SR-71 Black Bird

>>28388210
Satellites

>>28388217
And drones

>>28388210
Better space based cameras.

>>28388222
Drones were still in the experimental and testing phase when the SR-71 left .mil service.

>>28388217
>>28388222
>>28388227
But whats the point of being more efficient if you you cant look good while doing so? Doesn't Pentagon staff watch movies?

>>28388210
There are claims they replaced it with another aircraft. Given how long they kept the Blackbird and F117 secret for it could be possible.

>>28388217
Satellites are bound to orbits. It takes time for them to be in position and they are very predictable.

>>28388246
>he has never heard of geosynchronous orbit

GPS is your version of magnets ain't it?

>>28388235
The old RQ's and MQ's where in use for a few years well before the SR kicked off in 1998 or whenever it was.

>>28388255
Do you realise what the orbital radius of geosynchronous orbit is? You'd be looking at several kilometre resolution at 35,000km.

>>28388210
They're fifty years old and they destroyed all the tooling to make new ones. Parts must be a bitch to procure.

>>28388210

1. Fly once for a couple of hours.
2. Get back to base and spend the entirety of the next month in maintenance.

Because most of those places crashed before they could take off or land

>>28388344
*planes

>>28388344
>Because most of those places crashed before they could take off or land
>crashed before they could take off
lol

>>28388284
you realize we have had meter resolution in leo since the 80s, right?

>>28388408
>Thinking 200km and 35000km are even remotely the same.

Nice going retard.

>>28388239
The Pentagon writes movies.

>>28388676
No

>>28389022
>>28388888
Remotely close

>>28388255
>>28388408
fucking retard, see many spy sattelites in geo stationary orbit? any idea how fucking far out that is?

>>28388255
Optical cameras are useless at 35,000 km bro. Spy sats are LEO only, and they move ~20,000 mph across the sky at 100-300 miles up.

But SAMs made the SR-71 aircraft basically useless for spying on the other superpowers like Russia and China. SA-10 and SA-20 specifically. We have been working on hypersonic aircraft for decades now, and most of what they do is top, TOP SECRET.

Stuff like the X-37, and this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-41_Common_Aero_Vehicle

tl;dr yeah, we totally have hypersonic space recce planes already.

>>28388210
because the CIA didnt need a glorified satellite, they finally got decent REAL satellites

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this plane is hot af

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>>28391567
l-lewd

>>28391846
damn i got the best boner right now
i want to lick those flaps and put each of my balls in those two turbines

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>>28391977
Do you like it? I have more in a secret folder

>>28392262
holy fuck yes ffs more i love you please, mods are asleep post it fast

>>28388210
we built something better that hasn't leaked yet.

>>28388246
The replacement has been dubbed the SR-72 and has a ceiling of 95000ft and a top projected speed of mach 6

Super expensive to fly per hour, $200,000.
Used special JP-7 fuel that was very hard to burn, cost $18,000 per hour and required even more exotic engines to burn it.
Needed specially trained crew.
And as others have mentioned, no longer secret and something better must exist.

>>28393047
>Super expensive to fly per hour, $200,000.
>Used special JP-7 fuel that was very hard to burn, cost $18,000 per hour and required even more exotic engines to burn it.
Being the undisputed King of Speed and Sexiest Plane of All Time: Priceless

>>28388210
As far as I can tell? Expense. The thing would leak fuel if it wasn't super sonic, the engines were experimental to begin with and needed constant work, the stealth features never worked to begin with, it drank fuel like a fish, and while nothing has ever catched an SR-71, there was always this fear that something would.

Honestly, I think they were worried that a blackbird would break up in flight one day simply because of the strain it came under from such extreme speed.

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>>28393047
>and something better must exist
That's my favorite part.

>>28393129
>they were worried that a blackbird would break up in flight one day
That actually happened, though.

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I would see this

>>28393280

>A total of 32 aircraft were built; 12 were lost in accidents and none lost to enemy action.

Jeez that's almost as bad as the V-22

>>28393479
It's almost as though you can't break new ground in aircraft technology without breaking a few eggs.

>>28392262
That shit is terrible, and you should feel bad for posting it.

>>28393479
Aviation is dangerous, especially when you're doing crazy new things that nevuh bin dun befo.

Experimental test pilots are heros.

>>28388246
>Satellites are bound to orbits. It takes time for them to be in position and they are very predictable.

Which is just fine for the kind of reconnaissance mission the SR-71 was doing.

Any scenario that required an SR-71 overflight for real-time intel would get the pilot killed nowadays.

>>28396056
Did you notice I said replacement or are just being asinine?

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>>28388235
The SR-71's predecessor, the A-12, sometimes launched a D-21 drone to overfly hostile territory. In the end it was decided to build the slightly larger SR-71 and mount the photo equipment in the plane, eliminating the need for the D-21.

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>>28396382
Proposed interceptor variant, the YF-12

>>28393047
By design the fuel was hard to burn. That's like saying that tanks have heavy armor as an unmitigated downside.

>>28396056
>Any scenario that required an SR-71 overflight for real-time intel would get the pilot killed nowadays.
Why? What the hell could catch them?

They made something better and determined they didn't need SR-71 anymore. Its impossible to think the US air forces don't have something far more capable after reading all the different stories online and seeing interviews. one even had a crash landing in England back in the 90s.

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>>28388210

The US decided it didn't want a repeat of the US Spying Incident, especially with how gnarly Russian SAMs have been getting. So we switched to UAVs and spy satellites.

It's a lot easier to throw the middle finger at another country when they scream about us flying spy planes over them when they're holding a twisted pile of shot-down drone aircraft scrap, instead of a live pilot.

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>>28396414
A-12s were single seat, slightly smaller than the SR-71 and had only the leading edges painted black with the rest of the aircraft in natural titanium. Once they were replaced by the SR-71, they were turned over to NASA and given all black paint jobs.

>>28396450

*U2 Spying incident

>>28393362

holy fuck i had no idea how fucking huge the xb-70 was. what a machine.

>>28388344

Not true at all.

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>>28396452

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>>28396479

I remember the Russian military a few years ago lobbying for a new SAM because they tracked an american airplane flying over their airspace at over mach 6 and couldn't do anything about it.

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>>28396492

>>28396492
>we can shoot at them and get there before the bullets!

Reminds me of the dwarves from Oglaf

>>28396444

You realize their are surface to air missles that can hit Mach 5 right?

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>>28396515
>it's a cunt auger, it makes cunts!

>>28396503
Makes you wonder if the X-43 is flying around.

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>>28396533

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>>28396549

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>>28396559

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>>28396572

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>>28396586

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>>28396596

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>>28396607

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>>28396625

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>>28396637

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>>28396650

>>28393479
The envelope pushes back. Who'da thunk it?

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>>28396665

>>28388210
I know it's no longer needed, but it was a hell of a thing they built.

>>28396503
>I remember the Russian military a few years ago lobbying for a new SAM because they tracked an american airplane flying over their airspace at over mach 6 and couldn't do anything about it.
9M82 missiles of the S-300V can engage mach 7 targets since they were introduced in 1984...

>>28396479
Looks like it has J75 engines instead of J58s.

>>28396748

That was against a ballistic target, huge difference from an aircraft.

>>28396780
Not really.

>>28388210
Didn't they develop an armed one?

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I'm sorry, what's being argued in this thread? I can't tell with all the banter.

>>28395387
this nerd gets it

>>28393362


I thought the Sr-71 was big...

somewhat related, i know they use the U2 still operated remotely...probably flying over iran and north korea as we type.

>>28388210
Because it's costs a lot.

>>28397847
4u

>>28397904
The U-2 isn't unmanned.

>>28389058
Thank you. Based anon.

Some fuckers do not understand how general physics and technology actually function.

>>28388210
>What went wrong?
US was really good at making jets, but Russians were not much worse at making SAMs. And then suddenly cheap sattelites.