucking pants again and we won't have to put up with stupid little fucktards like you again.

Tip of the iceberg

[clickclickdrone]

Back around 1995 I used to work with a guy who was ex-Boeing and worked on one of their Stealth prototypes. He was most definitely not one for joking, tall tales or exageration so I was surprised when he noted that back then there was some 9 aircraft in active service that no-one knew about, 3 Airforce, 2 army and 4 naval. He also reckoned that one was equipped purely with energy weapons. If anyone had come out with this I'd have said, yeah, right but this guy really wasn't the sort to make stuff up for a joke. He also confirmed Aurora existed but added 'but that's not the good one'.

Re:Tip of the iceberg

[Anonymous Coward]

I call B.S. The fact that the guy would "confirm" the existence of projects to you suggest to me that he's just making up stories to impress. The people who work in this industry- especially the skunk works types take their oaths of secrecy very seriously. I have a relative who works in the industry and the most he's ever said to anyone is "if only I could tell you what I'm working on."

Re:Tip of the iceberg

[Anonymous Coward]

Allow me to explain something about top-secret clearance.

Those who have it or had it ALWAYS have a mundane and even mostly true cover story. The people working on those skunk-works projects tell their family and friends that they're working on tire pressure monitors, door hinges, etc. They leave out the part about it being an anti-gravity mag-lev zero-friction door hinge for Wonder Woman's invisible plane. Even spooks need something verifiable for the resume.

The janitors and accountants ALWAYS tell you "Oh, I wish I could tell you what I'm working on," "I've seen things that would make your skin crawl," etc. Anybody who tells you they can't tell you what they do for a living is either Walter Mitty or an IRS Agent.

And the background-checkers ALWAYS make sure you stick to your story, and DON'T tell people "If I told you, I'd have to kill you."

SA-12 aka S-300

[theolein]

I'm not so sure that this craft will be invulnerable to surface to air missiles such as the S-300V (SA-12b) fielded by Russia, China and India. The SA-12b has a range of between 100 and 200 km and a speed of 2.4km/s (Mach 7.24) and is known to have a limited anti-ballistic missile capability. Any craft travelling at mach 6 is not going to be very manoeuvrable (less than a missile in any case) and if it were to come in range of the SAMs would very likey be shot down. It is also an interesting coincidence that the SR-71 was slowly retired as later variants of the S-300 became operational as it would have made intercepts possible even over international waters where the SR-71 usually operated (The limits of view at 80 000 feet altitude is about 640km so there good information could be gathered without endangering the crew and craft, and satellites could actually get closer to the target than the SR-71 could), but you can be sure that the SR-71 was never operated over any area where there were active and hostile S-300s.

That said, tracking a target at mach 6 is no easy task. If the plane deploys some stealth or good ecm it will be no easy target. But invulnerable I seriously doubt. In the same manner that Russia upgraded its S-27 Topol M ICBM to manoeuvre in order to make targeting by the US ABM interceptor missiles, I am pretty sure that both China and Russia would be able to develop a counter to the SR-72 relatively cheaply, probably by improving the S-300 system.

I think the real use of a system such as this would be against countries like Iran, which the US fears is going to threaten Israel.

Re:SA-12 aka S-300

[MtViewGuy]

However, the S-300V still might not be able to intercept this unmanned vehicle because traveling at Mach 6 and 100,000 feet with a very low radar signature and using new means to cool the structure to lower the IR signature, any interceptor missile will probably require a nuclear warhead to do a successful intercept, because at Mach 6, by the time the S-300V missile reaches the altitude of this UAV it maybe out of range for destruction by a conventional warhead.

Re:SA-12 aka S-300

[Sinical]

I am going to make the assumption of Mach 6 == 660mph. See:

http://aerospaceweb.org/question/atmosphere/q0112. shtml

6 * 660mph -> 6373 kilometers an hour.

I dunno SA-12 radar range. From:

www.tscm.com/rdr-hori.pdf

and assuming an aircraft @ 100k feet, it should be visible from *way* beyond missile range (643km: we agree-ish). I'm going to say that's about 1/10th the speed of the plane, e.g. you have 6 minutes from the time you see it until it's overhead. Do you want to tail chase the plane? If not, make that firing decision quickly. @ 2.4k/s, your 200km missile has 83 seconds to make the intercept. But 200km is probably "fall out of the sky, no kinetic energy to make a maneuver" kinda range. Let's say you have 60 seconds. I wonder, though.

Takes 12.5 seconds from speed 0 when accelerating at a constant 40g (probably that's high: none of *my* missiles have motors that good for that long (boost is usually 5-6 seconds)) to reach 30,480m (100k feet). Oh dang, I see Wikipedia says 100g of accel. Well, that won't be for long with a 2,000kg missile w/ rocket motor efficiencies. I can't seem to get the math right for motor propellant specific impulses and whatnot, but you gotta be burning significant mass per second to hold that crazy speed (though I suppose it gets easier as mass goes down).

Lessee. Assume 100g == 1km/s^2. So top velocity in 2.5 seconds. Cover 3065m. You have 27,416m to go. Takes 11seconds at 2.5km/s. So changes to 13.5 seconds from 12.5 seconds. Not too different.

To me, it looks pretty dicey. I guess probably not awful if you have orders to shoot down everything, but what if the plane just goes into an altitude zoom when the missile lifts? 1770 m/s horizontal at 30km up vs the missile coming straight up? Who loses control effectiveness first (cannot maneuver)?

I think the plane wins, in general. I know I am the hand-waving winner.

Re:SA-12 aka S-300

[Anonymous Coward]

if the plane starts to maneuver to avoid the missile it will lose energy and make things easier for the missile. There is also the issue of the MiG-31 in its upgraded varients with its ever longer range missiles. The Russians have ramjet powered missiles in prototype (like the R-77M) that shouldnt have much problem with scramjet powered drones in the future. There has been talk of resuming MiG-31 production with a new engine. The old MiG-31 was a mach 3 interceptor, with new engines and airframe improvements it could be pushed to mach 4 (in some varients its already a mach 3.25 interceptor). It doesnt need to match this things speed if it can be made to fire mach 7 missiles. Air-launched varients of S-300 family missiles have long been proposed, but never built because there was never a need until now.

The Russians can counter this thing on the cheap just like they have managed to counter every US platform, it usually takes them 10 years to do it, but they do it on 1/20th the budget.

Re:SA-12 aka S-300

[theolein]

That's all very nice, but I said that the Russians and Chinese could improve the S-300 system as they already have through three or four successive versions, more than doubling its performance in that time, and it's very unlikely that a system like the S-300, which is known for its radar's ability to look over the horizon, would not be linked into a network of early warning devices.

TSR-2

[clickclickdrone]

Back in 1964 the UK was busy developing the TSR-2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAC_TSR-2 which was pretty tasty even back then so it wuldn't take a huge jump to think that over 40 years later, the current state of the art is stuff we can only dream of and won't know about for some years to come.

Mach 6?

[Guerilla* Napalm]

That means they won't find weapons of mass destruction or Osama far faster than before.

It's not just an urban legend ...

[Slayer]

The claim that the SR-71 was orininally meant to be called RS-71 and then misread by LBJ comes from the book "Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed", written by a guy who should know what he writes (he was the head of the Lockheed Skunk Works after all ...)

Ben Rich's memories may be inaccurate, but the GP story is not just a baseless myth.

Finite but not relevent

[bWareiWare.co.uk]

Accurately maybe, but the targeting isn't that fast. At 4,000MPH and 100,000feet you would only need a device that can rotate at 3.36 degrees a second.

4,000MPH = 1788.16m/s
100,000 feet = 30480m
arctan(1788.16/30480) = 3.35747538 degrees/s

In fact you only need to rotate 90 degrees a second to track something travailing at the speed of light from that distance.

Not sure what stops them adding some nice chrome effect panelling though.

There was a YF-12A

[shis-ka-bob]

Which was the fighter version of the SR 71. It didn't see much use, but they did find a way to launch weapons. From http://www.blackbirds.net/sr71/srspec.html

YF-12A

• Construction: Titanium (Beta-120/Ti-13V-11Cr-3A1) monococque w/some super-high- temperature plastics.
• Length: 101 feet, 8 inches
• Wingspan: 55 feet, 7 inches
• Wing Area: 1,795 square feet
• Height: 18 feet, 6 inches
• Landing Weight: 68,000 pounds * Maximum Gross Take-off Weight: 124,000 pounds
• Maximum Speed: 3.2 Mach above 75,000 feet
• Operational Ceiling: Classified, but probably over 80,000 feet
• Maximum Unrefueled Range: Classified
• Armament: 3 Hughes GAR-9/ AIM-47A air to air radar guided missiles (maximum speed 4 Mach)
• Powerplant Data: 2 Pratt & Whitney J58 (JT11D-20A) High-bypass-ratio turbojets

YF-12A production: 3 aircraft

Like the Lockheed D-21/M-21

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah it is what you are talking about only it was made 30 years ago the global hawk is very similar to th SR72 idea too wiki link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_D-21/M-21

Devil's advocate

[benhocking]

An ICBM, unlike a cruise missile or an SR-71, has a very steep angle of ascent, and comes down pretty steeply, too, doesn't have much of a heat signature on the way down, and since most (or all?) of those held by the US and Russia have MIRV warheads, the things coming down will also be far, far smaller than an aircraft. A spy plane looks nothing like a missile on radar.

A lot of people have made similar arguments here, and I do not dispute their basic truth. However, what's to stop someone from put a H-bomb on a supersonic plane and detonating it (not necessarily a hypothetical question)? Everyone seems to say that you would know it wasn't a nuclear weapon because it was so obviously a supersonic plane - wouldn't that make it the ideal vector for a first strike?

Of course, this leads me to wonder what an H-bomb detonation would look like if it was set off at Mach 6...

Invisible Satellite making SR-72 obsolete?

[Anonymous Coward]

if the SR-72 fuss is about Satellite menace, what about making invisible Satellites? I think it could be a lot cheaper, and also its necesary due to china menace of anti-satellite weapons.

Another unused weapon

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh great, billions more tax dollars spent on a weapon we will never use. Flying this over any country other than our own will offend people and therefore it will never be used.

Clarification of "Classified"

[rehtonAesoohC]

A lot of people in comments are claiming conspiracy about the Air Force and Lockheed Martin denying comment on the plane's existence or lack thereof. When someone says information is classified, it is not a confirmation or a denial of its existence... It simply means that any information someone might have about the possible existence of a theoretical super-plane is on a need-to-know basis. If the general public has a need to know (wouldn't happen unless it was something like Armageddon) then the general public will be informed.

There's no need to immediately jump to "It's classified so it must exist." If that was the case, then ask any Air Force officer privy to classified information for info on that information. If you asked "Are there aliens at Area 51?" I guarantee you they'd respond with "That's classified." Same thing with "Is the Air Force testing prototype beam weapons?" Classified. I know that in this case, they simply denied comment, but the same principle applies. Saying nothing on the issue is not a confirmation of a person's suspicions.

XP-72

[giminy]

I'm not sure that SR-72 could be a valid name for the plane? During testing, wouldn't that imply a designation of XP-72 or XF-72, which has already been used? Someone that knows more about experimental aircraft and their designations may want to chime in.

Reid

Obviously a supersonic plane...

[DarthStrydre]

Reference the B1 Lancer Bomber. It is not stealth, like the B2, but it is designed for supersonic flight. Published specs say it travels at 1.25 Mach, so it is no match for a SR-71 or the SR-72, however it is capable of carrying 134,000 lbs of armaments.

Given the maximum sweep of the wings on the Lancer (67 degrees), a napkin calculation of asin(1/(90-67)) indicates the maximum speed is roughly Mach 2.49.

This is only a rough computation, and does not take into account engine requirements, etc., but it does suggest that the 1.25 number is understated. Perhaps... in a dive, with a tailwind...

An ideal vector for a first strike? Nope... the flight envelope of the Lancer is very different from a SR-71. I'd much rather have a SR-71 flyover than a B1. Though, it was quite neat at the OshKosh Airshow a few years back... in the morning humid air, curls of condensation whisping off the top while performing a banked turn...

I was stationed at Armageddon Air Force Base

[Anonymous Coward]

But experts say enormous challenges remain. First, the SR-71's top speed was about 2,200 mph. Pushing a plane at twice that speed in the thin air of the upper stratosphere would require exceptionally powerful engines. Second, friction at high speeds could reduce stealth.

The base in question (I won't name it) still has a couple of SR71s and U2s, if Google Maps is to be believed. Of course, what I saw on Google Maps could well be not realy even aircraft.

I was stationed at this base during the cold war. There were more B-52s there than I could count, and they were all loaded with atomic bombs, waiting for WWIII. At one point my job was to make sure my vehicle was full of fuel and in good shape so when WWIII broke out I could drive the pilot to his B-52 so he could loose atomic hell on the Soviets. I spent the day playing pool and pac-man, reading, and eating the best chow I'd ever seen in a mess hall, better than most civilian restaraunts. Great duty! It was supposedly punishment for calling a higher ranking asshole an asshole. Go figure.

There were nine SR71s there. God, but those aircraft were unbelievable! They had HUGE engines on them. I've seen the space shuttle take off (actually saw every one up to Challenger, that was the first one I didn't seee take off) and the shuttle takes off SLOW. When the SR71 takes off, there is a humungous roar; a mile away the ground shakes. It rolls down the runway what looks like a short distance, does a wheelie, and takes off like a bottle rocket. In just three or four seconds it is completely out of sight!

Note that this was decades ago. The same magazine TFA is in printed (while I was stationed there) that the SR-71 flew from England to the US in half an hour, and fifteen minutes of that was at tanker speed for refueling! I'll bet somebody got their ass reamed for printing that one.

The pilots wore what looked to me like astronaut suits. I suspected that they could reach the edge of space, but they might have just been G-suits.

As I said, I was stationed with these things over thirty years ago and they are STILL like science fiction. There is also more about them that I'm not going to mention, as there was/is technology in them that is still (rightly) classified.

I'm thinking these new ones are probably equipped with Photon Torpedos and Phasers. That's how incredibly science fictiony the SR71 was.

Perhaps you didn't get my implication

[benhocking]

I was talking about exploding the H-bomb from within the supersonic plane. Considering the expense of a nuclear war, I assumed that the plane was relatively expendable.

Re:Perhaps you didn't get my implication

[sumdumass]

But you wouldn't need something like that. A UAV launched from sub flying under the radar with a nuclear warhead or a cruise missile would be just as effective. 10 minutes between noticing a plane flying were it shouldn't be and blowing things up and a UAV or Missile coming isn't going to do much in the reaction timing department unless something like the missile defense system is in place. And even then, the plane will probably be shot down for flying in the wrong airspace.

Only in games do war for no reason popup. In the real life, there would be tensions and suspicion well before a secrete attack where something like this could make a difference. If it came down to the point were someone though attacking another country was the right thing to do, the environment most likely wouldn't allow a plane carrying bombs fly over a city unchecked unless it was some terrorist who hijacked a plane that should have been there.

Not serious

[r00t]

China already can hit a satelite. They've done it. BTW, can't you see the stars at night?

Regan wasn't proposing normal lasers. He wanted to use X-ray lasers. An X-ray laser has a tank of fluid which generates the beam when excited by X-rays. The X-ray source was of course a nuclear explosion. These were one-time-use devices that could fire numerous beams at once.

Wow, faster than the Mach 5!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Mach 6.

Hmmm, assuming a typical security underestimation of speed, you can multiply it by about 1.6 to get the real top speed of roughly...Mach 10.

Fascinating.

Oh wait, I reverse-engineered based on historical records and applied it to currently classified information vs. admitted information.

Sorry! I'm sure no one else figured out how to do this, like that woman from the article two weeks ago about how large the secret organization budgets are.

inheriting past problems

[Chewbacon]

This could exacerbate a problem with the SR-71 as far as friction goes. Like with the Concorde, the SR-71 would expand due to the heat from the friction. This would cause it to leak fuel while sitting on the ground and it would have to refuel after take off and heating up. So you have an aircraft in the works that'll go almost twice as fast as its predecessor, so the plane will only expand more and that could lead to more leaking fuel while on the ground. Does the government get a discount on petroleum? It just sounds like a concern to me of wasting fuel.

Hehehe

[HiggsBison]

I'm confused.

That's what they want you to think!

Propaganda?

[jhRisk]

I'm wondering if this is international scare propaganda? After all there have been a few references as of late to iron curtains. Besides, wouldn't it make sense to use the existing expertise and technology gained through the years our Predators have been around and leverage that platform to accomplish this mission? Wouldn't it be better to build massive numbers of smaller, more affordable, unmanned expendable aircraft that transmit imagery to nearby AWACS and other reconnaisance units? It would also fit more closely with the supposed future model of the entire military remote controlling their respective equipment safely behind enemy lines.

You'd think we learned our lesson with the costly F-22 and would be throttling ourselves back a bit on the whole "less numbers of top notch equipment."

You missed the most important question...

[benhocking]

What would an H-bomb explosion at Mach 6 look like? ;)

(Not that I think we should find out.)

Re:You missed the most important question...

[Thundersnatch]

What would an H-bomb explosion at Mach 6 look like?

Almost exactly the same as a "traditional" H-Bomb airburst. The thermal pulse travels at nearly the speed of light, and would vaporize the plane almost instantly. So the shockwave and fireball that form would probably radiate from the detonation point at almost exactly the same speeds and shapes as a stationary airburst.

The actual fission-fusion part of a thermonuclear nuclear detonation is so short that the fact that the bomb is moving at high speed makes almost no difference. The added energy of a hurtling piece of machinery is inifitesmally small compared with the detonation energy.

Highly unlikely

[heroine]

US's policy is to maintain a legion of obsolete workers by never winning wars and using obsolete equipment. They're not building any new planes.

Shape of the "mushroom" cloud?

[benhocking]

I wasn't considering at all the added energy of the plane (since that would definitely be infinitesimally small compared to the detonation energy), but I was thinking more about the momentum of the plane being imparted to the explosion and how that would distort the mushroom cloud. From the plane's (and bomb's) inertial reference frame there's this huge quasi-wind (at Mach 6, it's not like any normal wind) that should significantly distort that shape.

Re:Shape of the "mushroom" cloud?

[Thundersnatch]

In Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie , film clips of several high-altitude detonations are shown. Carried atop various missiles, all of which are probably going much faster than mach six (vertically), the fireballs from these high-altitude detonations are still almost perfectly spherical until they start drifting inthe wind many seconds after detonation.

As I mentioned, the fireball is formed by radiation effects within about one microsecond, and its radius is several hundred meters at least. Given that in one microsecond, the Mach 6 plane would only travel about two milimeters, I do not think the fireball (and the resulting mushroom cloud if the detonation were near the ground) would be significantly deformed. Everything inside the fireball is essentially superheated plasma, and the blast wave, which creates the mushroom cloud by kicking up debris, radiates outward from the fireball. So the momentum of the vaporized plane would essentially be overwhelmed by the momentum added to all the particles inside the superheated fireball.

But this is all just semi-informed speculation on my part.

LoL. You ask *me* for cites?

[porkchop_d_clown]

And then you spout that Mach 4.5 number?

The SA-2 has a maximum range of about 31 miles, a maximum operating altitude of 80,000 ft, and speed of Mach 3.5. It usually carried a high explosive warhead of 287 lbs, though nuclear versions are also known.


As for the SR-71, it's top speed has never been declassified, but assuming a top speed of 3.0, and a flight altitude of 100,000 feet, by the time the missile reaches that altitude, it only has a few miles of operating range left - easy enough to keep away from until it runs out of fuel a few seconds later.

And here's an example of what happens when you try.

I think self-destructs

[porkchop_d_clown]

are a Hollywood invention. If you spend a lot of time making a vehicle indestructible, then figure out a way to easily destroy it with a small device, doesn't that mean you just wasted a lot of time?