Super high tech replacement for the legendary SR-71 Blackbird plane that can travel from New York to LA in 45 minutes
- The SR-71 Blackbird flew faster than any other production plane
- Its successor, the SR-72, will go twice as fast
- A demo version of the SR-72 could be ready by 2018
- The new aircraft will blaze across the sky at around Mach 6
- Plane would perform high-altitude intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions but also be capable of carrying out strikes on targets
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Brad Leland, the Lockheed engineer who has headed the seven-year research effort, said the new aircraft, dubbed the SR-72, was designed using off-the-shelf materials to keep it affordable in the current tough budget environment.
He said the new plane offered game-changing capabilities to the military - and a twin-engine demonstrator jet that could reach any target in an hour could be developed for under $1 billion in five to six years.
The jet accelerates by way of a two-part system. A conventional jet turbine helps boost the aircraft up to Mach 3
, at which point a specialized ramjet takes over and pushes the plane even faster into hypersonic mode.Scroll down for video
Flying high: A successor is being developed to
the Blackbird spy plane. The SR-72 will use a new hypersonic engine and
will be twice as fast with a cruising speed of Mach 6
In a hurry? The SR-72 will fly at Mach 6 (around 4,000 mph)
'Hypersonic is the new stealth,' Leland said. 'Your adversaries cannot hide or move their critical assets. They will be found. That becomes a game-changer.'
The new aircraft would travel three times as fast as current fighter jets, which can reach speeds of Mach 2, twice the speed of sound, and it could be outfitted with light weapons to strike targets.
Aviation Week first reported Lockheed's work on the project in a cover article entitled 'Son of Blackbird.' Lockheed developed the supersonic SR-71 Blackbird, a long-range manned spy plane, 50 years ago. A few of those planes remained in service until 1999.
Replacement: The SR-72 supersedes SR-71
Blackbird. For more than 25 years, the aircraft provided the nation with
demonstrated strategic reconnaissance capability
SR-71 Blackbird : When the last SR-71 Blackbird
was grounded in 1998 it was a double blow. Not only did aviation lose
one of the most advanced aircraft ever built, but also one of the most
beautiful
When the last SR-71 Blackbird was grounded in 1998 it was a double blow. Not only did aviation lose one of the most advanced aircraft ever built.
The SR-71 Blackbird is one of history’s great aircraft. It was built during the Cold War in the early 1960s by Lockheed at its secret Skunk Works facility and flew from 1966 to 1998.
With black paint covering its unprecedented titanium fuselage, it was designed as a reconnaissance platform capable of flying 2,900 nautical miles (5,400 km) at sustained supersonic speeds at an altitude of 80,000 ft (24,000 m).
The Blackbird could fly so fast and so high that it could literally outrun enemy missiles, and routinely did..
Using a new hypersonic engine design that combines turbines and ramjets, the company says that the unmanned SR-72 will be twice as fast as its predecessor with a cruising speed of Mach 6.
Hypersonic: The SR-72¿s purpose is to provide
the United States with not only a hypersonic recon platform, but also a
strike aircraft as well
How it works: The upper engine is a turbine,
which is used to power the SR-72 as it takes off from a conventional
runway and accelerates it to Mach 3. Then the lower dual-mode ramjet
takes over and accelerates the plane to Mach 6
The SR-72’s purpose is to provide the United States with not only a hypersonic recon platform, but also a strike aircraft as well.
'Hypersonic aircraft, coupled with hypersonic missiles, could penetrate denied airspace and strike at nearly any location across a continent in less than an hour,' says Brad Leland, Lockheed Martin program manager, Hypersonics.
'Speed is the next aviation advancement to counter emerging threats in the next several decades. The technology would be a game-changer in theater, similar to how stealth is changing the battle space today.'
In an interview with Aviation Week, which broke the story, Leland explained that the retirement of the SR-71 left significant gaps in the satellites, subsonic manned and unmanned platforms meant to replace it, which the SR-72 will fill.
The article went on to point out that the SR-72 program is meant to dovetail with the Pentagon’s hypersonic research and weapons programs, which has dictated the timetable and many design parameters.
Bye bye Blackbird: By bye Blackbird: The SR-72
is the replacement for the SR-71 blackbird (pictured). The Blackbird was
built during the Cold War in the early 1960s by Lockheed at its secret
Skunk Works facility and flew from 1966 to 1998
According to Leland, a Mach 6 platform would not only leave very little time for an enemy to respond, but it also be a very effective way to launch hypersonic missiles. Since these wouldn't need a booster rocket when launched at six times the speed of sound, they can be of much lighter and simpler construction.
No new technologies needed to be invented for the SR-72 so a demonstration aircraft could fly by 2018, and the plane could be operational by 2030.
Details of the new hypersonic spy plane project emerged days after Lockheed, the Pentagon's biggest supplier, teamed up with No. 2 supplier Boeing Co (BA.N) to develop a bid for
the Pentagon's new long-range bomber.Lockheed, Boeing and other big weapons makers are pressing the Pentagon to continue funding new aircraft development programs despite big cuts in military spending, arguing that a retreat from such projects could undercut U.S. military superiority in years to come.
Greatly missed: The retirement
of the SR-71 Blackbird (pictured) left significant gaps in the
satellites, subsonic manned and unmanned platforms meant to replace it,
which the SR-72 will fill
of the SR-71 Blackbird (pictured) left significant gaps in the
satellites, subsonic manned and unmanned platforms meant to replace it,
which the SR-72 will fillLockheed declined to say how much it had invested in the SR-72 project to date, or what the new airplane might cost if it is ever built. But it said it had tried to keep the current tight budget environment in mind while working on the project.
'What we are doing is defining a missile that would have a small incremental cost to go at hypersonic speed,' Leland said. He said about 20 Lockheed employees had worked on the project.
One key factor in keeping the new project affordable was a decision to limit speed to Mach 6, rather than reaching for higher speeds that would require more expensive materials such as those used on the space shuttle, Leland said.
He said the company and its partners had developed and tested key components of the proposed new aircraft using their own internal research funding, but the program needed additional funds to move ahead with larger-scale demonstrations of the technologies involved.
Rob Stallard, analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said in a note on Friday that the new aircraft could help the U.S. military quickly identify or hit targets that were intentionally hidden or protected by an enemy's air defenses. He said the previous SR-71 was "the coolest airplane ever made, rivaled only by fictional aircraft."
Leland said Lockheed had worked closely with Aerojet Rocketdyne, a unit of GenCorp Inc (GY.N), to develop a propulsion system for the new aircraft, which uses an off-the-shelf turbine with a scramjet engine to reach the hypersonic speeds.
The project builds on HTV-3X, an earlier hypersonic project funded by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that was canceled in 2008 after its turbojet engines were found not ready for further development.
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