There is nothing more fascinating in the aviation world than the “black projects”
– aircraft programs that are so secret that even those with the highest
security clearance may have no idea they exist. But occasionally the
veil of secrecy is accidentally lifted – or projects are declassified –
offering a fleeting glimpse into this shadowy world. Here we take to
the air with six different planes – some now released into the public
domain, others still highly classified or even non-existent.
TR-3A Black Manta
Images by Adrian Mann
Allegedly active during the 1980s and ’90s, little is known of the TR-3A Black Manta
beyond rumour and hearsay. Popularly embraced as a subsonic stealth
aircraft manufactured by Northrop Grumman (famed for its “flying wing”
designs), the TR-3A was rumoured to have been used in the Gulf War in
conjunction with F-117A stealth fighters, but little evidence exists to
support this. Another theory – again unsubstantiated – holds that the
vehicle identified as the TR-3 was a prototype for the B-2 Spirit.
Two 1977 designs
from Teledyne Ryan, a firm specialising in unmanned aerial vehicles,
have been linked to the TR-3A. This stems in part from the fact that
“TR” stands for Teledyne Ryan – a fanciful connection considering “TR”
is well known to denote “tactical reconnaissance. Teledyne Ryan was
purchased by Northrop Grumman in 1999, adding fuel to the fire of
conspiracy theory. But aside from a patent (below) that is said to
resemble the configuration of whatever aircraft has been identified with
the TR-3A, there is little, if any, credible evidence linking it to
Teledyne Ryan.
The designation “TR-3″ likely came about due to confusion with another black project, Tier III, which led to the RQ-3 Darkstar.
Another theory holds that the aircraft dubbed the TR-3 may have grown
out of the Tactical High Altitude Penetrator (THAP) studies, of which
little exists in the public domain. This article
discusses THAP’s potential mission as a recon-strike platform, which
could account for a plethora of sightings throughout the 1980s and
’90s. However, there is significant debate over whether THAP progressed
to the flight testing stage. If THAP was not responsible for the
“TR-3A” sightings, it’s possible another secret demonstrator associated
with the A-12 Avenger programme (below) could have been… Flying Triangle dubbed “TR-3B”
The online world is buzzing with information about the alleged “TR-3B“,
from rumours of its fantastical capabilities to intriguing video
footage. Yet despite numerous sightings suggesting the existence of a
large triangular aircraft that can fly slowly and quietly, little
information exists about this rumoured black project. Like the TR-3A
above, the designation “TR-3B” is almost certainly a misnomer.
The most dramatic claims frame the “TR-3B” as a nuclear powered
tactical reconnaissance aircraft capable of disrupting gravity. But a
more likely – and in many ways more interesting – argument for these
strange flying triangles, is that they’re lighter-than-air
vehicles or some sort of stealthy troop transport aircraft. Given the
technologies proven by Have Blue and Tacit Blue in the 1970s and ’80s
and the number of projects that have allegedly been tested at Groom
Lake since that time, it’s not impossible to think that some of these
flying triangle reports may have some substance to them, if not under
the designation TR-3B. A-12 Avenger II (and the Mysterious Jet that May Have Preceeded it)
Image via U.S. Navy
The A-12 Avenger II
was envisioned by McDonnell Douglas and General Dynamics as an
all-weather, carrier-based stealth bomber for the U.S. Navy and
Marines. Shrowded in secrecy at the time of development in 1983, the
A-12 reportedly gained the nickname “Flying Dorito”. Concept drawings
and mock-ups show a flying wing design in the shape of an isosceles
triangle, with the cockpit near the apex.
Development
of the A-12 was hampered by problems. The project was cancelled in
January 1991 by then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney when the estimated
price of each plane allegedly hit $165 million. The cancellation was
said to be a breach of contract, resulting in years of legal wrangling.
In 2009, a court finally ruled in favour of the government and ordered
the contractors to pay more than a $2 billion in charges, but the battle
ranges on to this day.
Images via U.S. Navy
After the cancellation of the A-12 Avenger II the Navy purchased the
F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. While there was never a full scale prototype,
an earlier (1976 – 1984) classified General Dynamics technology
demonstrator called Model 100 (funded under the Have Key program) may
have paved the way for the cancelled A-12. It has been suggested that this aircraft remains secret due to the ongoing legal issues. The A-12 has also been linked to a secret plane called Sneaky Pete, which may or may not be the Model 100, or a development thereof. We were able to locate one A-12 mock-up thanks to those savvy online explorers at Virtual Globetrotting.
X-44 Manta
Image via strange-mecha.com
(Image licensed under Creative Commons Attirbution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported)
The X-44 Manta
was a conceptual design by Lockheed Martin, based on the original F-22
Raptor (below). The X-44 was essentially a tailless Raptor with large
delta wing and advanced thrust vectoring nozzles replacing normal
aerodynamic control surfaces. Benefits would be a more stealthy, light
airframe, with increased fuel volume and maneuverability. The plan was
to convert an early F-22 prototype but the program was allegedly
terminated in 2000. The X-44 render looks similar to the proposed FB-22, reportedly cancelled in 2006.
Image via Rob Shenk
(Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic)
It’s hard to know what to make of many alleged black projects. Could
some of these exotic aircraft be one and the same? How much
disinformation is out there? The X-44 was essentially a flying wing
design with a name similar to the TR-3A “Black Manta”, although in the
X-44’s case, MANTA apparently denoted Multi-Axis No-Tail Aircraft.
Could this be a case of one black project’s name being mistakenly
attributed to another, like TR-3 and Tier III? In 2005,
GlobalSecurity.org reported that the X-44 designation may be reserved for a possible NASA full-scale manned tailless flight control demonstrator.
Like other black projects, Britain’s effort to create a stealth
demonstrator remains shadowy, despite cancellation in the 1990s. The Replica program was a BAE Systems design study tied in with the RAF’s now defunct Future Offensive Air System (FOAS). It is known to have run from 1994 to 1999, with a full-sized mock-up subjected to rigorous testing to determine its radar cross section (above).
FOAS set out to replace the RAF’s Tornado GR4 jets with a range of
manned and unmanned platforms by 2017. The program was cancelled in
June 2005 after the UK joined the U.S. Joint-Unmanned Combat Air System
(J-UCAS) program, which was itself cancelled the next year but later
revived as the Navy-only UCAS-D program. After the termination of FOAS, knowledge gained from Replica was poured into the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).
Images via United States Air Force
Initial arguments over Britain’s access to the JSF source code
prompted Britain to consider a potential alternative. While likely
referring to an adapted Eurofighter Typhoon, Replica
remains in the shadows, despite public acknowledgement of the program
and photos of the full scale mock-up stored at BAE Warton. This could
be due to the ongoing use of Replica’s technology in forthcoming
projects, such as the JSF, but also Taranis,
a BAE unmanned demonstrator. Again publicly acknowledged, Taranis is
set to fly next year although sightings suggest it – or perhaps
something else – flew in 2009, which the British government vehemently
denies.
The Aurora spyplane is the world’s most famous top secret aircraft,
and a reliable photograph would be one of the most coveted finds in the
history of classified aviation. Historically presented as a hypersonic
replacement for the ageing SR-71 Blackbird spyplane (below), there’s
considerable evidence available in the public domain to suggest no
specific aircraft called “Aurora” ever existed.
SR-71 Blackbird (image via U.S. Air Force)
The name “Aurora” reportedly slipped out in the 1985 US budget
alongside an allocation of $455 million for “black aircraft
production”. Excited journalists, writing in the March 1990 edition of Aviation Week & Space Technology,
linked “Aurora” to the reported black aircraft, and later to a family
of exotic aviation projects, claiming that by 1987 funding had reached
$2.3 billion. Ben Rich, former director of the Lockheed Skunk Works
(which built the F-117, below), said there never was a hypersonic
Blackbird follow-on and claimed Aurora was the name given to the B-2
Stealth Bomber competition funding.
F-117 Nighthawk (image by U.S. Air Force)
Helping to fuel the Aurora legend was a disjointed catalogue of sightings
and mysterious sonic booms. The most compelling sighting came in
August 1989, when Chris Gibson, an engineer aboard the Galveston Key rig
in the North Sea, observed a strange isosceles triangle-shaped aircraft
refuelling from a KC-135 Stratotanker, escorted by two F-111 bombers.
Gibson, a member of the Royal Observer Corps and trained aircraft
recognition expert, could not identify the mysterious plane.
Image via Google Earth
In the early 1990s, the disclosed “Aurora” designation and the “North Sea sighting”
were linked to several other reports that helped perpetuate the story
of a top secret SR-71 follow-on. One was a report of an aircraft over
Amarillo, Texas, with an engine described as emitting a “strange, loud
pulsating roar”. Caught on film was an alleged “donuts-on-a-rope”
contrail that has become synonymous with the Aurora myth. While some
attribute this to a potential pulse wave detonation engine, others have
argued the contrails could have been made by ordinary jet aircraft.
Images via Google Earth
Finally, a series of bizarre sonic booms heard over California up
until 1993 were attributed to Aurora after seismologists concluded they
did not characterise earthquakes, but indictated “something at 90,000
feet, Mach 4 to Mach 5.2″. Intriguingly, each unexplained sonic boom
came on a Thursday morning between 6 and 7am. In addition, Groom Lake
(Area 51) has a six mile long runway, now closed, that some say would
be a requirement for testing a high speed, mach 5 plus, aircraft.
It’s telling that, more than 20 years after Aurora debuted in
aviation and popular science publications, no solid evidence has been
found to support its existence, despite the hype and hordes of
investigators digging for information. At this point it seems likely
that the top secret aircraft known as Aurora stems from sightings of
various aircraft (some potentially black projects) and not necessarily a
single airframe. That said, Chris Gibson’s sighting and the strange
skyquakes remain a mystery to this day.
A new photo of a mysterious flying object over Kansas has been revealed. It appears to be the same aircraft as one that was snapped soaring over Texas last month. The exact identify of the aircraft remains a mystery, but rumours abound that it could be a secret jet.
A mysterious flying object was snapped flying
over Wichita, Kansas by Jeff Templin. It resembles a similar
unidentified aircraft streaking across the skies of Texas last month
'The photo is grainy
because it was taken with a hand-held maxed-out 400mm telephoto lens
through a cloud layer and then it was severely cropped to bring it up
even close,' says Jeff Templin, who took the photo on 16 April. 'There is no way to know the altitude and no way to judge its size as there is no point of reference. 'My
sense of it with the naked eye was that it was quite high, at least the
altitude passenger jets cruise over but if it were smaller like a
"drone" it could conceivably have been lower and smaller.'
The Aviationist speculates
that the plane could be a RQ-180 stealth drone or a prototype of
America's next generation long range strike bomber (LSRB). They, too, are unsure if it is the same plane as the one spotted previously A
retired Marine with nearly two decades of aviation experience stepped
forward with a compelling theory about the mysterious plane that was
spotted flying over Texas last month. On
March 10, photographers Steve Douglass and Dean Muskett took pictures
of three puzzling aircraft flying over Amarillo, and posted them online
in hopes of identifying the planes. Retired-Marine James Vineyard submitted one of the more interesting explanations, telling the Houston Chronicle he believed they were SR-72 Blackbirds - a spy plane that can cross the U.S. in less than an hour, unmanned.
Mystery solved? A retired Marine says the plane
pictured in Amarillo last month is the SR-72 Blackbird - a plane
designed to cross the country in less than an hour
The mystery aircraft seen over Amarillo on March 10. Three of the craft were spotted flying by
Vineyard spent 17 years as a Marine and also worked with a jet squadron in Arizona.
THE FIRST STEALTH JET
In 1956, British magazines started
getting eyewitness accounts and grainy photos of the Lockheed U-2, then
operating out of RAF Lakenheath on its first flights over the Soviet
Union - marking the first sight of a spy plane that government's
had hoped to keep secret from prying eyes.
It provided day and night, very high-altitude (70,000 feet / 21,000 m), all-weather intelligence gathering.
He
says the Pentagon may have dispatched the planes to the Indian Ocean to
aide in the search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight 370. But Douglass, who saw the planes himself, doesn't agree. 'The
SR-72 is still in development,' he said Tuesday. 'Plus it's a
high-speed, high-Mach plane. These were going airliner speed. They were
not in a hurry to get anywhere.' The
SR-72 is currently being developed by Lockheed Martin in California,
and according to the company's website they say the plane could be
operational as early as 2030. It
is the predecessor of the SR-71 which broke speed records when it flew
from New York to Lonton in less than two hours in 1976. Lockheed
Martin's Hypersonics program manager Brad Leland wrote that the plane
is designed to 'strike at nearly any location across a continent in less
than an hour.' '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,' Leland said.
Another source told the Chronicle that the plane
was a B-2, but the two photographers discovered that no B-2s were
flying in the country that day
The SR-72 is a successor to the SR-71 which
broke speed records when it flew from New York to London in less than
two hours in 1976
Another
reader, who wished not to be identified, told the Chronicle with
confidence that 'It's a B-2 stealth bomber flying out of Whiteman Air
Force Base in Missouri.' That's
what the photographers thought when they first saw the group of
aircraft, but they say they checked with the base and no B-2s were
flying anywhere in the U.S. that day. Instead,
Douglass believes that the planes are a no type of spy plane - a
stealth transport plane that could sneak troops into a another country
unseen.
A new photo of a mysterious flying object over Kansas has been revealed. It appears to be the same aircraft as one that was snapped soaring over Texas last month. The exact identify of the aircraft remains a mystery, but rumours abound that it could be a secret jet.
+6
A mysterious flying object was snapped flying
over Wichita, Kansas by Jeff Templin. It resembles a similar
unidentified aircraft streaking across the skies of Texas last month
'The photo is grainy
because it was taken with a hand-held maxed-out 400mm telephoto lens
through a cloud layer and then it was severely cropped to bring it up
even close,' says Jeff Templin, who took the photo on 16 April. 'There is no way to know the altitude and no way to judge its size as there is no point of reference. 'My
sense of it with the naked eye was that it was quite high, at least the
altitude passenger jets cruise over but if it were smaller like a
"drone" it could conceivably have been lower and smaller.'
The Aviationist speculates
that the plane could be a RQ-180 stealth drone or a prototype of
America's next generation long range strike bomber (LSRB). They, too, are unsure if it is the same plane as the one spotted previously A
retired Marine with nearly two decades of aviation experience stepped
forward with a compelling theory about the mysterious plane that was
spotted flying over Texas last month. On
March 10, photographers Steve Douglass and Dean Muskett took pictures
of three puzzling aircraft flying over Amarillo, and posted them online
in hopes of identifying the planes. Retired-Marine James Vineyard submitted one of the more interesting explanations, telling the Houston Chronicle he believed they were SR-72 Blackbirds - a spy plane that can cross the U.S. in less than an hour, unmanned.
+6
The triangle over Texas: Two photographers captured this mysterious object flying over Texas last month
+6
Mystery solved? A retired Marine says the plane
pictured in Amarillo last month is the SR-72 Blackbird - a plane
designed to cross the country in less than an hour
+6
The mystery aircraft seen over Amarillo on March 10. Three of the craft were spotted flying by
Vineyard spent 17 years as a Marine and also worked with a jet squadron in Arizona.
THE FIRST STEALTH JET
In 1956, British magazines started
getting eyewitness accounts and grainy photos of the Lockheed U-2, then
operating out of RAF Lakenheath on its first flights over the Soviet
Union - marking the first sight of a spy plane that government's
had hoped to keep secret from prying eyes.
It provided day and night, very high-altitude (70,000 feet / 21,000 m), all-weather intelligence gathering.
He
says the Pentagon may have dispatched the planes to the Indian Ocean to
aide in the search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight 370. But Douglass, who saw the planes himself, doesn't agree. 'The
SR-72 is still in development,' he said Tuesday. 'Plus it's a
high-speed, high-Mach plane. These were going airliner speed. They were
not in a hurry to get anywhere.' The
SR-72 is currently being developed by Lockheed Martin in California,
and according to the company's website they say the plane could be
operational as early as 2030. It
is the predecessor of the SR-71 which broke speed records when it flew
from New York to Lonton in less than two hours in 1976. Lockheed
Martin's Hypersonics program manager Brad Leland wrote that the plane
is designed to 'strike at nearly any location across a continent in less
than an hour.' '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,' Leland said.
+6
Another source told the Chronicle that the plane
was a B-2, but the two photographers discovered that no B-2s were
flying in the country that day
+6
The SR-72 is a successor to the SR-71 which
broke speed records when it flew from New York to London in less than
two hours in 1976
Another
reader, who wished not to be identified, told the Chronicle with
confidence that 'It's a B-2 stealth bomber flying out of Whiteman Air
Force Base in Missouri.' That's
what the photographers thought when they first saw the group of
aircraft, but they say they checked with the base and no B-2s were
flying anywhere in the U.S. that day. Instead,
Douglass believes that the planes are a no type of spy plane - a
stealth transport plane that could sneak troops into a another country
unseen.
Aurora was a rumored mid-1980s American reconnaissance aircraft. There is no substantial evidence that it was ever built or flown and it has been termed a myth.[1][2]
The U.S. government has consistently denied such an aircraft was ever built. Aviation and space reference site Aerospaceweb.org
concluded "The evidence supporting the Aurora is circumstantial or pure
conjecture, there is little reason to contradict the government's
position."[1]
Others come to different conclusions.[3] In 2006, veteran black project watcher and aviation writer Bill Sweetman
said, "Does Aurora exist? Years of pursuit have led me to believe that,
yes, Aurora is most likely in active development, spurred on by recent
advances that have allowed technology to catch up with the ambition that
launched the program a generation ago."[4]
The Aurora legend started in March 1990, when Aviation Week & Space Technology
magazine broke the news that the term "Aurora" had been inadvertently
included in the 1985 U.S. budget, as an allocation of $455 million for
"black aircraft production" in FY 1987.[5] According to Aviation Week, Project Aurora referred to a group of exotic aircraft, and not to one particular airframe. Funding of the project allegedly reached $2.3 billion in fiscal 1987, according to a 1986 procurement document obtained by Aviation Week. In the 1994 book Skunk Works, Ben Rich, the former head of Lockheed's Skunk Works division, wrote that the Aurora was the budgetary code name for the stealth bomber fly-off that resulted in the B-2 Spirit.[6]
Evidence
By the late 1980s, many aerospace industry observers believed that
the U.S. had the technological capability to build a Mach-5 replacement
for the aging Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Detailed examinations of the U.S. defense budget claimed to have found money missing or channeled into black projects.[7]
By the mid-1990s, reports surfaced of sightings of unidentified
aircraft flying over California and the United Kingdom involving
odd-shaped contrails, sonic booms and related phenomena that suggested
the US had developed such an aircraft. Nothing ever linked any of these
observations to any program or aircraft type, but the name Aurora was
often tagged on these as a way of explaining the observations.[1]
British sighting claims
In late August 1989, while working as an engineer on the jack-up barge GSF Galveston Key in the North Sea, Chris Gibson and another witness saw an unfamiliar isosceles triangle-shaped delta aircraft, apparently refueling from a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker and accompanied by a pair of F-111
fighter-bombers. Gibson and his friend watched the aircraft for several
minutes, until they went out of sight. He subsequently drew a sketch of
the formation.
Gibson, who had been in the Royal Observer Corps'
trophy-winning international aircraft recognition team since 1980, was
unable to identify the aircraft. He dismissed suggestions that the
aircraft was an F-117, Mirage IV or fully swept wing F-111.[8] When the sighting was made public in 1992, the British Defence SecretaryTom King
was told, "There is no knowledge in the MoD of a 'black' programme of
this nature, although it would not surprise the relevant desk officers
in the Air Staff and Defence Intelligence Staff if it did exist."[9]
A crash at RAF Boscombe Down on 26 September 1994 appeared closely linked to "black" missions, according to a report in AirForces Monthly.
Further investigation was hampered by aircraft from the USAF flooding
into the base. The crash site was protected from view by firetrucks and
tarpaulins and the base was closed to all flights soon after.[10]
American sighting claims
A series of unusual sonic booms was detected in Southern California, beginning in mid- to late-1991 and recorded by U.S. Geological Surveysensors across Southern California used to pinpoint earthquakeepicenters. The sonic booms were characteristic of a smaller vehicle rather than the 37-meter long Space Shuttle orbiter. Furthermore, neither the Shuttle nor NASA's single SR-71B was operating on the days the booms had been registered.[11] In the article, "In Plane Sight?" which appeared in the Washington City Paper
on 3 July 1992 (pp. 12–13), one of the seismologists, Jim Mori, noted:
"We can't tell anything about the vehicle. They seem stronger than other
sonic booms that we record once in a while. They've all come on
Thursday mornings about the same time, between 4 and 7."[5] Former NASA sonic boom expert Dom Maglieri studied the 15-year old sonic boom data from the California Institute of Technology
and has deemed that the data showed "something at 90,000 ft (c.
27.4 km), Mach 4 to Mach 5.2". He also said the booms did not look like
those from aircraft that had traveled through the atmosphere many miles
away at LAX, rather, they appeared to be booms from a high-altitude aircraft directly above the ground moving at high speeds.[12] The boom signatures of the two different aircraft patterns are wildly different.[4] There was nothing particular to tie these events to any aircraft, but they served to grow the Aurora legend.
On 23 March 1992, near Amarillo, Texas, Steven Douglass photographed the "donuts on a rope" contrail
and linked this sighting to distinctive sounds. He described the engine
noise as: "strange, loud pulsating roar... unique... a deep pulsating
rumble that vibrated the house and made the windows shake... similar to
rocket engine noise, but deeper, with evenly timed pulses." In addition
to providing the first photographs of the distinctive contrail
previously reported by many, the significance of this sighting was
enhanced by Douglass' reports of intercepts of radio transmissions:
"Air-to-air communications... were between an AWACS aircraft with the
call sign "Dragnet 51" from Tinker AFB, Oklahoma,
and two unknown aircraft using the call signs "Darkstar November" and
"Darkstar Mike". Messages consisted of phonetically transmitted
alphanumerics. It is not known whether this radio traffic had any
association with the "pulser" that had just flown over Amarillo."
("Darkstar" is also a call sign of AWACS aircraft from a different squadron at Tinker AFB)[13] A month later, radio enthusiasts in California monitoring Edwards AFB
Radar (callsign "Joshua Control") heard early morning radio
transmissions between Joshua and a high flying aircraft using the
callsign "Gaspipe". "You're at 67,000 feet, 81 miles out" was heard,
followed by "70 miles out now, 36,000 ft, above glideslope." As in the
past, nothing linked these observations to any particular aircraft or
program, but the attribution to the Aurora helped expand the legend.
In February 1994 former resident of Rachel, Nevada, and Area 51
enthusiast, Chuck Clark claimed to have filmed the Aurora taking off
from the Groom Lake facility. In the David Darlington book Area 51: The Dreamland Chronicles, he said:
I even saw the Aurora take off one night - or an aircraft that
matched the Aurora's reputed configuration, a sharp delta with twin
tails about a hundred and thirty feet long. It taxied out of a lighted
hangar at two-thirty A.M. and used a lot of runway to take off. It had
one red light on top, but the minute the wheels left the runway, the
light went off and that was the last I saw of it. I didn't hear it
because the wind was blowing from behind me toward the base." I asked
when this had taken place. "February 1994. Obviously they didn't think
anybody was out there. It was thirty below zero - probably ninety below
with the wind chill factor. I had hiked into White Sides from a
different, harder way than usual, and stayed there two or three days
among the rocks, under a camouflage tarp with six layers of clothes on. I
had an insulated face mask and two sleeping bags, so I didn't present a
heat signature. I videotaped the aircraft through a telescope with a
five-hundred-millimeter f4 lens coupled via a C-ring to a high-eight
digital video camera with five hundred and twenty scan lines of
resolution, which is better than TV." The author then asked "Where's the
tape?" Locked away. That's a legitimate spyplane; my purpose is not to
give away legitimate national defense. When they get ready to unveil it,
I'll probably release the tape.[14]
Additional claims
In the controversial claims of Bob Lazar, he states that during his employment at the mysterious S-4 facility in Nevada, he briefly witnessed an Aurora flight while aboard a bus near Groom Lake.
He claimed that there was a "tremendous roar" which sounded almost as
if "the sky was tearing." Although Lazar only saw the aircraft for a
moment through the front of the bus, he described it as being "very
large" and having "two huge, square exhausts with vanes in them." Upon
speaking with his supervisor, Lazar claims he was informed that the
aircraft was indeed an "Aurora," a "high altitude research plane." He
was also told that the aircraft was powered by "liquid methane."[15]
By 1996 reports associated with the Aurora name dropped off in
frequency, suggesting to people who believed that the aircraft existed
that it had only ever been a prototype or that it had had a short
service life.[1]
In 2000, Aberdeen Press and Journal writer Nic Outterside wrote a
piece on US stealth technology in Scotland. Citing confidential
'sources' he alleged RAF/USAF Machrihanish in Kintyre, Argyll to be a
base for Aurora aircraft. Machrihanish's almost two-mile-long long
runway makes it suitable for high-altitude and experimental aircraft
with the fenced-off coastal approach making it ideal for takeoffs and
landings to be made well away from eyes or cameras of press and public.
'Oceanic Air Traffic Control at Prestwick' Outterside says, 'also
tracked fast-moving radar blips. It was claimed by staff that a
"hypersonic jet was the only rational conclusion" for the readings.'[16]
In 2006, aviation writer Bill Sweetman
put together 20 years of examining budget "holes", unexplained sonic
booms, along with the Gibson sighting and concluded: "This evidence
helps establish the program's initial existence. My investigations
continue to turn up evidence that suggests current activity. For
example, having spent years sifting through military budgets, tracking
untraceable dollars and code names, I learned how to sort out where
money was going. This year, when I looked at the Air Force operations
budget in detail, I found a $9-billion black hole that seems a perfect
fit for a project like Aurora."[4]
In February and March of 2014, an aircraft matching this description
was photographed multiple times over Kansas and Texas in daylight. In
February 2014, an amateur photographer Jeff Templin snapped pictures of a
triangular aircraft while photographing wildlife in Kansas.[17]
On Mar 10, 2014 Steve Douglass and Dean Muskett photographed a
triangular shaped aircraft giving off a long contrail over Amarillo,
Texas during daylight. Bill Sweetman, Graham Warwick, and Guy Norris of
Aviation Week all agree that "the photos show something real."[18]
Lockheed
Martin’s Skunk Works has confirmed that it is developing the SR-72 spy
plane. The successor to the SR-71 Blackbird, which was capable of Mach
3.5, the SR-72 will be a hypersonic unmanned aircraft capable of Mach 6,
or just over 4,500 mph. At hypersonic speeds, the SR-72 will be able to
traverse any continent in around an hour — meaning, if they’re
strategically positioned around the world on aircraft carriers, the US
military can strike or surveil any location on Earth in about an hour.
It is also suspected that the SR-72′s hypersonic engine tech — some kind
of hybrid scramjet — will find its way into the US military’s High
Speed Strike Weapon (HSSW), a missile that can theoretically strike
anywhere on Earth in just a few minutes.
The SR-71, or Blackbird
as you probably know it, was the pinnacle of the US military’s Cold
War reconnaissance efforts. Introduced in 1966, the Blackbird, with its
hybrid turbojet/ramjet engines, was the fastest manned aircraft in the
sky until it was retired in 1998. Despite being utterly massive — 107
feet (32 meters) long with a 55-foot (17-meter) wingspan — the SR-71
only had two crew and no weapons (it was loaded up with cameras, radio
antennae, and other surveillance-oriented loadout). Due to high running
costs, and reallocation of funds towards other efforts such as UAVs, the
SR-71 was retired after 32 years of active service. Of 32 aircraft that
were built, 12 were lost in accidents — but none were ever shot down or
captured by the enemy.
The SR-71 Blackbird
The
SR-72, despite the similar name, is a completely new plane. At the
moment, the SR-72 is still only a concept, though Lockheed has now
confirmed that the plane is in active development. An optionally piloted
scale version of the plane with a single engine will be built in 2018,
with test flights scheduled for 2023. If all goes to plan (funding
hasn’t yet been secured by Lockheed Martin), a full-size SR-72 (about
100 feet long) will be built and tested by 2030. As it stands, the
current plan is for the SR-72 to be unmanned. It will be a very, very
large drone. It will probably be unarmed, too, and outfitted entirely
for intelligence gathering, though it’s too early to say for sure.
The view out of the window of an SR-71 at 73,000 feet. Look ma, I’m in space!
While
the SR-72 will undoubtedly be a paragon of stealth and fashioned from
monolithic crystals of titanium wrapped in carbon fiber, its defining
feature is its operational speed of Mach 6 — or 4,567 mph (7,350 kph).
At this speed, the SR-72 can cross the Atlantic (or Europe or China or…)
in about an hour — or circumnavigate the planet in six hours. At an
operational altitude of around 80,000 feet (24,300 meters) and Mach 6,
the SR-72 will be almost impossible to shoot down.
To reach Mach
6, some aeronautic magic needs to occur, otherwise we would’ve built a
Mach 6 aircraft years ago. Basically, turbofan engines — like you would
find in every big airliner — are only really efficient up to around Mach
2.5. Ramjets can then take you to around Mach 4, but then they too lose
their efficiency. To get to Mach 6, Lockheed’s Skunk Works lab — which
has developed such luminaries as the U-2, SR-71, F-22, and F-35 — is
working with Aerojet Rocketdyne to create a turbojet/scramjet hybrid
engine that uses a turbine at low speeds, and a scramjet (supersonic
combustion ramjet) at higher speeds. Like the SR-71, these engines will
have the same inlet and nozzle, with some kind of mechanical system that
shifts the airflow between the two portions of the engine as airspeed
changes. Whereas a ramjet decelerates incoming air to subsonic speeds, a
scramjet is supersonic throughout, allowing for much higher air speeds
(no one knows quite how fast, but we’re talking about at least Mach 10).
SR-72, hybrid turbine/scramjet engine operation
The
SR-72 isn’t the first attempt to crack hypersonic flight, too. Boeing
has been working on the X-51 scramjet tech demo for the last decade, and
in 2013 it finally completed a successful hypersonic (Mach 5.1, 3,400
mph, 5,400 kph) test flight. The scramjet within the X-51 may eventually
find its way into the US military’s High Speed Strike Weapon, an
air-launched missile that travels fast enough to evade early warning
systems and countermeasures. Hybrid engines, such as the SR-72′s, may
eventually find their way into long-range missiles that can travel great
distances to strike almost anywhere on Earth.
Lockheed believes it can develop its SR-72 by 2030.
The $892,292 contract funds a design study to determine the viability of
a TBCC propulsion system by combining one of several current turbine
engines, with a very low Mach ignition Dual Mode Ramjet (DMRJ). NASA
previously funded a Lockheed Martin study that found speeds up to Mach 7
could be achieved with a dual-mode engine combining turbine and ramjet
technologies. The problem with hypersonic propulsion has always been the
gap between the highest speed capabilities of a turbojet, from around
Mach 2.2 to the lowest speed of a ramjet at Mach 4. Typical turbine
engines cannot achieve high enough speeds for a ramjet to take over and
continue accelerating. The NASA-Lockheed study is looking at the
possibility of a higher-speed turbine engine or a ramjet that can
function in a turbine engine's slower flight envelope; the DARPA HTV-3X
had demonstrated a low-speed ramjet that could operate below Mach 3.
Existing turbofan engines powering jet fighters and other experimental
designs are being considered for modification. If the study is
successful, NASA will fund a demonstrator to test the DMRJ in a flight
research vehicle
http://www.ibtimes.com/
Lockheed Martin’s SR-72 Hypersonic Plane Could Be Built For Under $1B, Likely To Be Ready In 2030s
An artist's impression of Lockheed Martin's conceptual hypersonic jet is seen in this undated photo. Photo: Lockheed Martin
Lockheed
Martin Corp. said Tuesday it was on the verge of a technological
breakthrough that would allow its conceptual SR-72 hypersonic plane to
reach six times the speed of sound, or Mach 6, according to reports.
Marillyn Hewson, CEO of Lockheed, said that a hypersonic demonstrator
aircraft the size of an F-22 stealth fighter could be built for less
than $1 billion.
The company is working on an “aerodynamic
configuration” that would allow the successor to the famed SR-71
Blackbird spy plane to fly at Mach 6 speed, Hewson said, according to Reuters. Such a plane would give the U.S. military a major advantage, allowing it to reach targets before the enemy could react.
Orlando
Carvalho, head of Lockheed's aeronautics division, said the U.S.
government's current plan was to manufacture and deploy a hypersonic
weapon, before moving on to develop and deploy a hypersonic aircraft,
Reuters reported. He added that the U.S. could make a hypersonic weapon
by the 2020s, but a hypersonic aircraft like the SR-72 would be
manufactured in the 2030s.
Carvalho also said that Lockheed has
been working on an engine for the hypersonic aircraft with Aerojet
Rocketdyne, a rocket manufacturer, Financial Times
reported. He added that innovation was “much more rapid” now than in
the past because of Aerojet’s engine work and Lockheed’s work
on aircraft materials, the report added.
“That said, it’s going to
require a significant amount of development work, investment and
maturing of the technology,” Carvalho, according to the Financial Times.
Lockheed
announced plans for the SR-72 hypersonic plane in 2013, billing it as
an aircraft that would fly twice as fast as the SR-71 Blackbird.
The flight test of the developmental Wu-14 hypersonic glide vehicle was
monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies Tuesday during a flight test in
western China.
The latest flight test followed earlier tests of the Wu-14 on Jan. 9 and
Aug. 7. The three tests indicate that China’s development of a strike
vehicle capable of traveling up to eight times the speed of sound is a
high-priority element in China’s large-scale military buildup.
China plans to deploy its high-speed glide vehicle by 2020 and a scramjet powered hypersonic vehicle by 2025.
Russia, India, Australia and many other countries are working towards hypersonic missiles.
It will be mounted on Russia's newest fifth-generation Husky-class nuclear submarines which are currently under development.
Modern Russian anti-ship missiles, like Onyx, can reach up to Mach 2.6
(750 meters per second). The sea-based Kalibr cruise missile travels at a
Mach 0.9 speed, but while approaching the target, its warhead speeds up
to Mach 2.9.
"The Pyotr Veliky will start repairs in the third or fourth quarter of
2019. Repairs and upgrade are due for completion in late 2022, the ship
to be equipped with Zircon hypersonic anti-ship missiles," a source told
Tass at the time.
