Photo:©Lockheed Martin Lockheed Martin’s elite aircraft design house- Skunk Works® is developing a new hypersoni...
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| Photo:©Lockheed Martin |
The twin engined aircraft dubbed the SR-72, is envisioned as an unmanned aircraft, that would fly at speeds up to Mach 6, or six times the speed of sound. At this speed, the aircraft would be so fast, an adversary would have no time to react or hide, that is hypersonics is the stealth.
“Hypersonic aircraft, coupled with hypersonic missiles, could penetrate denied airspace and strike at nearly any location across a continent in less than an hour,” said 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 battlespace today.”
The SR-72’s design incorporates lessons learned from the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2), which flew to a top speed of Mach 20, or 13,000 mph, with a surface temperature of 3500°F.
SkunkWorks engineer's in partnership with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency(DARPA), developed the rocket-launched Falcon HTV-2.
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© Lockheed Martin
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Lockheed proposes the SR-72 as a affordable hypersonic plane that does not have to be an expensive, distant possibility and could be operational by 2030.
For the past several years, Skunk Works® has been working with Aerojet Rocketdyne to develop a method to integrate an off-the-shelf turbine with a supersonic combustion ramjet air breathing jet engine to power the aircraft from standstill to Mach 6.
The result is the SR-72 that Aviation Week has dubbed “ son of Blackbird,” featuring integrated engine and airframe that is optimized at the system level for high performance and affordability.
