SR-72 Confirmed: Mach 6 Project Blackswift

Sr72 is sooooo 10 years ago..Its like Classic Coke vs Coke Zero

a reply to: darksidius

Maybe its just gone back to black?

I really doubt you'd see this as a line item in the budget. These kinds of projects are funded more by things like the opium trade, etc., lol.

If Lockheed is saying late 2020's, it probably means there are working flight models now (and have been for a few years). I doubt the designation would be SR-72 though.

While a drone would seemingly make much more sense for this kind of mission role....the potential for it to be hacked (or malfunction and be recoverable by the enemy, may make the good old boys in the biz more apt to sign on for a piloted vehicle, one where a flesh and blood person can opt to blow it up, and which can't be hacked into.

a reply to: Gazrok

Actually they're funded through the classified budget. You can tell a lot more than they want to admit reading the budget, but most people don't have the patience. You usually have to watch several years to get trends figured out.

originally posted by: darksidius
a reply to: detachment3
Or may be in fact no reusable plane like SR-72 is possible in real life , hypersonic only for weapon or space shuttle like vehicle. In the new 2019 budget there is no line for reusable hypersonic demonstrator, may be it is realy too difficult to build it.

There are literally dozens upon dozens of line items which dont show up in the unclassified budgets anymore or never have.
Take a look at the most recent RDT&E R-1 for FY19
comptroller.defense.gov...

9999999999 Classified Programs - AF FY19 16.7 Billion US-$, up from 15.2 Billion US-$ in FY18
9999999999 Classified Programs - DW FY19 4 Billion US-$, up from 3.8 Billions US-$ in FY18

Thats an odd 20 billion for classified Military areospace stuff in just one year. But dont assume thats all of it. There are probably projects so deeply classified they never show up on an congressional budget document, classified or unclassified.

And fun fact, prior to FY2010 there were more classified lines items in the unclassified report. Some including the funding, some without. With FY2010 everything interesting was classified and the public thus lost track of a lot of classified programs, some dating back to the Reagan era... These days budgets arent nearly as interesting as ten years ago. Studying those can be quite interesting, but who has the time.

Also, about the 'SR-72' or fastmovers in general - dont assume those projects are actually funded by the military. The original A-12 was a CIA project which go dumped on the Air Force as the SR-71. If you think certain agencies gave up on time critical on target recon because 'satellites' , well...

originally posted by: GazrokWhile a drone would seemingly make much more sense for this kind of mission role....the potential for it to be hacked (or malfunction and be recoverable by the enemy, may make the good old boys in the biz more apt to sign on for a piloted vehicle, one where a flesh and blood person can opt to blow it up, and which can't be hacked into.

What could possibly go wrong?

I think it could be never declassified , what type of fastmover it could be there is a great chance it stay forever in the black , or may be a lot of decade.

Just think of how long the U-2 and the Blackbird were classified.

a reply to: Gazrok

Not very. The SR-71 was announced before it ever flew. The U-2 was definitely leaked to the public after Powers in 1960, so about 5 years.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Getting close to marking up fy19 in HAC-D

a reply to: The one?

I'll leave this right here:

www.dtic.mil...

www.flightglobal.com...

a reply to: anzha

No, it indicates a C-5 upgrade program that will run until 2023, with at least one at Palmdale through January.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Ethos has forward motion:

The US Air Force has set plans to begin the competitive phase of a plan to develop a dual mode ramjet for a new class of missiles and aircraft with top speeds over Mach 3.

Two contract awards worth a total of $10 million for design and testing of a dual mode ramjet are now anticipated, the USAF’s Air Force Research Laboratory says in a notice dated 8 June.

The acquisition will begin with the signing of initial task orders worth up to $200,000 each, the AFRL says.

It’s part of the AFRL’s Enabling Technologies for High-speed Operable Systems (ETHOS) programme.

www.flightglobal.com...

Though it might be the steps to cloak something. Two $10M contracts are pretty small for a tech dev program.

a reply to: anzha

It's a start for the engineering stuff.

Another DMRJ program so years ago Facet program was a DMRJ program too ? Why restart the same engine ?

a reply to: intelgurl

If it can achieve and sustain speeds of Mach 6 it will be a flying brick that's getting pretty darn hot, you would not even have to arm the thing, but simply allow it to crash into any target and let the kinetic force and energy release do the destructive work.

That's a fair enough point....

a reply to: andy06shake

And then you have to replace it on a constant, and very expensive basis.

a reply to: Zaphod58

That's true.

But how many potential targets are going to require Mach 6+ missile/drone to take them out?

By the very nature of the type of target, it may also be rather high value hence possibly worth destruction of the vehicle.