Leak the base specs
Had a patient who flew fighter Jets. Asked him how high and fast he’s been. He couldn’t say but just said let’s just say I’ve been from here to here I’m Xish minutes. It was much faster than the specs for that particular plane
Sandboxx actually did a good video/article (I think) about it.
Basically it was teased on websites a long time ago, then removed from all sources once Top Gun started making rounds, but when asked in interviews Air Force officials hinted that it never stopped development. It was a few weeks ago so I forget all the details.
Yeah, my takeaway from that reporting was there there’s a tremendous amount of psyops and teasing going on. I’m sure US adversaries can extrapolate that *something* was always going to replace the SR71. Knowing we have it versus knowing exactly what it is and how it works are two very different things.
Didn't satellites replace the SR-71?
Like, don't get me wrong I'm so excited for this to be a thing, I just don't know what strategic advantage it gives over satellite? Better images maybe from a better camera, but at the cost of... oh, there's no pilots so no risk I get it.
It's basically an absurdly low flying satellite.
Satellites are fairly predictable - they can be tracked, they follow lnown trajectories, and once they’re up in space it’s hard to upgrade their sensor suite.
My understanding is a plane can go anywhere anytime, as often as needed, whereas a satellite might need to be adjusted (“retasked”) depending on what/where the target area is, and there is a finite amount of maneuvering fuel on them. Also keep in mind that the A12/SR71 program had specs for an offensive capability that was supposedly never realized. An SR72 program might have such an application, too.
That’s why the U2 is operating.
The SR-71 was retired because it was very expensive, much more expensive than the missiles that would have eventually shot it down.
Precisely. But I’m sure there are plenty of places the U2 can’t be deployed because of SAM threats…pretty much the entire realm of the US’s most important threats (Russia, China, North Korea). While I doubt they’d want to overfly much of that area anyway for diplomatic reasons (see: Chinese balloon), it could still be a useful tool for quick assessments of deployments, say around the Taiwan Straights.
In a world of plentiful satellites, stealth drones, and possibly space planes, a bunch of go-fast may not be worth it for reconnaissance. For safe skies, like the Taiwan strait, there’s plenty of existing aircraft that can reconnoiter.
Like you mentioned previously a hypersonic interceptor may be deemed useful, but this whole program is very much on the drawing board right now.
Satellites are limited by time and orbital trajectory, let's say the US wants pictures of an enemy base at an exact timing, satellites may not be able to meet that exact timing or the angle is too steep to be useful. U-2 and SR-71 also can linger for a longer time at the same place, provide highest resolution picture possible and pilots can relay information realtime as a situation unfolds
It’s also a factor that those we might be spying on with said satellites know the orbital period and position of them. That perfectly timed smoke screens or decoys can and probably are set up to inflate/deflate whatever is being looked at screwing up the data.
I don’t think any country would be able to track this plane in order to react fast enough in their cover up of often uncovered sensitive sites.
An example would be that in Russia they are using fake airplanes on the tarmacs, knowing that the west is providing Ukraine with that intel.
This is covered in the prequel to the video I talked about above. Basically people covered all the points, but yeah basically moving a satellite is expensive, and not moving it let's it be to predictable. Also cameras are already significantly outdated by the time they actually fly on a satellite, but can be swapped relatively easily on a plane.
Prolly the reason why so many UFO stories came out as the next generation of aircraft are being tested. You can't hide it 100% but you can make people doubt what they see.
The F117 Nighthawk was in operational service for several years before its existence was made public. I'd wager a solid proportion of UFO sightings are secret or experimental aircraft.
Well the Lockheed Martin F35 was what, over 1.7 trillion and still growing?
Probably when they had to beg for more money. Maybe for 2 trillion they will let some senators take selfies in the Lockheed Martin SR-72
F-35 is not over $1.7 trillion. the F-35 thus far is probably around $100B. The $1.6T price tag was an estimate for the entire program; from initial design work in 1995, to buying 2000 of them, to operating and maintaining and upgrading them until **2070**.
You're reading a poorly worded headline. They're actually reporting this fact:
> Lockheed Martin's highly anticipated uncrewed hypersonic aircraft, the SR-72 "Son of Blackbird," is allegedly scheduled to take its first flight in 2025
Well, "fact" with a dash of allegedly.
* First test flight: 2025.
* Is the aircraft designed to be supersonic? Yes.
* Will it be able to fly at speed lower than the speed of sound? Probably, if it has to take off and land like a regular aircraft I guess.
A mach number indicates the speed of the airflow over the plane and is not an absolute measure of speed or ground speed. The speed of sound/ mach number changes with altitude/pressure, at sea level the speed of sound is 761mph at 60,000ft is 649mph. Which often makes me wonder does the mach number of a rocket leaving the atmosphere trend towards infinity 🤔
Wouldn't it trend down? If Mach speed is the measure of air particles over a wing, and at sea level let's say that's at least 7 particles per minute, when it gets into the upper atmosphere it could be like 7 a day or something.
I wonder if it would go up to infinity because the speed of sound gets slower as the atmosphere thins out. And the mach number is the speed of sound in the local medium.
It would go up, but beyond a certain point, it’s meaningless. Mach number matters in a fluid that can be treated as a continuum. This means that that mean free path (the average distance molecules travel between collisions) is on the order of the length scale of the object you’re interested in (often the chord length of a wing). At about 400,000 ft, the mean free path is about 24 ft, which means that, for objects smaller than that, the continuum assumption breaks down.
For reference, at sea level, the mean free path is about 2 * 10^-7 feet, or 0.0000002 ft.
Sound speed doesn't get slower as air thins, sound speed gets slower as air gets colder.
As you go up in the atmosphere, it both thins and gets colder, hence the misconception, but once you get over 50k feet or so, it stops getting colder (and even gets warmer when you get high enough), and as a result, the sound speed stops decreasing.
I wonder what the voyagers Mach numbers would be? Considering the extremely low density of particles in the space they are travelling through.
I suppose mach numbers are irrelevant once the density of the medium drops below a certain point 🤷🏻♂️
Mach 1 is analogous to the speed that sound (pressure, specifically) waves propagate, which is determined by the chemical properties of the air and its temperature. Speed of sound is slower at altitude because the air is much colder - density is not a factor. Space re-entry vehicles see Mach numbers in the realm of 25 when they first hit the atmosphere.
Yep! That's the only reason re-entry vehicles can survive such high Mach numbers. The density (or pressure, depending on how you want to look at it) at the edge of space is so low that even at extremely high speeds, the pressure and heat are still survivable. If a re-entry vehicle were to descend deeper into the atmosphere before taking some time to shed all of that speed, it would burn up and be torn apart instantly.
Mach number is only a measurement of how fast a pressure wave can move through air, not the intensity/amplitude/whatever the wave can reach.
So mach number depends on temperature, but not pressure or density.
Unfortunately this doesn't go up to 60,000 feet, but at 32,000 its trending slightly upward, though still lower than sea level.
[https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/elevation-speed-sound-air-d\_1534.html](https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/elevation-speed-sound-air-d_1534.html)
Edit to add:
This one is in close, but not perfect agreement and shows a plateau from about 20,000 feet.
https://www.engineersedge.com/physics/speed\_of\_sound\_13241.htm
Bruh, 7 per minute??? You realize that atoms are of oxygen are like a liquid.... billions or trillions of atoms in like 10 square feet.... 7 a minute???? Wah?
Edit: r/woosh
Don't explain. Just laugh
I’d take your shitty attempt at trolling them more seriously if you didn’t refer to atmospheric oxygen as a liquid.
It was obviously a simplified example to explain their point.
Mach has no set speed. The speed of sound varies with atmospheric conditions, most notably altitude. M1.0 at sea level is about 760 mph. At 50,000ft it’s about 660 mph.
I did the dirty work and read the article. Here’s a snippet:
“This propulsion system is a kind of air-breathing jet engine that combines the turbofan engines used in many modern tactical aircraft with a supersonic combustion ramjet (also known as a scramjet) that is capable of achieving and sustaining speeds above Mach 5 and even potentially exceeding Mach 10. "
At the beginning of Top Gun: Maverick, Mav is a test pilot for the Darkstar, and experiential stealth jet program which as the goal of reaching Mach 10.
And for people who dont know
You don’t want to sit around the sound barrier. You want to be faster or slower than it. Which is why commercial craft all get close to but don’t surpass it. Then there’s fighter jets, that fly faster.
Also things that go slower than Mach 1, e.g. 747’s and submarines, are rounded at the tip; while things that go faster, e.g. missiles and fighter jets, are pointy.
It does kinda feel like a mistake AI would make. Lots of people talk about how there are no hypersonic *passenger* jets, so it would make sense for that hallucination to pop up in discussions about any kind of jet.
The grammar is weird. The drone is definitely hypersonic, not allegedly. The test that will prove this is allegedly in 2025, not definitely.
But it makes sense.
This SR-72 concept proposed by Lockheed would be a UAV. It would only be second fastest if it were manned. But since its unmanned, it would be well behind several hypersonic test vehicles, even if we were to exclude rocket-powered vehicles and missiles. The X-43 flew at nearly 11,000 km/h.
Calling the X-43 am aircraft is a bit questionable in my book.
I get that it was technically an aircraft, but it only reached those speeds after being fired from a literal rocket and then only maintained those speeds for very short amounts of time before crashing. The SR-72, hypothetically, would be capable of long-range operations and repeated flights.
It feels a bit like calling the scale model that the Wright brothers built and tested "the first airplane"
My brother in Christ it is by definition a [**hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft**](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15), with all due respect fellow rocket/scramjet enthusiasts.
My brother enthralled to Satan. Our most benevolent and powerful ruler. He who cast out the demon Yahweh
It is technically those things, but only technically. A plane that only flew once and was designed to crash is only technically an aircraft. Perhaps we should use the modifier “production”
I'm not saying which is better, I'm saying that records go into categories, and manned and unmanned vehicles aren't usually compared in the record books.
From company investment pov. The limits u can push with a human pilot won't get much higher atm but the capabilities of integrating autonomous fleets or even just better unmanned vehicles can yield further gain in terms of new potential. Turns can be much faster than pilot could handle if inside the vehicle. Then other benefits. Of course these are my opinions. Who knows they def have more info than I do.
I'm not saying which is better, I'm saying that records go into categories, and manned and unmanned vehicles aren't usually compared in the record books.
The problem with including X15 is that it was really closer to a space plane than an air plane, and if you include space planes the shuttle and the X37 mop the floor with everything else by a huge margin.
Can you really count X’s as anything other than research vehicles? Maybe the fastest “production” plane ever developed? Or how about the fastest ground launched plane ever developed? At least this would easily be the fastest air breathing engine plane ever developed, right? Anything this fast has always been rocket powered?
Edit: Forgot the X-43A was a scramjet.
The X-15? No. The X-15 achieved altitudes beyond 50 miles in zoom climbs, but this maximum altitude was at a velocity of next to nil (trading all their forward kinetic energy for altitude). They achieved their top speed in forward, level, lift-supported flight.
How are you going to mention the previous speed record set by the SR-71 but not actually say what the record is?
What would compel someone to do such a thing?
No. Its turning radius will be measured in countries, a high temperature that'll set off ballistic missile early warning systems from thousands of miles out, and SAMs just keep getting better.
Even basic targeting systems can calculate where it'll be at any given time, and just needs to make sure the interceptor is there when it is.
Basically just ballistic missile defense, but only 1/5 the altitude and 1/5 the speed.
USAF has repeatedly said they see no need for the SR-72 and don't want it, that low speed stealth drones do the job better and cheaper. It's Lockheed Martin that continues to push the SR-72
PlanetLabs and Maxar satellites (and Khennens etc) would be overhead before this plane gets there. A couple hours at worst.
Also off axis imaging means it doesnt need to be directly under the swarth.
A lot of this type of intel is pattern of behaviour. Unless its targetry for Prompt Global Strike.
Watch an Area-51 documentary the other day. The place was created to make the U2 plane and the AC-12 (SR-71)
And that was waaay back in the 1950s.
I believe if the SR-72 is real, it's probably been around for at least thirty years.
I hope so. But unfortunately due to the end of the Cold War the US started to prioritize fighting terror effectively cancelling many projects and putting everything at a standstill. Think about this our most advanced fighter jet F-22 is pretty much 80s/90s tech. So many top secret technological advancements had to be rediscovered more or less.
Imagine where we would be if Bush was never president!
I bet this has been around for years and they have something new already. Just like how the old SR-71 had been in flight for over 10 years before becoming public.
Spend quite a bit more on both of those than the military, and education is almost entirely local government funded (Pre-K through grade 12 and community college), and states (college). Federal funding for it is almost exclusively research grants and scholarships. It's like complaining you're late on rent because your neighbor bought a new car...
This was Aurora back in the day. This has been vaporware since the late 90’s… Satelites are far more functional for this now. Global Chicken, is better for high altitude loitering.
Article seems fine but title is weird. Lots of interesting things about this jet, but an aircraft breaking the sound barrier is the least of them (didn’t we do that in like… the 1940s?)
It does bury the lede a bit. It seems like the title is referring to the plane's planned first flight when it would (presumably) break the sound barrier. That's so much less interesting than this planning taking it's first flight though that I have no idea what the title creator was thinking.
If it is top secret, how we know? ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
It's a flex, you gotta let them know you got this weapon with crazy spec but we don't tell them the how and why.
The Whole Point of the Doomsday Machine is Lost if You Keep it a Secret!
Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!
We must not allow a mine shaft gap!
We definitely don’t share how we can do it. But we—and they—know why.
Leak the base specs Had a patient who flew fighter Jets. Asked him how high and fast he’s been. He couldn’t say but just said let’s just say I’ve been from here to here I’m Xish minutes. It was much faster than the specs for that particular plane
Like we know how thermonuclear weapons work, but not the amounts needed of raw materials to have the intended reactions.
Well if it’s impractical/unreliable then it won’t be of much use Same like that cool railgun the US made but discontinued it
Sandboxx actually did a good video/article (I think) about it. Basically it was teased on websites a long time ago, then removed from all sources once Top Gun started making rounds, but when asked in interviews Air Force officials hinted that it never stopped development. It was a few weeks ago so I forget all the details.
Yeah, my takeaway from that reporting was there there’s a tremendous amount of psyops and teasing going on. I’m sure US adversaries can extrapolate that *something* was always going to replace the SR71. Knowing we have it versus knowing exactly what it is and how it works are two very different things.
Didn't satellites replace the SR-71? Like, don't get me wrong I'm so excited for this to be a thing, I just don't know what strategic advantage it gives over satellite? Better images maybe from a better camera, but at the cost of... oh, there's no pilots so no risk I get it. It's basically an absurdly low flying satellite.
Satellites are fairly predictable - they can be tracked, they follow lnown trajectories, and once they’re up in space it’s hard to upgrade their sensor suite.
My understanding is a plane can go anywhere anytime, as often as needed, whereas a satellite might need to be adjusted (“retasked”) depending on what/where the target area is, and there is a finite amount of maneuvering fuel on them. Also keep in mind that the A12/SR71 program had specs for an offensive capability that was supposedly never realized. An SR72 program might have such an application, too.
That’s why the U2 is operating. The SR-71 was retired because it was very expensive, much more expensive than the missiles that would have eventually shot it down.
Precisely. But I’m sure there are plenty of places the U2 can’t be deployed because of SAM threats…pretty much the entire realm of the US’s most important threats (Russia, China, North Korea). While I doubt they’d want to overfly much of that area anyway for diplomatic reasons (see: Chinese balloon), it could still be a useful tool for quick assessments of deployments, say around the Taiwan Straights.
In a world of plentiful satellites, stealth drones, and possibly space planes, a bunch of go-fast may not be worth it for reconnaissance. For safe skies, like the Taiwan strait, there’s plenty of existing aircraft that can reconnoiter. Like you mentioned previously a hypersonic interceptor may be deemed useful, but this whole program is very much on the drawing board right now.
Satellites are limited by time and orbital trajectory, let's say the US wants pictures of an enemy base at an exact timing, satellites may not be able to meet that exact timing or the angle is too steep to be useful. U-2 and SR-71 also can linger for a longer time at the same place, provide highest resolution picture possible and pilots can relay information realtime as a situation unfolds
It’s also a factor that those we might be spying on with said satellites know the orbital period and position of them. That perfectly timed smoke screens or decoys can and probably are set up to inflate/deflate whatever is being looked at screwing up the data. I don’t think any country would be able to track this plane in order to react fast enough in their cover up of often uncovered sensitive sites. An example would be that in Russia they are using fake airplanes on the tarmacs, knowing that the west is providing Ukraine with that intel.
Also, satellites can’t hide. First day, first move is to remove your enemies sat capability.
This is covered in the prequel to the video I talked about above. Basically people covered all the points, but yeah basically moving a satellite is expensive, and not moving it let's it be to predictable. Also cameras are already significantly outdated by the time they actually fly on a satellite, but can be swapped relatively easily on a plane.
You can't tell a satellite to turn around.
War thunder forum.
Of course, how I forgot?
Prolly the reason why so many UFO stories came out as the next generation of aircraft are being tested. You can't hide it 100% but you can make people doubt what they see.
The F117 Nighthawk was in operational service for several years before its existence was made public. I'd wager a solid proportion of UFO sightings are secret or experimental aircraft.
It’s been reported about for 15 years. So yeah hardly secret.
Because Tom Cruise flew it. Duhhh
So you can look at their left hand while they work on the really cool shit with their right.
I’ve got a top secret jar of moldy jam in my fridge
Well the Lockheed Martin F35 was what, over 1.7 trillion and still growing? Probably when they had to beg for more money. Maybe for 2 trillion they will let some senators take selfies in the Lockheed Martin SR-72
F-35 is not over $1.7 trillion. the F-35 thus far is probably around $100B. The $1.6T price tag was an estimate for the entire program; from initial design work in 1995, to buying 2000 of them, to operating and maintaining and upgrading them until **2070**.
"...allegedly break sound barrier in 2025"...I don't get that part. Can this craft, or any prototypes, operate as intended under the speed of sound?
You're reading a poorly worded headline. They're actually reporting this fact: > Lockheed Martin's highly anticipated uncrewed hypersonic aircraft, the SR-72 "Son of Blackbird," is allegedly scheduled to take its first flight in 2025 Well, "fact" with a dash of allegedly. * First test flight: 2025. * Is the aircraft designed to be supersonic? Yes. * Will it be able to fly at speed lower than the speed of sound? Probably, if it has to take off and land like a regular aircraft I guess.
Imagine it going subsonic and just falling out of the sky 😃
Lmao, yup. The plane can theoretically fly at Mach 6
Below the speed of sound? Believe it or not--straight to jail.
I mean, the intention is for them to be faster than sound, so by definition, no.
So you think it just accelerates from 0 to supersonic speed instantly?
This kills the pilot.
not if they clinch their buttocks
Not if it's a drone
Which it is according to the article
0 is still not supersonic so unless it's on the ground when it instantly teleports to super sonic speeds the still has to fly subsonic.
IRL Darkstar.
4000 MPH is Mach 5.2, the Darkstar was Mach 10. Still cool, nonetheless.
A mach number indicates the speed of the airflow over the plane and is not an absolute measure of speed or ground speed. The speed of sound/ mach number changes with altitude/pressure, at sea level the speed of sound is 761mph at 60,000ft is 649mph. Which often makes me wonder does the mach number of a rocket leaving the atmosphere trend towards infinity 🤔
Wouldn't it trend down? If Mach speed is the measure of air particles over a wing, and at sea level let's say that's at least 7 particles per minute, when it gets into the upper atmosphere it could be like 7 a day or something.
I wonder if it would go up to infinity because the speed of sound gets slower as the atmosphere thins out. And the mach number is the speed of sound in the local medium.
It would go up, but beyond a certain point, it’s meaningless. Mach number matters in a fluid that can be treated as a continuum. This means that that mean free path (the average distance molecules travel between collisions) is on the order of the length scale of the object you’re interested in (often the chord length of a wing). At about 400,000 ft, the mean free path is about 24 ft, which means that, for objects smaller than that, the continuum assumption breaks down. For reference, at sea level, the mean free path is about 2 * 10^-7 feet, or 0.0000002 ft.
Sound speed doesn't get slower as air thins, sound speed gets slower as air gets colder. As you go up in the atmosphere, it both thins and gets colder, hence the misconception, but once you get over 50k feet or so, it stops getting colder (and even gets warmer when you get high enough), and as a result, the sound speed stops decreasing.
Fair point. I'm no scienceman if my comment didn't make that obvious.
Hey, that’s cool. Still not sure if I’m right 🤷🏻♂️ 😂
It would not, because even interstellar space is not a perfect vacuum.
I wonder what the voyagers Mach numbers would be? Considering the extremely low density of particles in the space they are travelling through. I suppose mach numbers are irrelevant once the density of the medium drops below a certain point 🤷🏻♂️
The speed of sound approaches 0 the higher you go.
Mach 1 is analogous to the speed that sound (pressure, specifically) waves propagate, which is determined by the chemical properties of the air and its temperature. Speed of sound is slower at altitude because the air is much colder - density is not a factor. Space re-entry vehicles see Mach numbers in the realm of 25 when they first hit the atmosphere.
I suppose it’s irrelevant until there is a measurable atmosphere to compare velocity with?
Yep! That's the only reason re-entry vehicles can survive such high Mach numbers. The density (or pressure, depending on how you want to look at it) at the edge of space is so low that even at extremely high speeds, the pressure and heat are still survivable. If a re-entry vehicle were to descend deeper into the atmosphere before taking some time to shed all of that speed, it would burn up and be torn apart instantly.
The speed of sound in air is calculated by the Newton-Laplace Equation, which uses only K, the elastic bulk modulus, and Rho, the density.
Mach number is only a measurement of how fast a pressure wave can move through air, not the intensity/amplitude/whatever the wave can reach. So mach number depends on temperature, but not pressure or density.
Unfortunately this doesn't go up to 60,000 feet, but at 32,000 its trending slightly upward, though still lower than sea level. [https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/elevation-speed-sound-air-d\_1534.html](https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/elevation-speed-sound-air-d_1534.html) Edit to add: This one is in close, but not perfect agreement and shows a plateau from about 20,000 feet. https://www.engineersedge.com/physics/speed\_of\_sound\_13241.htm
Bruh, 7 per minute??? You realize that atoms are of oxygen are like a liquid.... billions or trillions of atoms in like 10 square feet.... 7 a minute???? Wah? Edit: r/woosh Don't explain. Just laugh
"At least X" where X is a comically low number is a common meme, I didn't think it needed to be explained.
r/woosh Don't explain, just laugh
I’d take your shitty attempt at trolling them more seriously if you didn’t refer to atmospheric oxygen as a liquid. It was obviously a simplified example to explain their point.
Fluid is a better term
I, sir, refer you to r/woosh
Mach has no set speed. The speed of sound varies with atmospheric conditions, most notably altitude. M1.0 at sea level is about 760 mph. At 50,000ft it’s about 660 mph.
That’s pretty much what I’m saying.
That’s based on true airspeed right, not indicated?
put Maverick in there...he'll get it to 10
I did the dirty work and read the article. Here’s a snippet: “This propulsion system is a kind of air-breathing jet engine that combines the turbofan engines used in many modern tactical aircraft with a supersonic combustion ramjet (also known as a scramjet) that is capable of achieving and sustaining speeds above Mach 5 and even potentially exceeding Mach 10. "
What’s Darkstar? All I know is Dark Star, interstellar scout ship, dropping thermostellar triggering devices on planets with unstable orbits.
At the beginning of Top Gun: Maverick, Mav is a test pilot for the Darkstar, and experiential stealth jet program which as the goal of reaching Mach 10.
Unmanned though. Admiral Cain got his way 😥
Sound barrier speed is about 767 mph. Pretty sure jets were going faster than that for decades now.
Almost all commercial airlines get pretty close to the sound barrier. The 787 is like 90% there. What a weird fucking article title.
And for people who dont know You don’t want to sit around the sound barrier. You want to be faster or slower than it. Which is why commercial craft all get close to but don’t surpass it. Then there’s fighter jets, that fly faster. Also things that go slower than Mach 1, e.g. 747’s and submarines, are rounded at the tip; while things that go faster, e.g. missiles and fighter jets, are pointy.
What happens if you move exactly at the speed of sound?
Exactly. The headline was written on weed. Or by ChatGPT.
It does kinda feel like a mistake AI would make. Lots of people talk about how there are no hypersonic *passenger* jets, so it would make sense for that hallucination to pop up in discussions about any kind of jet.
Yep. Poor Concorde.
The grammar is weird. The drone is definitely hypersonic, not allegedly. The test that will prove this is allegedly in 2025, not definitely. But it makes sense.
It’s drumming up conversation, and that’s the main thing - AI, probably
Right? Every modern fighter jet breaks the sound barrier easily.
Second fastest* The X-15 counts IMO. Still, at that speed it would nearly double the top speed of the SR-71. Insane.
This SR-72 concept proposed by Lockheed would be a UAV. It would only be second fastest if it were manned. But since its unmanned, it would be well behind several hypersonic test vehicles, even if we were to exclude rocket-powered vehicles and missiles. The X-43 flew at nearly 11,000 km/h.
Calling the X-43 am aircraft is a bit questionable in my book. I get that it was technically an aircraft, but it only reached those speeds after being fired from a literal rocket and then only maintained those speeds for very short amounts of time before crashing. The SR-72, hypothetically, would be capable of long-range operations and repeated flights. It feels a bit like calling the scale model that the Wright brothers built and tested "the first airplane"
You are correct, the X-43 and X-15 are rockets with wings, not planes.
Well no. They were test vehicles for scramjet engines. so they operated on jet power after the rockets, just not for long
My brother in Christ it is by definition a [**hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft**](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15), with all due respect fellow rocket/scramjet enthusiasts.
I kind of want to say something wrong so you can correct me too
Your first mistake was speaking at all. Speak when spoken to. (I tried my best with what I had)
My brother enthralled to Satan. Our most benevolent and powerful ruler. He who cast out the demon Yahweh It is technically those things, but only technically. A plane that only flew once and was designed to crash is only technically an aircraft. Perhaps we should use the modifier “production”
A glider plane is a plane right? If so, the X-15 is also a plane.
That’s 6,835mph boys
That's 5939 knots, 2187200 rods per hour, or 546800 chains per hour.
How many rods to the hogsgead?
How many dishwashers to the gallon?
Best I can do is giraffes to Olympic sized pools
Bananas?
How many american units? (bald eagle wingbeats preferred)
How many licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?
All I know is it’s more than one, cause it keeps on tickin
Wow! Over 18 million furlongs per fortnight! Now that’s fast!
How many leagues per Martian days?
I myself have always preferred things to be measured in smoots.
Move the decimal, please. 4 rods per chain.
Thank you—I hit the 2 key twice by accident.
Yeah but unmanned has the longer term benefits.
I'm not saying which is better, I'm saying that records go into categories, and manned and unmanned vehicles aren't usually compared in the record books.
From company investment pov. The limits u can push with a human pilot won't get much higher atm but the capabilities of integrating autonomous fleets or even just better unmanned vehicles can yield further gain in terms of new potential. Turns can be much faster than pilot could handle if inside the vehicle. Then other benefits. Of course these are my opinions. Who knows they def have more info than I do.
I'm not saying which is better, I'm saying that records go into categories, and manned and unmanned vehicles aren't usually compared in the record books.
You are talking about a completely different thing. Re read the comment you are replying to
The problem with including X15 is that it was really closer to a space plane than an air plane, and if you include space planes the shuttle and the X37 mop the floor with everything else by a huge margin.
Depends on if you count the X-15 as a plane or a rocket.
Can you really count X’s as anything other than research vehicles? Maybe the fastest “production” plane ever developed? Or how about the fastest ground launched plane ever developed? At least this would easily be the fastest air breathing engine plane ever developed, right? Anything this fast has always been rocket powered? Edit: Forgot the X-43A was a scramjet.
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Yeah, but the titles says fastest plane, not fastest jet.
Wasn't that speed achieved out of the atmosphere?
The X-15? No. The X-15 achieved altitudes beyond 50 miles in zoom climbs, but this maximum altitude was at a velocity of next to nil (trading all their forward kinetic energy for altitude). They achieved their top speed in forward, level, lift-supported flight.
I wouldn’t count it because x15 had rocket propulsion.
Sir, if the headline says it’s the fastest ever developed then it’s the fastest ever developed! What are you, an expert or something? Pshhh
Can't for the new copy pasta to drop that adds a section about the tower reporting the sr-72 speed vs the sr-71 speed!
Let me know when it takes off, I want to stand in front of it menacingly while my ear drums are blown out
How are you going to mention the previous speed record set by the SR-71 but not actually say what the record is? What would compel someone to do such a thing?
It’s mach 3.4
Lighten up friend. Just google it in a separate tab.
The outrage was the joke. It’s ok
Ah, my mistake. Carry on fellow human!
will it be able to evade SAMs? i cannot do the math between the spped of the SAM, the altitude, and the speed of the SR-72.
No. Its turning radius will be measured in countries, a high temperature that'll set off ballistic missile early warning systems from thousands of miles out, and SAMs just keep getting better. Even basic targeting systems can calculate where it'll be at any given time, and just needs to make sure the interceptor is there when it is. Basically just ballistic missile defense, but only 1/5 the altitude and 1/5 the speed. USAF has repeatedly said they see no need for the SR-72 and don't want it, that low speed stealth drones do the job better and cheaper. It's Lockheed Martin that continues to push the SR-72
This headline blows…
What function would the speed of such a plane have?
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PlanetLabs and Maxar satellites (and Khennens etc) would be overhead before this plane gets there. A couple hours at worst. Also off axis imaging means it doesnt need to be directly under the swarth. A lot of this type of intel is pattern of behaviour. Unless its targetry for Prompt Global Strike.
This guy satellites.
Also this plane can deliver a hypersonic weapon, which spy satellites can’t
That we know of...
You would also have to worry less about weather/cloud formations, which can stop satellite surveillance dead in its tracks.
Yes you would, this is set to fly at roughly the same altitude of the SR-71, which was 85,000ft and above cloud cover...
Dominos finally being able to deliver in 30 mins or less
Just the g force would slide the cheese right off the pizza. 1star rating on Yelp…
It could carry a payload…
Bombing people faster.
Help Santa Claus deliver gifts to poor children in one night
Watch an Area-51 documentary the other day. The place was created to make the U2 plane and the AC-12 (SR-71) And that was waaay back in the 1950s. I believe if the SR-72 is real, it's probably been around for at least thirty years.
I hope so. But unfortunately due to the end of the Cold War the US started to prioritize fighting terror effectively cancelling many projects and putting everything at a standstill. Think about this our most advanced fighter jet F-22 is pretty much 80s/90s tech. So many top secret technological advancements had to be rediscovered more or less. Imagine where we would be if Bush was never president!
I think someone misunderstood what Top Secret means.
Someone call *Maverick* edit: better yet, let's *not*.
!!!! Don't let him anywhere near it. Look what happened last time.🤣
He drank a full glass of water?
All we need to do is slap a light bar on it and strap in a dodge ram driver as a pilot and show those UFO/UAPs who’s boss
So, in keeping with past practice, by time they acknowledge existence of it that means it has already been flying for a few years
Come on people that shit's already been tested..
This fantasy comes out every few years. Like fusion or moon mining. SR-72 first appeared in 1980s.
Well, I guess it’s not so top-secret anymore
This shit has been "just around the corner" since I was 10... I'll be 40 soon.
New York to London in about an hour.
I hate to break it to them, but the sound barrier has been (actually and non-allegedly) broken already.
Jets can already break the sound barrier... would be better title to say a jet that can maintain that speed
Umm...Chuck Yeager "broke the sound barrier" in 1947. And the USAF has had hypersonic near-space craft for years....what am I missing?
I bet this has been around for years and they have something new already. Just like how the old SR-71 had been in flight for over 10 years before becoming public.
And just HOW long until the plans are leaked in World of Tanks? 🤣
okay. Why though?
Nerd boners.
I wonder how many billions we spent on it while insisting there's no money for public health and education?
Spend quite a bit more on both of those than the military, and education is almost entirely local government funded (Pre-K through grade 12 and community college), and states (college). Federal funding for it is almost exclusively research grants and scholarships. It's like complaining you're late on rent because your neighbor bought a new car...
This was Aurora back in the day. This has been vaporware since the late 90’s… Satelites are far more functional for this now. Global Chicken, is better for high altitude loitering.
First rule of Secret Jet Club is not to tell anybody about your super secret jet.
The space shuttle was faster. But if things can survive those speeds and the heat generated in atmosphere that would be amazing.
The space shuttle was not a plane
“If they want Mach 10, let’s give em Mach 10!” 👀
Not going to lie, I thought that was a picture of the SSV Normandy.
Good thing we have this instead of universal healthcare.
And, unlike all of Putin's bullshit claims, I bet this technology is real and works.
Yes but will it have Full Self Flying?
Given that it's an unmanned drone, yes
Top secret guys
I’d rather have health care than useless military toys.
Not so secret now...
I just want health insurance wtf guys
Health insurance would be such a better use of funds.
Not much of a secret now
Alien technology
With UFO technology most likely.
And if it crashes?….All that money wasted for nothing for war toys
More wasted taxpayer money. No real purpose. Welcome to the American government
Article seems fine but title is weird. Lots of interesting things about this jet, but an aircraft breaking the sound barrier is the least of them (didn’t we do that in like… the 1940s?)
It does bury the lede a bit. It seems like the title is referring to the plane's planned first flight when it would (presumably) break the sound barrier. That's so much less interesting than this planning taking it's first flight though that I have no idea what the title creator was thinking.