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America's Fastest Spy Plane May Be Back -- And Hypersonic (bloomberg.com)
A Lockheed Skunk Works executive implied last week at an aerospace conference that the successor to one of the fastest aircraft the world has seen, the SR-71 Blackbird, might already exist. Previously, Lockheed officials have said the successor, the SR-72, could fly by 2030. Bloomberg reports: Referring to detailed specifics of company design and manufacturing, Jack O'Banion, a Lockheed vice president, said a "digital transformation" arising from recent computing capabilities and design tools had made hypersonic development possible. Then -- assuming O'Banion chose his verb tense purposely -- came the surprise. "Without the digital transformation, the aircraft you see there could not have been made," O'Banion said, standing by an artist's rendering of the hypersonic aircraft. "In fact, five years ago, it could not have been made." Hypersonic applies to speeds above Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound. The SR-71 cruised at Mach 3.2, more than 2,000 mph, around 85,000 feet.
"We couldn't have made the engine itself -- it would have melted down into slag if we had tried to produce it five years ago," O'Banion said. "But now we can digitally print that engine with an incredibly sophisticated cooling system integral into the material of the engine itself and have that engine survive for multiple firings for routine operation." The aircraft is also agile at hypersonic speeds, with reliable engine starts, he said. A half-decade before, he added, developers "could not have even built it even if we conceived of it."
"We couldn't have made the engine itself -- it would have melted down into slag if we had tried to produce it five years ago," O'Banion said. "But now we can digitally print that engine with an incredibly sophisticated cooling system integral into the material of the engine itself and have that engine survive for multiple firings for routine operation." The aircraft is also agile at hypersonic speeds, with reliable engine starts, he said. A half-decade before, he added, developers "could not have even built it even if we conceived of it."
The SR-71 was developed (like all military programs) to serve a specific need: the Communist nations were closed off to the world and their secret police did an enthusiastic and effective job catching traitors. America was simply cut off from intelligence on the ground. Hence, the super-fast spy plane was developed, capable of violating borders guaranteed by international law, racing in to take photos, and racing back out again before the outraged victim country could defend itself. Moreover this was when the space program was in its infancy, satellite photography was unreliable and took a long time from photo to print. There's simply no need today for a spy plane like this.
The Communists never developed a similar plane because if they wanted intelligence, they just sent out a man from their embassy with a camera and a pencil. There was also no shortage of Americans who either believed in Communism or who were easily bought off. At one point, the head of the FBI's counterintelligence agency was a foreign spy.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I thought that they were superseded by satellite imaging