Having looked about the web for info on this there seems to be a lot of conflicting information about shape, speed and propulsion. I think there is one of these planes of some description, they say satalites can do the job but a superfast plane is far more flexible.

Does it exsist?

Anyone got any links or info?

gheers

Use the search facility and google, this has been covered over and over again. The bottom line is nobody has any solid proof, but it probably exists.

Originally posted by Zzub
Use the search facility and google, this has been covered over and over again. The bottom line is nobody has any solid proof, but it probably exists.

Of that i am 100% sure.

Also the TR-3 (A/B) Black Manta aka Shamu is for real..

It is just that all online and 'sci-fi' info about those is quite #ed up..

(pics and 3 plan views dont look nothing like the real things..)

Btw i have seen TR-3 Black Manta REAL 3 PLAN VIEW in a military type indentification 'manual' while in service..

*edit / note*

It is triangle shaped.. but isnt nuclear powered..

It ha two 'inside tilted' tail planes..

And

It has two conventional jet engines (of F404 type) and has conventional landing gear..

~I love the picture of the aurora that they have on the homepage link.

~Cool avatar there Fulcrum. Where did ya get it? By the way, I totally believe that the tr-3b exists. Too many eyewitness accounts of the craft have been made already and im easy when it comes to believing in x-craft.


Peace,
Jeff

THAP was a notional design for an aircraft type that never made it off the drawing board.

During the late 1970's there were alot of notional designs for stealth aircraft for many different mission. The penetrator at high altitude concept was just one. The drawings submitted in this thread are very basic conceptual designs submitted by Northrup during the late 1970's to DARPA. They were never built.

They are not "TR-3A" drawings. The fact that the drawing shows provisions for a laser-guided bomb is proof enough of that. TR-3A is a designation dreamed up by people like Bill Sweetman and all those other desert rats.

I does seem likely, however, that the USAF probably operates a small, stealthy recce aircraft with the mission of target designation and battle-damage assessment. I would suspect, however, it is more likely a modified F-117 Nighthawk with a recce pallet and better comm gear....

The word Aurora ended up on a military budget paper in Congress I believe. So yes, it exists. Though it is likely a name for a series of vehicles.

Interesting thread - It's easy to get caught up in speculation bordering on lunacy especially when researching this on the web.

In regard to Pyros' post, Bill Sweetman is a highly respected journalist employed by Jane's Defense Weekly. His journalistic work, as is any of the available public sector information on this craft, is speculation.

However, Mr. Sweetman's intimate knowledge of the military aviation industry and the USAF's R&D certainly qualifies him to knit together tidbits of information and come up with a hypothesis that reasons the existence of such a craft.

Originally posted by intelgurl
Interesting thread - It's easy to get caught up in speculation bordering on lunacy especially when researching this on the web.

In regard to Pyros' post, Bill Sweetman is a highly respected journalist employed by Jane's Defense Weekly. His journalistic work, as is any of the available public sector information on this craft, is speculation.

However, Mr. Sweetman's intimate knowledge of the military aviation industry and the USAF's R&D certainly qualifies him to knit together tidbits of information and come up with a hypothesis that reasons the existence of such a craft.

dare i say? intelgurl believes your right about sweetnam?
nice sketches, the impractical shape explains why the project was abandoned in the first place.
anything on the existence of the s-37? it's the russian equialent of the american x29, onboard nuke capable

nice model Lampyridae that thing looks pretty daaammmmm cool

would that be bigger than a normal fighter coz from above it looks like what the british bloke on an oil reg saw trailing a refuling plane in the 80s

[Edited on 27-10-2003 by Kobyoshimaru]

What I'd like to know is how the Aurora goes about running its engines at Mach 6/7 without melting them in seconds... even using fuel as coolant, heat must be a nightmare.

I've read in a couple different magazines that the Aurora uses "RamJet" engineering. Anyone have any info on this?

In response to that exotic fuel the SR-71 used.. it was largely karosene based only to be ignited by a catalyst.

Lampyridae

What I'd like to know is how the Aurora goes about running its engines at Mach 6/7 without melting them in seconds... even using fuel as coolant, heat must be a nightmare

its actually inlet temperatures that you have to worry about. if you can control the temperature, then the engines will remain cool. aircraft engines can handle airspeeds up to 560mph on there own, above that the compressure face(the fan blades you see when standing infront of the engines) acts like a wall, because it can not process the air coming towards it, hence the reason why supersonic aircraft have long inlets to feed the engines. inside the inlets are ramps that fold up and down, slowing down the incoming air from whatever airspeed you are at down to the ideal 560mph. the problem is these ramps squeeze the air and create a #load of friction at high speed, thus creating alot of heat, which can burn out turbine core's extremly fast. DARPA has came up with the MIPCC engine(mass injection precompression cooled turbine) it injects water and liquid oxygen into the engine inlet, the water and LOX not only cools the inlet temps, but the LOX expands to regular oxygen allowing the engines to run in near space enviroments. perfect engines for a hypersonic aicraft. if the Aurora exists the MIPCC engines, are the ones most likely and most believeable to power it. PDE engines don't live up to there expectations yet. both P&W and GE engines have yet to achieve pulse detonation action, and untill they do those engines will suck more fuel and create more noise than a 50's turbojet,

BTW Lampyridae, did you pick that name because you like the Bug, or the project behind that name?

The SR-71's engines ran subsonic, using clever shock traps as well (the distinctive inlet spike) and mainly ran on the suction generated by the engines at high Mach.

I think it's a pulse detonation engine on the Aurora (trust me on this, it's very reliable info), as your standard ramjets get bottled up with air and any more spills out the side at hypersonic speeds. PDEs might also allow the engine to cool in between pulses, and if they can pulse-detonate at hypersonic speeds in the chamber, it could solve the heat problem. Also, I was also told that its a two-stage pulse detonation - a compression wave and a detonation wave.