Showing posts with label SR-72. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SR-72. Show all posts
Thursday, April 03, 2014
Photographer Narrows Texas 'Mystery Plane' | UFO NEWS
Reports of an unidentified plane, three of which were spotted flying in formation over Amarillo, have prompted sky watchers of all stripes to weigh in.
Perhaps the most intriguing theory, from a retired U.S. Marine with years of experience in aviation, is that it might have been an SR-72 Blackbird, a Lockheed Martin supersonic spy plane under development in California.
The pilotless SR-72, an aircraft being designed to fly at six times the speed of sound, will be able to cross an entire continent in less than an hour, according to Lockheed Martin.
James Vinyard, who spent nearly 17 years in the Marines and worked with a jet squadron in Arizona, suggested that the SR-72, which is a successor to the SR-71 Blackbird, might have been sent by the Pentagon to the Indian Ocean to help search for the missing Malaysian Airlines plane. . . .
Wednesday, November 06, 2013
'Son of Blackbird': Plan for a New Spy Plane
For a big chunk of the Cold War, the U.S. Air Force turned to the SR-71 Blackbird for many of its most important spy missions. The jet-black jet could fly at more than three times the speed of sound at altitudes of 85,000 feet, faster and higher than anything adversaries had to counter it.
The last of the Blackbirds flew in 1999, and the U.S. military hasn't had anything close since.
Now, Lockheed-Martin, the maker of the SR-71, says the "Son of the Blackbird," the SR-72, is in the works, and it will be twice as fast as and way more lethal than its father. That's because the SR-72 will be designed to launch missiles, something the SR-71 didn't do.
"Even with the SR-71, at Mach 3, there was still time to notify that the plane was coming, but at Mach 6, there is no reaction time to hide a mobile target," Brad Leland, Lockheed Martin's program manager for hypersonics, told Aviation Week and Space Technology. The publication provided the first detailed look at the SR-72 plans last week.
"Hypersonic aircraft, coupled with hypersonic missiles, could penetrate denied airspace and strike at nearly any location across a continent in less than an hour," Leland said in a news release.
And, by the way, the SR-72 is envisioned as a drone, unlike the original Blackbird with its crew of two: a pilot and a reconnaissance officer to operate its radar jammers and spy gear. . . .