SR-72 Confirmed: Mach 6 Project Blackswift

Part of me still thinks LockMart pulled a fast one and had the world’s greatest reveal with Darkstar in Top Gun: Maverick. They and NG have been fairly straight up with the renderings and little teases they share here and there. We know how much is “leaked” in the form of mission and unit patches…hiding stuff in plain sight has been the go-to move for decades. We saw how completely underwhelmed the civilian world was over the unveiling of the B-21, and I’d argue that’s largely because of the fact they had already shared renderings that were pretty damn accurate for a LONG time prior to last December.

Having Darkstar have a starring role in one of the biggest sequels in cinematic history, having models on static display, all of the photos and technical data floating around just sort of kills the initial “HOLY SH_T!!” you’d expect after a genuine reveal. Hypothetically, they could eventually come out and say “So about Darkstar…” and not get as much backlash because A) People think it’s super cool and B) Its already kinda been out there for a while now…

At the end of the day, I’d just be happy knowing the capability exists and is not just some fanciful “what if” among aviation enthusiasts and Internet boards.