Blackswift was a white/grey project that only recently went black. It was supposedly canceled recently, but has all the hallmarks of going underground.

Rolls Royce have progress on Histed with the mach 4 turbine, may be it can be for Blackswist propulsion ?

We know this video, its interesting, this kind of plane, can open the door to routine access of space, I m very impatient to see hypersonic in the white world, now its time to go in 21st century. X-51a is another interestin demonstrator, may be it will be a reusable X-51a demonstrator.

When you talk about the hallmarks of going black, what exactly are the signs?

This is of great interest, and I will definitely be following all future news of this remarkable aircraft!

Originally posted by Coops1323
I'm sure many of you well find it as interesting as I did. I to thought it could be Aurora as well. But now I see that it isn't.[edit on 29-1-2009 by Coops1323]

The Aurora is decades-old technology and a term applied to any streak left behind by an alleged "black" hypersonic spy plane. The reality could be a number of things - technology demonstrators, a specially designed series of craft for special operations (there are people in the military and civilian world who have the job of taking your off-the-shelf military hardware and making it do all sorts of things it was not originally designed to do) - aircraft too expensive to be cost-effective in mainstream service - but a necessary expense for the support they can provide as a small, specialized force.

That said - there's some pretty serious talk about trans-atmospheric strike aircraft (deployed from orbit). They don't run out and tell you "we're planning to militarize space" - but they are certainly working in that general direction. It honestly wouldn't surprise me to see the first stellar military vessels announced and funded within the next twenty years.

If I were an enterprising man - I'd seriously see that "killer asteroid" that's going to cross our path in 2012 as a golden opportunity. Had we the propulsion technology (I make the assertion that, somewhere, we do) - it would be possible to intercept and capture that asteroid, placing it in a distant orbit around the planet.

The use? Why haul materials up from a strong gravitational field when you can park a giant hunk of metal (granted, it needs to be purified - and certain materials would need to be transported for the creation of alloys - but the vacuum of space would allow for a number of methods we cannot utilize in our corrosive atmosphere) out there in space, where it's much easier to move and assemble the materials?

If we miss it this time - we will certainly not miss it the next time around. Though, by then, it would likely be a commercial endeavor as opposed to a military one. Probably would be better that way.

From the threat of impending doom, humanity uses the opportunity to take its first serious steps into space. Quite romantic. Almost as if it could have been planned...... couldn't have happened at a better time, to be honest..... We've got plenty of warning (just within the past decade really got the technology to warn us in time), are on the fringes of viable space flight technology, and threatened with our demise.

Given the track record of our species - we'll come out of this one ahead of the game. Be it of our design, a foreign design, or simply us perceiving order out of chaos...... we're one hell of a lucky species. Attribute that to what forces you want to.

Though I've strayed somewhat off topic.

The point is - there are a lot of projects out there that we don't know about and likely never will. Levels of compartmentalization and the way a lot of that stuff plays out means that few people actually have the whole (or even a complete fragment) story. All kinds of things are developed and tested that never appear on an appropriations bill - they're just part of a pet-project under a general funding bill (handled by local accounting authorities). Some of it is classified - some of it is not classified, but you just never hear about it (and some of it is classified, and no one ever hears of it, so it never gets declassified, even if it's 50 years old).

As part of current thesis I have actually used a quote from Peter Singers latest Book "Wired For War" which discusses this VERY CRAFT the Blackswift - it is known as the "Common Aero Vehicle" --

cheers.

Well, I see a scale model of the cancelled X-33 venture Star . It was one of the offered variations. And not any SR-72. By the way, if they were going to make a new recce aircraft it would not be designated SR_ 72. Better check out next generation attack helicopter for Lockheed Martin at my page- theadvancedboy.blogspot.com ( must copy and paste the link). leave comments.

While everyone's patting the Air Force on the back, I'm thinking of Lockheed.

It's one major advancement after another, after another.

Wouldn't you just LOVE to hang out with those guys at the work stations.

By the way they have been building scale demonstartors for years including ramjet and scramjet concepts usually dropping them from b-52 and then propelling it . Those are nothing more than expensive toys. When on earth will Americans start building real size crafts? otherwise their uberprojects ain`t better than my built models, with a difference that mine cost close to nothing compared to their tax sucking toys costing millions. Do I have to design alone the replacement for Chinooks and Large cargo planes etc? Why don`t you invest in me. at least I build real models not CGIs)))

So amazing that a country in jeopardy with people hurting big time, has the gall to implement these multi-billion dollar black projects. I mean really.. the country can't survive without this 4,000 mph stealth plane? I can't imagine total project cost for something like this not to mention crews and maintenance. Madness..

Originally posted by Darkpr0


Does the USAF intend this to be a UAV/UCAV or will it be manned?

The OP clearly says UCAV.


Fast forward 2 years from the OP ...

Could this be the weapon that takes out buried iranian nuclear sites? Seems like the kinetic energy alone from going mach 6 might be enough to reach the buried targets. Perhaps the MOP is just a smokescreen for this weapon.


[edit on 9/29/2009 by centurion1211]