Why would you retire a mach 3 recon plane if you had no replacement

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>>33476139

The "replacement" were UAVs, such as the MQ-1 or X-47. The former can safely fly low to the ground beneath radar, the latter is stealth but also unmanned so it's completely expendable. SR-71s are nice but they're from a different era, that was back when computers weren't good enough yet.

>>33476139
Also high maintenance.

If we had a replacement (which we probably do) we wouldn't tell anyone about it

>>33476139
>Why would you retire a mach 3 recon plane if you had no replacement for it?
Because it's very expensive and was no longer effective in its role. It was retired because it could be shot down.

Satellites fulfilled its duties effectively, so they were replacements. And it could be tracked too, just not caught until it could be, then it was retired.

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To save money while you make a mach 6 recon plane.

There is a Seagal movie running in the TV next to me with an SR-71 in it.

Instead of having an actual callsign, they keep referring to it as the SR-71. This triggers me a bit.

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>>33476139
>if you had no replacement

>>33478666
What a nigger movie

>>33476139
The mission has changed, we have systems that can fulfill current requirements without it. The A12/SR71 airframes were also quite old, and were the bleeding edge of technology when they were built. So they were extremely expensive to operate even when new.

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>>33476139

>>33476139
The Russians figured out how to shoot them down with MiG-31s. Turns out, the MiG 31 has the combination of phenomenal radar, and engines that when overdriven to destruction could with careful planning get close enough to the SR71 to shoot it down with missiles. Essentially, the MiG31 had enough power to be used as an SAM capable of shooting down the SR71. In the very late 80s, the Soviets managed to intercept and bracket several SR71 flights with MiG31 launched missiles, and this prompted its retirement, as its reason of being, being too fast and too high to intercept was spoiled by these near suicidal Soviet capablities.

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>>33476139
>no replacement

>>33477035
this desu

>>33479916

That's the first I'm hearing of this. You got nay reading material on it?

>>33479916
>stuff that never happened

or are you referring that one time when mig managed to get few seconds lock on sr71 that was 180 km away and 10km up ?

>prompted its retirement

its totally had nothing to with with extreme performance airframes nearing its lifetime and satellites replacing its main function

>>33480371
>>33480432
Sorry, I was going off memory, so I flubbed some of the details.

>or are you referring that one time when mig managed to get few seconds lock on sr71 that was 180 km away and 10km up ?

More or less, actually looking it up shows the defining event for retirement from the Soviet theatre was an incident(s) in which SR71s got multiple simultaneous lock ons.

>its totally had nothing to with with extreme performance airframes nearing its lifetime and satellites replacing its main function
Could we say it was a combination of things and leave it be?
https://theaviationist.com/2013/12/11/sr-71-vs-mig-31/

>>33476139
Because your only long term rival has scrapped the Soviet unit and you are trying to maintain de-escalation

also the D-21 mach 3.2 drone existed, was tested 4 times over china and failed each time. that was the sign that speed is not enough.

>>33480505
>Could we say it was a combination of things and leave it be?

actually i was about to say that, the problem is sr-71 started to do fly by mission next to soviet air space its made those missions predictable, easier to counter

>>33476139
Because like battleships, they became obsolete as the way conflict is handled progresses

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space

>>33480505
Compromise? Not on my board.

>>33476139
>Why would you retire a mach 3 recon plane if you had no replacement for it?
It was replaced by spy satellites.

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Anyone else ever hear the anecdote about how expensive the gas for the SR71 was? The claim was that in terms of $/gallon it was as expensive as a nice scotch.

>>33476139
SR-91 is a thing

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I'm of the belief that there is no follow-up to the SR-71. Aurora isn't real. If there was, the Russians or Chinese would have detected it by now.

>>33480597
I want a fleet of these fuckers, with that new BAE laser system, that does atmospheric lensing.

>>33480909
>Aurora isn't real. If there was, the Russians or Chinese would have detected it by now.

but anon

> be dictator of worst china
> your sensors and observatories have constantly reported this error
> you find out it's not an error, it's a stupid fast hyperplane the US has been flying over you for god knows how long
> the only reason you know it was there is that one of your optic telescopes got the luckiest glimpse of it, and even then, the picture is still a bit blurry
> god help you if the hordes of proles you lord over ever find out the US is so far ahead, they'll tear you limb to limb

that said, there might not BE an Aurora, but if there was, our adversaries wouldn't necessarily want to advertise it, lest their own citizenry shit bricks about it

Stalin knew about the US nuclear program, but didn't want his people to know.

If you want to get up close and personal with one of these things and you're near Mobile, Al. check out then USS Alabama Battleship Park. I took my son and we had a great time and there is plenty of knowledge and cool stuff floating around there. FYI the pilot is a little chatty and hard to get away from, but his stories are interesting.

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>>33476139
>Build U-2s to perform strategic recon over Russia
>One gets shot down by SAMs
>Decide to build a faster, higher-flying jet to overfly Russia
>It never overflies Russia
>Costs an assload of money to operate
>Kills tons of pilots
>Fly it over some third-world shitholes just because you can
>Think about flying it over China but decide against it
>Build a mach 3 drone to do what you're too afraid to do with the SR-71
>It crashes into the SR-71 it's launched from, destroying both
>Later attempts from B-52s also fail to yield productive information
>Finally hire some crazy Taiwanese dudes to fly U-2s and a fucking C-130s to get done what the SR-71 couldn't
>They pull it off
The SR-71 was a fucking embarrassment. I'm glad it got retired.

>>33480909
>SR-71 clouds.jpg

But that's an a-12 senpai

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>>33479916
Even the Vietnamese managed to hit one with an ancient SA-2 long before the MiG-31 even existed. The Blackbird was far from invincible, and it was for that very reason they kept it outside of Soviet and Chinese airspace.
https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2013-featured-story-archive/pieces-of-history-missile-debris-from-a-12-oxcart.html