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.
SOLOMON: COOL INVENTION
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