The U.S. Air Force is reportedly in possession of a brand recent, high-speed reconnaissance aircraft. The news, revealed by a defense industry podcast, may lend credibility to rumors of a coming alternative for the Mach 3 SR-71 Blackbird. Often called the SR-72, the highest secret aircraft would complement a known aircraft, the RQ-180, slated to be a alternative for the U-2 spy plane.
The Mystery Plane
The existence of the aircraft was revealed on Episode 40 of the Defense & Aerospace Report Air Power Podcast. Vago Muradian, the editor-in-chief and host of the Defense & Aerospace Report, stated:
“There may be one other program for a far more capable reconnaissance aircraft… There are articles which have already been delivered, but there are challenges with that program, and this system has been rescoped to get to the following block of aircraft.”
“Articles” apparently means aircraft, and that will mean the aircraft have already been delivered to the client: the U.S. Air Force.
Muradian states that the brand new aircraft is a “product of the Skunk Works and Lockheed Martin aircraft,” and that there was “speculation” this system had been canceled; nevertheless it had been “rescoped” or revamped due to how ambitious it’s.
Seventy Years of Strategic Reconnaissance
In the course of the Cold War, the USA maintained two very various kinds of strategic reconnaissance aircraft designed to spy on hostile countries. The primary spy plane, the Lockheed U-2, was a subsonic, long-range aircraft designed to fly high above the Soviet Union, China, and other communist bloc countries, taking detailed pictures of the bottom below. The U-2 flew at 70,000 feet, out of the range of enemy air defenses, and between 1956 and 1960 flew over the us with impunity.
In 1960, the Soviet Union shot down a U-2 over Soviet airspace. The U.S. government decided it needed to retain the aptitude to overfly enemy airspace, but a brand new tack was needed. The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, which entered service in January 1966, was a high-speed aircraft that would dart near an adversary’s air space, snap pictures, and dart away. Speed was vital when coping with a superpower just like the Soviet Union, which had a dense network of detection radars and given enough warning could conceal regardless of the U.S. desired to see. The SR-71 was also fast enough to evade enemy defenses, including surface-to-air missiles just like the S-75 Dvina and interceptors just like the MiG-25 Foxbat, if the Soviets decided to open fire.
The SR-71 was retired at the top of the Cold War, deemed unnecessary as the USA not faced any peer competitors. The U-2 has flown on, and in February 2023 made headlines intercepting a Chinese spy balloon over the USA. The U.S. also spies on adversaries with satellites, however the orbiting craft can follow predictable paths, allowing the enemy to hide activities because the satellites pass above.
A High-Speed Comeback?
The rise of the Chinese military and Russia’s repeated aggressions against its neighbors, culminating within the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, have made the skies more dangerous for American reconnaissance aircraft. Aircraft just like the Boeing 707 airliner-based RC-135 Rivet Joint are intercepted by Russian and Chinese fighter jets regularly, and the slow U-2 could be very vulnerable to enemy motion.
In response to Defense & Aerospace Report, a brand new strategic reconnaissance drone, Northrop Grumman’s RQ-180, will replace the U-2 because it is phased out over the following several years. Where, then, does the brand new drone fit it? One explanation is that the plane is the long-rumored SR-72, an unmanned, high-speed aircraft higher able to spying on Russia and China than even the stealthy RQ-180.
In 2016, The Washington Post reported that Lockheed Martin was working on the SR-72 and that the plane was able to flying at a speed of Mach 6, or 4,600 miles per hour. Mach 6 also technically makes it a hypersonic aircraft.
The Report described the brand new aircraft’s capability as very ambitious, which could possibly be a reference to the challenges of flying a reusable aircraft at Mach 6, where the skin skin temperature of an aircraft rises to 2500 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s twice as hot because the Mach 3 SR-71 at maximum speed. There may be also the challenge of constructing engines, likely scramjets, that function reliably at that speed.
In 2022, Lockheed Martin collaborated with the makers of the Top Gun sequel to provide a plausible rendition of an “SR-72” spy plane. The plane, piloted by Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, successfully reaches a top speed of Mach 10. Now that we all know Lockheed Martin probably has built an actual SR-72-type plane, it makes the corporate’s contribution to the film all of the more intriguing.
The Takeaway
The rise of Russia and China is leading America to rebuild its strategic reconnaissance capability, and there are growing indications that somewhere out there may be a small fleet of a quick, recent aircraft, the long-awaited alternative for the SR-71 Blackbird. If it truly is a Mach 6, and even Mach 10 aircraft, expect the SR-71’s speed records to fall like dominoes. There probably won’t be an individual named in those records, though: finally report, the SR-72 was supposedly an unmanned aircraft.