An SR-72 in the works?

[Letum]

Why dont they just develop a missile with the survelance equipment in? :hmm:

And didin't spy planes die in the age of the satalite?

[Oberon]

:hmm: :hmm:

I see they've learnt some things from Aurora...that's looking good. Nice design!

[tycho102]

Originally Posted by Oberon

:hmm: :hmm:
I see they've learnt some things from Aurora.

Refueling liquid methane is risky business and how difficult it is to run a pulse-jet at low altitudes and speeds.


SR-72 has a nice UAV design. I wonder if it is autonomous or semi-autonomous, because they'd better have a plan if EMP or a solar flare knocks out our satellites. I imagine the flight-profile is easy enough as long as it doesn't need refueling.

[Heibges]

How many of the Subcontractors are in Murtha's district?

[bradclark1]

Originally Posted by Heibges

How many of the Subcontractors are in Murtha's district?

Somehow I don't think that has anything to do with it. This time anyway.

[ASWnut101]

Originally Posted by Letum

Why dont they just develop a missile with the survelance equipment in? :hmm:

And didin't spy planes die in the age of the satalite?

To keep others from obtaining the technology you just launched at them, not to mention preventing a major global-thermonuclear war (seriously, one may think the missile is an incoming ICBM/SLBM and start a nuke fest).


And there is no substitute for the stealth of the aircraft. Satilites are watched by other satillites, ect.


***************

It just needs to be manned, though. That would be amazing to ride in.

[Tronics]

No spy planes did not die with the age of the 3 meter satelite resolution.

Satelites are great for getting the big picture, however the handful of super-awesome-mega-resolution satelites are constantly baing timeshared by almost all US agencies and the like.

When I was on my way out of Chairforce intel the baseline standard satelite resolution was about 9 feet (3 meters), now I hear that the new baseline is soon to be 6 feet (2 meters) with a a handful of super-awesome-mega-resolution satalites almost having a 2 foot margin now.

Soon they will get to under a foot which is nice because it can provide nice spiffy super high res (5+ Gigabyte) reconnisance images down to even counting the shingles on the roof of your house.

The only problem for this is that these satalites are the far minority in their fields and are constantly fought over by federal agencies and interdepartments due to their ovbious value.

Also when considering orbital satelites those have primetime windows of opportunity as they coast effortlessly over out heads about every 100 minutes or so which is usually the amount of time that it takes them to complete an orbit.

So there are times when big brother has to switch his glasses out to another pair as it rounds the bend over the horizon of the specified area.

So in short satelites are great for getting daily or even hourly updates on extremely high priority intel targets, however for continous survailence or more immediate options you turn to either drones, planes, and finally men.

Each one has a cost in both dectivity, time and risk.

With spyplanes usually the time to target time is very low due to their speed, however this speed also sometimes compromises their stealth if they are going to fly over a target with a even a 'semi-modern' radar defence/warning system, plus their potential lost cost is the highest.

Drones on the other hand usually have a moderate to long time until target depending on their deployment positions, however their small size and slowish speed usually make them stealthy enough to get to the target area mostly undetced and get a few minutes worth of constant survailence before they are noticed. They are moderately cheap and totally expendable. Most now carry a payload or are themselves a payload that can be used as an impromptu bomb if a good enough of atarget situation arises.

Men or more specifically recon specalists range from dedicated special forces recon units such as the USMC Force Recon to basic 1-2 man USAF Far Area Recon jump teams...they usually take the most time to get to a target, but potentially have the lowest risk of detection, however their cost is high, (more then the drone but less then the spyplane), because where as men are expendable experience is not.

[Letum]

What a well written post!
thanks!

[moose1am]

No the spy planes never died in the presence of satellites. They got even more important. The satellite's orbit is predictable and things on the ground can be moved when a satellite is know to be overhead. A spy plane can take off and hover over any area for a much longer period of time

The new SR72 can fly at 100,000ft altitude and at 4000 mph. Don't have to be very stealty at that altitude and speed. And it's said to be capable of taking care of the Chinese antsatellite weapons. Humm. So any satellite that can detect this bird may be a target of this bird, not the other way around.

You can bet that if this plane is being talked about in the open now that's it's been around and operational for a long time now. You don't retire a SR71 that is successful without having a replacement ready to go.

Originally Posted by Letum

Why dont they just develop a missile with the survelance equipment in? :hmm:

And didin't spy planes die in the age of the satalite?

[Tronics]

[quote=moose1am]
You don't retire a SR71 that is successful without having a replacement ready to go.[/quote=moose1am]

Actually they've hauled one out of retirement a few times.

After Desert Storm there was a renewed debate on the progress of R&D regarding potential SR-71 replacements, because apparently most of the contracts to date failed to meet certain specifications....mostly budget specifications.

So there were a handful of contracts issued yet again, to the same companies, in the 1990's for potential SR-71 replacements, only one was completed before the Clinton Administration and it was Lockheed's, susposedly it had more or less the same airframe, but then again the signature SR-71 airframe was kicked around since 1960 in one way or another.

Anyways things changed in the midst of the early ninties, and I'm not trying to turn this into a political discussion but it will probably end up that way so I'll just try to state some semi-factual observations.

Bill Clinton believed that the Cold War was over, as many others did, few people forsaw the problems that would happen with 'rogue state scenarios' and crackpot dictatorships rising from the ashes of the Warsaw, and even fewer people cared.

Military spending went from a 'global deterrent' to a 'global pain in the ass' overnight, everything that was deemed unnecessary was cut, immediately and in some cases without informing people.

There was a mass exodus of personnel from all levels in all fields, and as they went into the private sector they inadvertantly and vastly expanded on the situation of military based contracting...which in a twisted irony costs the government more today then ever before.

I left once and resigned...mainly because the USAF came out of the blue and threw a $90,000 resign package at me when I was particularly having a hard time finding stable employment because no one was then (1998) willing to accepet the notion of Information Security as a job field...lol. I left again more recently in 05 after being totally fedup with the entire process but thats another story.

[dean_acheson]

SS- one cool thread, with some really cool posts.

Damn, I love this place.