SR-72(lockheedmartin.com)
lockheedmartin.com
SR-72
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/news/features/2013/sr-72.html
59 comments
When I read that I was not so sure what the person who wrote that actually wanted to say.
Cause it sounds a bit like:
The SR-71 was built with solid engineering and hard work, this on the other hand is a pice of shit.
Cause it sounds a bit like:
The SR-71 was built with solid engineering and hard work, this on the other hand is a pice of shit.
[deleted]
You only think that because you're(I assume) a programmer, which is how most programmers feel about their code.
I think it is not an unreasonable observation that when a project encompases the state of the art of a wide variety of engineering disciplines, code is not given the same treatment or respect that hardware is. On one hand you have every single metal part being x-rayed to verify internal consistency; on the other hand the software development is a shitshow that needs to be whipped into shape in order to be done on time, let alone work well.
Look at the history of the development of the AGC as an example. And which part of the LEM gave Armstrong and Aldrin trouble during the descent? And that is a success story, in the end it mostly worked.
Look at the history of the development of the AGC as an example. And which part of the LEM gave Armstrong and Aldrin trouble during the descent? And that is a success story, in the end it mostly worked.
Oh dear. Thought you were spoofing them, until I clicked through.
Aye.
Complexity isn't your friend.
Complexity isn't your friend.
What's the deal with all the SR-71 posts in the past few days? They're a cool relic of the cold war age but what has happened recently with them that's warranted all the attention?
Also if you're really enamored with them you should definitely check out the national airforce museum in Dayton, OH: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/ You can see one up close, along with all kinds of other planes, jets, and missiles. Admission is free, and expect to spend at least a full day walking around the place.
Also if you're really enamored with them you should definitely check out the national airforce museum in Dayton, OH: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/ You can see one up close, along with all kinds of other planes, jets, and missiles. Admission is free, and expect to spend at least a full day walking around the place.
It's just the snowball effect. Every post about SR-71 encourages more people to learn something about it and that sometimes results in another post to HN.
I'm amazed there are so many people interested in military equipment. Is this a USA thing? Would love someone to explain the appeal.
It's not so much that it's military equipment. Some of it is just amazing engineering, regardless of context. Since many HNers are engineers, it is not surprising that posts about interesting/amazing feats of engineering get voted up.
One of my favourites (ignore the patriotic stuff in the beginning): http://www.wvi.com/~sr71webmaster/press_suit001.html
One of my favourites (ignore the patriotic stuff in the beginning): http://www.wvi.com/~sr71webmaster/press_suit001.html
I wouldn't call the fastest airplane ever built to be just "military equipment". It's probably one of the greatest engineering achievements ever and it's still unsurpassed.
It's also a beautiful machine.
It's also a beautiful machine.
Didn't realise it was the fastest airplane ever built, that sheds some light on it. It is really a greater engineering feat than anything in the space program?
It depends on if you count the X-15 or the Shuttle, but neither of those were air-breathing.
The shuttle should be considered a glider (a lousy one) when landing. The X-15 is a rocket with wings and should be called a spaceplane - it crossed the 100 Km border twice after all, and couldn't take off by itself.
Agreed. The X-15 even had a RCS for when control surfaces no longer had enough air to bite into.
The coolest thing is the analog computer that seamlessly went between control surfaces and RCS as if it were flying using surfaces within an atmosphere. It may not be a "real" plane, but that doesn't make it any less amazing.
I'd love to see the X-15 progress into the X-20 and onwards.
I'd love to see the X-15 progress into the X-20 and onwards.
I think the SR-71 interests most people despite being military equipment. It interests me in the same way that the X-15, Apollo, or SpaceX's Grasshopper interest me.
The SR-71 is a major milestone in human engineering that hasn't been matched in 4 decades. It's like we landed on the moon and stopped all progress. The plane carries no weapons and it's only purpose was to take pictures.
Nitpick, the SR-72, which this article is about, apparently would carry weapons.
People's interest is roughly proportional to the energy level involved. Energy is proportional to v^2, so fast things are extraordinarily interesting.
I'm not that familiar with military aircraft development timelines, but this stuck out as my favorite part:
A hypersonic plane does not have to be an expensive, distant possibility. In fact, an SR-72 could be operational by 2030.
A hypersonic plane does not have to be an expensive, distant possibility. In fact, an SR-72 could be operational by 2030.
By comparison, the SR-71 was first proposed around 1960 and operational by 1966. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-71_Blackbird
This is one of the most perplexing things about our modern world - the seemingly exponential increase in the length of time it takes to get anything done, especially large, technically complex projects. This is true for the Saturn V, for the World Trade Center, dams, highways, high speed rail, etc. It makes me wonder where these "productivity improvements" really are, especially the ones that computers presumably give us. Perhaps AutoCAD and MS Word and email make us feel more productive, but are actually slowing us down. Or perhaps all of it just increases the velocity of money through the economy, which particularly helps those whose income is proportional to transaction rate (banks, brokers, and governments).
That's a good question, I think, thought I'm not sure, the answer is people are now far more expensive, adding more people means less money is made. Let's use your dams example. They built a bunch of big dams in the 50s and 60s and each one had more than 10,000 people working on it. They were mostly publicly financed, so more or less not built to make money. They didn't worry about adding a few more (or a few hundred more) people to the job because they were cheap. Now, the people that do this work are really expensive, and adding a few more means the people in charge make less money. Another big thing is probably rules and regulations and laws, far fewer back then. Good? Bad? I dunno.
I don't think it's the cost of people. Technology has done a pretty good job of reducing the cost of simple labor. But technology hasn't done a great job of managing complexity. See, for example, the above jab at the "millions of lines of software code" managing the SR-72. That stands in stark contrast to the "keep it simple stupid" motto attributed to Kelly Johnson, the SR-71's designer.
Progress!
So given Lockheed's track record on the F-35, we'll see this finally cancelled around 2040 (the first $1 trillion aircraft program) when everyone else has built similar planes better, faster, and more reliably.
How many other planes have they built? Saying other companies have built equivalent planes is incorrect.
Trying to build one plane for everyone was probably not the wisest thing to do.
Trying to build one plane for everyone was probably not the wisest thing to do.
Almost like the story of commercial operating systems.
People easily remember the bad projects but the f-22 program didn't have the same problems.
How else are we going to keep those efficient, upstanding private contractors in business?
Part of what made the SR-71 incredible was Kelly Johnson's ability to keep the team small, fast, and focused in designing it. Not sure if that's the case here.
[deleted]
SR-71 was built for one mission only: Fly-over the Soviet Union and take pictures. At the speeds that it operates, you can't really do much else. And recon satellites do this much more effectively now, and are extremely hard to take down.
Proponents of hypersonic aircraft research have been fighting an uphill battle for this very reason.
Proponents of hypersonic aircraft research have been fighting an uphill battle for this very reason.
The other thing you can do at that speed is intercept enemy planes. The SR-71 was developed from an interceptor project:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_YF-12
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_YF-12
That's not an accurate description at all. Both the SR-71 and the YF-12 were developed from the A-12, which was purely a reconnaissance aircraft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_A-12
The whole concept of using the "Blackbird" family of planes as interceptors was an experimental offshoot that was quickly cancelled, the SR-71 certainly wasn't developed as some byproduct of an interceptor, it it was the other way around, the interceptor was a failed offshoot of the reconnaissance aircraft.
The whole concept of using the "Blackbird" family of planes as interceptors was an experimental offshoot that was quickly cancelled, the SR-71 certainly wasn't developed as some byproduct of an interceptor, it it was the other way around, the interceptor was a failed offshoot of the reconnaissance aircraft.
You are right. I read the first paragraph of that page too quickly, and got the order wrong.
The main point was that interceptor is the other role for very fast plane, including the active service MiG-31 (around Mach 2.8).
The main point was that interceptor is the other role for very fast plane, including the active service MiG-31 (around Mach 2.8).
>>> The SR-71 was developed using 20th century technology. It was envisioned with slide rules and paper. It wasn’t managed by millions of lines of software code. And it wasn’t powered by computer chips. All that changes with the SR-72.
Errr, replacing slide rules with millions of lines of software is not always progress. HN is probably the most fertile ground for finding counter examples around
Errr, replacing slide rules with millions of lines of software is not always progress. HN is probably the most fertile ground for finding counter examples around
What would be the key advantage of a Mach 6 drone? At that speed, it's hardly stealth (it'll be very hot) and its payload is not exactly remarkable. At best, it's a reusable missile booster stage.
I get there are political problems on putting conventional precision warheads on top of ICBMs (a conventional attack would look exactly like a nuclear one) but I can't see what this drone brings to the table compared to a missile launch. An adversary would still have little to no time to react before being hit. The only difference is that with an ICBM, if you know about the launch, you know about the arrival time and, with this plane, you'll have to see its IR signature (shouldn't be hard if you can already detect an ICBM launch) and guess it's about to attack (which isn't hard either because I doubt the SR-72 can maintain Mach 6 for long periods).
It would, perhaps, be smarter to use B-52's to launch sub-orbital missiles with precision conventional warheads. They should be far less conspicuous than a drone doing Mach 6.
I get there are political problems on putting conventional precision warheads on top of ICBMs (a conventional attack would look exactly like a nuclear one) but I can't see what this drone brings to the table compared to a missile launch. An adversary would still have little to no time to react before being hit. The only difference is that with an ICBM, if you know about the launch, you know about the arrival time and, with this plane, you'll have to see its IR signature (shouldn't be hard if you can already detect an ICBM launch) and guess it's about to attack (which isn't hard either because I doubt the SR-72 can maintain Mach 6 for long periods).
It would, perhaps, be smarter to use B-52's to launch sub-orbital missiles with precision conventional warheads. They should be far less conspicuous than a drone doing Mach 6.
“At this speed, the aircraft would be so fast, an adversary would have no time to react or hide.”
“Hypersonic aircraft, coupled with hypersonic missiles, could penetrate denied airspace and strike at nearly any location across a continent in less than an hour”
… sounds lovely.
“Hypersonic aircraft, coupled with hypersonic missiles, could penetrate denied airspace and strike at nearly any location across a continent in less than an hour”
… sounds lovely.
They expect delivery 'by 2030'.
I wonder if satellites and newer weapons wouldn't be able to intercept its flight path by then.
You probably wouldn't have to match its speed to bring it down, just throw up a cloud of junk in its way.
I wonder if satellites and newer weapons wouldn't be able to intercept its flight path by then.
You probably wouldn't have to match its speed to bring it down, just throw up a cloud of junk in its way.
Or heat its skin.
A laser defense weapon, coupled with the black titanium skin, likely already close to its thermal limits, might produce results of interest to a defender.
A laser defense weapon, coupled with the black titanium skin, likely already close to its thermal limits, might produce results of interest to a defender.
In the meantime, its going to take a lot of time and money to develop those weapons as well. I mean, you're talking about hypothetical countermeasures that don't even exist as a solid concept yet.
Not entirely true. LAWS has been in active tests and is, I believe, being deployed now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBDF0Tm0kuY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBDF0Tm0kuY
True, but we have 16 years to figure it out.
I mean hey if we're going to be throwing away huge sums of money on useless military gear, it may as well look cool. OTOH maybe we'd be better served by underwriting all college tuition?
Or both? I mean, that's what government boondoggles are for, right? Maybe if we send the under/unemployed grads with all the expensive military gear to war, we'd solve more problems?
I am genuinely curious. Didn't satellites and drones make this obsolete as a concept?
It is a drone: "Envisioned as an unmanned aircraft, the SR-72 would fly at speeds up to Mach 6 ..."
No reason this couldn't be a drone, and no reason it'd necessarily be a recon craft - being able to hit a target anywhere with weapons with only a couple of hours notice would make acting on intel easier.
Could this be used for space launch?
See Pegasus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(rocket)
Unlikely though. Pegasus benefits from the exceptional payload capacity of the B-52 and L-1011 airframe and power plant.
Unlikely though. Pegasus benefits from the exceptional payload capacity of the B-52 and L-1011 airframe and power plant.
Destabilizing.
'MURICA! Let's make a metal projectile move realy fucking fast through the air!! So fucking amazing angineering shit stuff thing! Fuck yeah!!
"We're committed to bombing more weddings, quicker, farther away"
Oh oh.