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Ten years after the Air Force retired the SR-71 spy plane, Lockheed Martin’s legendary Skunk Works appears to be back at work developing a new Mach-6 reconnaissance plane, sources said.

The Air Force has awarded Lockheed’s Advanced Development Projects arm a top-secret contract to develop a stealthy 4,000-mph plane capable of flying to altitudes of about 100,000 feet, with transcontinental range. The plan is to debut the craft around 2020.

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.

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.

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.

“An aircraft with these characteristics could prove a potent response to anti-satellite weapons,” said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute. “If U.S. reconnaissance satellites were lost, an SR-72 could get to areas of interest quickly and provide persistent surveillance in place of the satellite.”

And don’t bother asking the Air Force or Skunk Works executives about their work. None is commenting.

“As a matter of policy, we don’t talk about classified programs — whether or not they exist,” Lockheed’s Tom Jurkowsky said.

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DARPA revives Reagan era hypersonic aircraft dreams with Blackswift

Back in the 1980's during the Reagan administration plans were announced for a new Orient Express, which amounted to a plane that would take off and land like a normal aircraft, but cruise at Mach 25 making runs into low Earth orbit as it went from Dulles airport to Tokyo in two hours.

Obviously, since the flight still takes most of a day to make, the plan for the new Orient Express didn’t pan out as hoped. DARPA is coming back around to the idea of a hypersonic vehicle, but not to the extreme the Regan era government tried to undertake.

The new hypersonic project, dubbed Blackswift, shares the same take off and land normally approach. It aims for a more achievable speed of a Mach 6. Blackswift came from a DARPA project called Falcon that originally intended to build a family of hypersonic test vehicles.

Details of the project point to the famed Lockheed Skunk Works as the main contractor for the vehicle. Reports are saying information gleaned from several sources point to Blackswift being a fighter sized unmanned aircraft.

The propulsion system to take Blackswift to the Mach 6 speeds is a hybrid power plant consisting of a combination turbine engine and ramjet. The turbine engine would take the aircraft up to Mach 3 where the ramjet would kick in and carry the craft up to the Mach 6 cruise speed. Blackswift reportedly doesn’t have the backing of the Air Force at this time, which will obviously be crucial to the project reaching maturity.

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Original von Juergen_LOWW
Mach 6 ...
Die habens aber eilig

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Das kann man aber laut sagen.Bin mal gespannt, ob das auch Auswirkungen auf die Zivilluftfahrt hat.Aber Billigflug nach Australien?????