firstscience.com— Does the United States Air Force or one of America's intelligence agencies have a secret hypersonic aircraft capable of a Mach 6 performance? Evidence suggests yes.
Nov 16, 2005View in Crawl 4
I actually had the luck of meeting an sr-71 pilot, he told us some cool things about it, but nothing really that wasn't already known. The reason he gave us for the retirement of the sr-71, as I can recall, was that the sr-71 was a product of the cold war, only around 18 (not sure) were build, and then all plans of it were destroyed. Only a few of them are left, and I think, NASA has one or two of them.I also asked him about the max speed but he only said mach 3+ and couldn't go into more details.What fascinated me most was that most of the controls and buttons were out of sight of the pilot. They were all position next to the seat and you had to know them of by heart where each one of the was positioned.
have u ever heard of the space shuttle OhBrian?yah it goes mach 20+ as it goes up. I'm not sure but i think mach 28 is around the escape vleocity of earth?
Technology left the SR-71 behind. It was designed to blast directly over enemy territory at high speeds and altitudes, take photos with film and deliver the film back to base for analysis.Now, the U2R can cruise outside enemy territory and use synthetic aperture radar to conduct surveillance without exposing it to enemy fire or the political reprecussions of airspace violations. Overhead surveillance can be done with Predators or the Global Hawk with no risk to a pilot.The most interesting prototypes flying around are almost certainly preproduction combat UAVs. The future belongs to "fighter jocks" flying from a recliner somewhere in Missouri.
SR71 was retired because it was incredibly expensive to build and maintain. Hell the damn plane dumped 70% of it's fuel on takeoff. Notice I didnt say Burn, DUMPED. The plane got so hot that the metal enclosures would warp and cause the plane to leak
tomjNov 16, 2005
I would comment on this, but then I'd have to track a bunch of IP's and . . .
ngnrNov 16, 2005
I actually had the luck of meeting an sr-71 pilot, he told us some cool things about it, but nothing really that wasn't already known. The reason he gave us for the retirement of the sr-71, as I can recall, was that the sr-71 was a product of the cold war, only around 18 (not sure) were build, and then all plans of it were destroyed. Only a few of them are left, and I think, NASA has one or two of them.I also asked him about the max speed but he only said mach 3+ and couldn't go into more details.What fascinated me most was that most of the controls and buttons were out of sight of the pilot. They were all position next to the seat and you had to know them of by heart where each one of the was positioned.
search_Nov 16, 2005
Evidence suggests who cares?
jschaef5Nov 16, 2005
have u ever heard of the space shuttle OhBrian?yah it goes mach 20+ as it goes up. I'm not sure but i think mach 28 is around the escape vleocity of earth?
hyperfocalNov 16, 2005
Technology left the SR-71 behind. It was designed to blast directly over enemy territory at high speeds and altitudes, take photos with film and deliver the film back to base for analysis.Now, the U2R can cruise outside enemy territory and use synthetic aperture radar to conduct surveillance without exposing it to enemy fire or the political reprecussions of airspace violations. Overhead surveillance can be done with Predators or the Global Hawk with no risk to a pilot.The most interesting prototypes flying around are almost certainly preproduction combat UAVs. The future belongs to "fighter jocks" flying from a recliner somewhere in Missouri.
republicoftexasNov 17, 2005
"they cant tell anyone because they used the stolen alien technology to develop it."Why is your Quagmire face (that rocks) have red spots on it?
opticalliamNov 17, 2005
Pffffffft.... I dugg this months ago and all it got was flamed....<a class="user" href="http://digg.com/technology/Aurora:_The_Top_Secret_Hypersonic_Spyplane">http://digg.com/technology/Aurora:_The_Top_Secret_Hypersonic_Spyplane</a>
ruffyNov 17, 2005
SR71 was retired because it was incredibly expensive to build and maintain. Hell the damn plane dumped 70% of it's fuel on takeoff. Notice I didnt say Burn, DUMPED. The plane got so hot that the metal enclosures would warp and cause the plane to leak