Baiting a Chinese spy satellite to irreversibly change it's orbit to above a movie site is next level trolling.

@kenjifox4264

5 ай бұрын

What interests me about that is that the US knew that the satellite was turning and in which direction as soon as China started doing it.

@dewlittle1211

5 ай бұрын

@@kenjifox4264satellites aren’t hard to track. US adversaries can just as easily track ours as we can track their’s. There are websites dedicated to observing satellites military and non-military alike. Even you could do it yourself. All satellites have to be able to be tracked by all space-faring nations in order to make sure they can be readjusted so that no satellite collisions happen.

@brimfire

5 ай бұрын

@@kenjifox4264 Doubling down on @dewlittle1211's comment; tracking satellites in space is basic defense protocol, especially if it has energy-collecting wings. It gets a lot more complex and difficult if they're smaller, radiological powered satellites that don't have giant solar reflectors but AFAIK those give off a bunch of heat so you just need to point an IR-capable telescope at the sky to see those.

@michaelt1775

5 ай бұрын

well, I'm sure their are at least a dozen unknown spy satellites mixed in with starlink made to look identical to them. Plus a few more beasts that are not as easily tracked

@shashankmalik2164

5 ай бұрын

i think that darkstar is the real sr72 chinese satellite caught the glimpse of it thats why they made a movie around it to prove it was just a movie prop yeah i know this sounds foolish but suddenly dropping a sequel to movie made in 1986 just seems a little weird

A former F117 pilot put it very well. "What I'm allowed to talk about today is typically 20 - 30 year old tech" Puts it into perspective!

@SomewhereInTheSolarSystem

5 ай бұрын

The SR72 was destroyed when Tom Cruise got faster than 10.1 Mach.

@johnhullard5188

5 ай бұрын

Russians beat their chests and spout vodka soaked threats while bloviating every hypersonic threat. Americans just keep silent till the moment of action.

@freskoclipz2733

5 ай бұрын

@@SomewhereInTheSolarSystembro ejected at Mach 10 n walked it off 💀💀😭

@SomewhereInTheSolarSystem

5 ай бұрын

@@freskoclipz2733 😂

@andrewbaskett8581

5 ай бұрын

all of this UFO sightings by US military pilots in military ranges off shore always makes me think, if you showed some pilots at the of the 70s or early 80s the have blue or Northrop Tacit Blue and then the f117, they would think it was a UFO with it giving no radar signature and its looks. So when these pilots say these planes were so wild looking and acted insane, didnt leave normal instrument readings, etc.... thats what I truly think it is....

Last year I attended the Edwards AFB airshow, where the Darkstar was on static display. I know it was a movie, but damn that movie prop made too much aerodynamic sense. I still got the 'hiding in plain site' vibe from that so-called movie prop.

@alexanderkareh6832

3 ай бұрын

I think that same thing. I don’t think Lockheed would just build an entire aircraft just for a movie.

@vladyvhv9579

Ай бұрын

Take into consideration that the Making Of featurettes, they state that they wanted Lockheed to build it as if they were actually going to make a flying version of it...

@davemccombs

Ай бұрын

God fucking damnit, please go on google, it works It's a prop BASED ON SEVERAL REAL-LIFE P.O.C DESIGNS Fucking A guys, come on@@alexanderkareh6832

@davemccombs

Ай бұрын

Means nothing@@vladyvhv9579

@BionicBurke

26 күн бұрын

@@vladyvhv9579 It's not just credited to Lockheed. If it was, I'd believe it was just a prop.. It's credited to Skunkworks. You don't get that branch of said company that runs Area-51 to just make you a movie prop when the government is shoving billions their way in black budgets. Also, why did it need engine covers? What were they hiding? I don't believe it was an operational aircraft that they were parading around but very likely a radar demonstrator.

This entire video is impressive so far, but the bit about the hermes using an entire engine as a blocking body is so sooooo cool. I'm floored by the fact that, one, someone came up with that, and two, that we can make materials that can survive that. Ah man, science and engineering are dooooope.

@kathrynck

5 ай бұрын

I dunno. It's not that big of a leap from how an afterburner works. Good idea? yes. Crazy genius idea? nah. ;)

@mintoc8853

5 ай бұрын

Suuuuure an afterburner is a glorified propane torch, not nearly as complicated as supersonic airflows that need to be rerouted around a vulnerable engine@@kathrynck

@kathrynck

5 ай бұрын

@@mintoc8853 I think you're oversimplifying an afterburner. But I don't mean to imply that it's "simple" to have a supersonic airflow going around an engine into another engine. I'm just saying that the core idea of doing it that way is fairly intuitive. Mullti-cycle engines aren't a new concept. Not that it's easy or simple to pull off what they're attempting.

@mintoc8853

5 ай бұрын

@@kathrynck well besides the throat varying, afterburners are essentially gas torches, a crude way of increasing energy output. Imo ideas like this one are often deceptively evident after the fact. Just like the forst iterations of normal jet engines back in the day. But either way I think we can agree it's a pretty cool way of doing it

@extragoogleaccount6061

5 ай бұрын

Im just amazed at the thermal properties of whatever they are using. Sounds like that engine would have been melted 30 years ago

The problem is that a genuine program is hard to distinguish from an attempt to mislead the enemy.

@hazonku

5 ай бұрын

That's what all the UAP nonsense is for.

@uku4171

5 ай бұрын

​@@hazonkuI think the reason the government paying attention to the UAP stuff is because the public won't shut up about it. The UFO community is annoying.

@kathrynck

5 ай бұрын

@@uku4171 I agree.

@donaldduck830

5 ай бұрын

If there is no genuine program to replace Blackbird... then a lot of people need to be tried for a) sedition and b) fraud, theft and corruption.

@marcd1981

5 ай бұрын

Not a problem for the military, that's how they want it to be.

I always say, if this tech is allowed (maybe encouraged) to be published, imagine what USAF is working on behind closed doors!

@CarloEnrico532

5 ай бұрын

Some anti gravitational quantum-sonic flying triangles

@AURORAREVEALNOW

5 ай бұрын

Which to be honest, the SR-72 might be the SR-91 Aurora in disguise.

@Coecoo

5 ай бұрын

Not gonna happen. US is very crybaby secrecy when it comes to the composition of their airplane alloys + their radar absorbent rubber paint job combos despite most other nations on the planet not having the funds to burn on such overkill "muh stealth" applications anyways.

@Expedient_Mensch

5 ай бұрын

Imagination suggest aliens. LOL.

@SHVRWK

5 ай бұрын

They really need to keep the security as tight as if it's non-existent and even then there's still risks of Chinese espionage. The US has huge problem of traitors, spoiled little brats leaking secrets, hacking and spies that still hasn't been solved.

I talked to a USAF boom operator at an air show a couple of years ago and asked him what are the most amazing planes he has refueled, he mentioned F-22, B-2, and another he couldn't talk about.

@gunlzone

3 ай бұрын

Realistically it was probably B-21 lol

@sartainja

2 ай бұрын

Typical response.

@davemccombs

Ай бұрын

No, he didn't.

@wicked1172

Ай бұрын

​@@sartainja Correct however, he shouldn't have made any mention of anything secret, even hinting is not allowed. Boom Operator, USAF 22+yrs.

@ElonMuckX

6 күн бұрын

It was an A-10 and he couldn’t talk about it, because enemies don’t believe it can fly that fast 😂

As a USAF veteran and decades-long worker in the DOD contracting community, I said when the SR-71 was officially decommissioned, that there was _no way_ they would do that without a replacement aircraft already at least being in the works. Sats can't do it all, and can't be "real-time" in all circumstances at any particular place. At the time, the project was rumored to be called "Aurora" (and even this vehicle may well have been) but regardless of the project moniker, it was absolutely going to have existed.

Mu Uncle just retired from Lockheed Martin, he has always said, the average person cannot handle what we can actually do.

@radiofreealbemuth8540

5 ай бұрын

Is he worried about the Chinese threat?

@lilman227

5 ай бұрын

@@radiofreealbemuth8540 Shouldn’t be. They’re just as out of there element as us. Been working USAF rapid experiment projects for years. Super neat stuff, but nothing is really impressive anymore. Lockheed Martin. They’re beyond the USAF for sure though. All internal. Won’t even let us know what they have, so I assume it’s cool.

@robertandrew880

4 ай бұрын

@radiofreealbemuth8540 the chineese threat is semi real. Numbers yes, ability no. But having a threat is good for the Defense Industry.

@peekaboopeekaboo1165

4 ай бұрын

​@@robertandrew880 Yup ... War is a racket !

Asked a relative who works at Skunk Works, he just smiled. My dad worked on F-117, after it went public , said it works

@mattywanders

5 ай бұрын

My grandma worked for Lockheed Martin for 30 years and was part of the SW team in the 70s and 80s. She was a metal fabricator and while we don't know exactly what she did, she likely had a hand in building the F117s. She passed years ago and we'll never know, but I think it's awesome she was involved with that stuff. She wasn't a clerk or a secretary. She was on the floor building badass jets!

@sundhaug92

5 ай бұрын

ofc he smiled, they can't confirm or deny

@Inyourbox-kr5uf

5 ай бұрын

Replying with a smile is so badass

@sneakerset

5 ай бұрын

Very cool. Lived in Trent tract (years ago), and my neighbor would leave town on JANET airlines - heading over to Groom Lake. He had every single cutting bit I needed for my metal projects. Nowadays, composite lay-up tech is getting done by Antelope Valley College student candidates. P42 is Class D airspace,too. A Cessna requested an emergency landing once ,and went in without clearance - base security hustled the pilot right outta there. A Lancaster vet had pictures of his clients at his office gallery - the fur missiles from Dagger squadron.

@johnserrano9689

5 ай бұрын

I am aware what I sound like here, but last year late summer beautiful day without anything more than 1 small fluff of clouds, I was outside raking out gravel....all of a sudden I hear a strange very powerful jet I assumed to be an f15 or f22 so I excitedly look skyward all over as I could hear it directly above but couldn't see anything, then I hear a VERY LOUD SPOOL UP of some sort I honestly don't know how to convey it but it sounded like the biggest turbo spooling ones ever heard...no bullshit less than a couple milliseconds all that very odd jet sounds was gone to silence....no trails in the sky either, and whatever it truely was I've seen all known fighter jets take off and fly first hand and nothing. I've ever heard sounds anything like that, but the strangest thing ever how in the fck does a jet on an almost completely clear summer day go unseen?????? That altitude should be impossible, admittedly I know nothing about fighter jets and their engineering but man I've never heard any fighter or bomber come along with its thunderous sound, THEN SPOOL UP THE ENGINES? Really what in the fck could do that? I short after watching this video, I honestly believe this explains it entirely....you can hear it, and it sounds like nothing else ever before, but you can only dream of seeing the fckn thing lol hats off to all those engineers and guys in charge (obviously idk wth I heard but never saw) if this videos accurate, we're all proud of ya 👍🇺🇸

I've seen an SR71 Blackbird in person and it is an incredible sight to behold. It's hard to believe that it is so old. Actually I've seen two different Blackbirds, one in Ohio and also the one in Arizona. I go to a lot of military airplane museums.

@Thepeanutgallery666

5 ай бұрын

I saw an SR-71 at an air show in Boise Idaho when I was a kid. It had to have been mid-to-late 80s. Of course, I didn't know what I was looking at at the time, but I remember that signature shape. I remember seeing it fly. I remember people calling it a blackbird. And I remember that nobody could get close or they would get shot, and it leaked fuel all over the ground underneath it. It's my understanding that there is one in Hill Air Force Museum south of Ogden utah, and I keep meaning to get over and look at it. Such a beautiful aircraft. Dark and mysterious, sleek and fast.

@NightKnight347

5 ай бұрын

I'm just going to put Hutchinson, KS on the list here

@richardmeyeroff7397

5 ай бұрын

@@Thepeanutgallery666 their is one in NYC on the Intepid ACand another at the smithsonian museum at Dulles airport, been to both a # of times. They are incredible!

@TexanUSMC8089

5 ай бұрын

I saw a couple landing on Okinawa in the 80's. They landed at Kadena AFB. People used to line up at the fences with their cameras, hoping an SR-71 would land.

@Mr.T.MBA.

5 ай бұрын

There is one in Utah at the Roy Air Force Museum, plus a B1 Bomber and a ton of other planes. You should check it out.

I grew up in Lancaster, CA - which is 9 miles from Palmdale. They're basically considered sister cities. My 2nd job was at a Boston Market at the Palmdale Mall in the late 90s. My 3rd was at a Chili's just across the street. Needless to say, I drove back and forth in that area quite often. What's not being said in this video is that there is a fairly major highway that goes right passed this Lockheed facility and Plant 42 is literally right next door. There's a railroad track between the highway and those facilities. Quite often there would be a long train of cars parked on those tracks for days or weeks at a time. But honestly they only obscured so much. For reference they revealed the B2 and the B21 at this location to the public. Possibly the F117 too, but I can't remember for sure. Point being, this location is way too public for Top Secret projects. You do see a fair amount of aircraft most of the public isn't familiar with, but they're not secret. My step-dad was the Crew Chief for NASAs B52 program where they drop a lot of stuff off the wings for testing. As a kid I knew he was working on something called "Project Pegasus". He never really spoke of it, but I'm pretty sure that was the early versions of the ramjet/scramjet.

@DecrepitBiden

Ай бұрын

It's misdirection, like a magician. The secret stuff, only comes out of the hangar at night, guarded by security 24/7 all around the hangar, far away from civilization.

Fantastic reporting, Alex! A possible Mach 10 reconnaissance aircraft with the capability to carry conventional or even nuclear weapons is an absolute game changer!

@j.f.fisher5318

5 ай бұрын

It would be one answer to why we are upgrading our nuke gravity bombs

@johndoh5182

5 ай бұрын

@@j.f.fisher5318 Interesting issue because if you launched a nuke from a plane traveling this speed you'd already have it moving at a speed necessary for a scramjet to kick in. This would allow the elimination of the motor to get the missile up to speed so the missile would be simpler and you could have a larger payload. Of course you also have the issue of ICBMs which can get a missile up to these speeds too. Huh. The US is upgrading pretty much all of its nuclear arsenal and the picture becomes a little more clear. If they could get a projectile up around mach 10 that would be a bit of a challenge to intercept especially if it could do a couple course corrections even if it would lose some speed. The first Alex mentioned of this plane probably existing and that it would be multi role it sounded like a winning idea right away and having a much better arsenal to go with it takes the US military out another 2 - 4 decades, maybe more, AFTER these platforms get rolled out to the military.

@DAAllan82

5 ай бұрын

@@johndoh5182 the only reason I doubt we would launch hypersonic missiles from it is cost. Why spend all that money when you can have the plane drop a cheap gravity bomb, and the bomb itself would already be going Mach 10? Just seems too expensive and complex with too many moving parts, and wouldn’t save much time to impact.

@actionjksn

5 ай бұрын

If we make a mach 10 aircraft to carry weapons, they would definitely be nuclear, probably exclusively nuclear. They wouldn't hold enough conventional bombs to be worth using, but you only need 1 nuke.

@TraditionalAnglican

5 ай бұрын

It wouldn’t even need to carry weapons…

Excellent work on this one, Alex! This is a great summary of all the facts up to today. Thanks for all the hard work you put into your reporting.

"You don't actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?" is a quote that lives rent free in my head constantly

@ArticWolfv

5 ай бұрын

the only technology I wish they make is the ability to make ICBM based nukes a mute issue at will.

@elijahpalmer6323

5 ай бұрын

You can easily do this you just need to disrupt the compression cycle of the warhead.

@robertkubrick3738

5 ай бұрын

@@elijahpalmer6323 Many thousands of times within a few minutes. Very simple. Also several months later when the second strike comes in.

What impressed me the most in this video was the reference to 3D material printing. Indeed - being able to integrate cooling (and likely heating) passageways into an engine smacks of building engines like a living body. Imagine what might trickle down to consumer level technology. Wow.

@tomcoon9038

3 ай бұрын

I have seen firsthand the capabilities of 3D printing of aerospace parts in metals that are difficult to manufacture previously in conventional ways. It is nothing short of astounding. I have seen those aforementioned cooling passageways and other unadvertised critical details myself. So, yes. Not only possible but has been done for over a decade already.

@jeremyc74

3 ай бұрын

I've worked with some 3D printed parts in combustion applications, and it really does bring new capabilities to the table. I know they're doing a lot of it for gas turbines used for power generation, and it's allowed for improvements in emissions and efficiency.

@James-zk1ib

7 күн бұрын

This reminds me of that "conspiracy theorist" guy that said he worked at Area 51 and came forward about the aliens, i think his name is Bob Lazar. But he said the alien craft wasnt bolted together, it was all one piece of metal, the wires were part of the ship body themselves. Makes perfect sense, he said this before this technology was even around. But could just be a dude who wanted attention lying out his ass. Who knows, id like to believe though.

I would be very, very surprised if there aren't several next generation aircraft in operational service that remain unknown to the public. USAF have been good at doing this over the years.

@fredfredburger5150

5 ай бұрын

Yep. The F-117 and the B-2 were unveiled to the public at the same time despite the former being designed, built and flown almost several years earlier...

@rylian21

5 ай бұрын

The NGAD has already had its first flights. Sounds extremely promising.

@dester3275

5 ай бұрын

Its 2023, everyone has a handheld camera that auto focuses. Its a lot harder to hide tech now which is why its super unlikely. Its also why we saw footage of the supposed first b-21 flight.

@misterjones7248

5 ай бұрын

It doesn't work like that@@dester3275

@misplacedstarman5455

5 ай бұрын

​@@dester3275- There's a lot of technology out there still that the public hasn't seen,some that would thrill you, and then some that would absolutely scare the hell out of you...

I interpreted the project needing to go through “rescoping” as likely a reduction in the demanded capabilities. Most likely of them being that they had to forego the “Strike” role of the project and focus on producing a functional ISR platform. Another possibility is rescoping the project from a manned platform to an unmanned platform.

@onetruehitman7623

5 ай бұрын

Personally I think they want an unmanned platform (I don’t think they would change the speed, which will probably be Mach 10). Considering they likely had the Global Strike capability in mind perhaps since nearly the beginning, I’m not sure if they’d be willing to remove that so late in the game, especially considering an SR-72 with Global Strike capabilities would make it have a far more versatile role in the Pacific than the SR-71 ever could.

@Soucka74

5 ай бұрын

You only rescope a project to obtain higher goals than required not lower expectations or goals. Those are already covered under the current program or set of parameters.

@appa609

5 ай бұрын

That would require an altitude of at least 150,000 ft and a 2g turn circle the size of the east coast.

@alexdunphy3716

5 ай бұрын

​@@Soucka74this is not the case, programs get toned down all the time

@Soucka74

5 ай бұрын

@@alexdunphy3716 I worked this stuff as an OSI Special Agent. Yes, things get downgraded but, when done there is no need for reclassification or rescoping. Parameters are set to include everything up to a specific set of goals. Therefore, anything below those goals does not need to rescoped down since the original parameters already included those. Rescoping is done if you need to meet higher goals or thresholds.

While I was in the USAF, I was in conversation with an engineer concerning the sr71 and the a/f12. The conversation led to the fact that while flying at 80k and mach 3, the performance of the look down shoot down capabilities was 86% kill rate. One item slipped out that the airframe was rated alot higher than the stated one, and the vehicles were heat treated and toughened with each and every flight. Sr 71 was and is one of my top 10 aircraft. The a-10, f-15, p-38, p-51 mustang h model, a-4, f-14, da buf, Messerschmitt me109, all iderations of the sr-71, and the av 8b harrier. Honorable mentions are the mv 22, ah64, ac130, my version of the ac22, and new replacement for the a-10, built in my mind of a p-38/a-10, but with a new 76mm high speed , 25, 20, 40mm cannon and fifties in the wings, hey, it could happen...

@davemccombs

Ай бұрын

ok

I think the SR-71 is the most beautiful plane ever put into production.

@tobyw9573

2 ай бұрын

I saw a video of a large model of Habu flown at a meet and the model appeared to handle extremely well. Worth investigating.

@vladyvhv9579

Ай бұрын

I've had the fortune to see 2 of them in different aerospace museums. I'd advise anyone who hasn't, to do so. Epic experience.

I remember hearing about the Aurora high speed spy plane back in the early 90's. I wonder if the SR-72 is an offshoot?

@AURORAREVEALNOW

5 ай бұрын

The SR-72 might be the SR-91 Aurora in disguise.

@mastercc4509

5 ай бұрын

art bell in the 90s intensifies

@TheWhiteWolf2077

5 ай бұрын

didnt a lockheed head say we can travel the stars,but only an act of god can uncover it aka ufos.what we see is artificial progress.@@mastercc4509

@amazin7006

5 ай бұрын

Anything moving this fast would be way too high to be visible, plus it would leave a massive trail behind it

@wbaldwin666

5 ай бұрын

​@@amazin7006 this same thing happened the last time I took magic mushrooms

Just imagine if the Darkstar from Top Gun, which was designed by Lockheed and had Lockheed and Shunkworks logos all over it, is a literal mockup of the real SR-72?

@MichaelSmith-bn2kz

5 ай бұрын

The movie could have been the actual cover-up... To say "hey it was a movie prop."

@infinitespace2520

5 ай бұрын

Lockheed Martin basically stated that the SR-72 Darkstar is a fictional piloted spyplane with the same name and based on the SR-72 design, the movie even mentions a rival drone program, strongly implying that it is the drone SR-72 program. The actual plane in the movie was definitely just a prop but probably the same exact design albeit with a cockpit, remove it and you pretty much have the actual SR-72.

@chadbracey5523

5 ай бұрын

Professional level trolling

@blvck.8197

5 ай бұрын

I wouldn't be suprised if its literally the exact aircraft or extremely close to it. When we do eventually see it I will laugh my ass off if it ends up being the same thing we saw in Top Gun.

@louisbabycos106

5 ай бұрын

@@blvck.8197 Honda ,"just for the record we had our stealth bomber first " que picture of both Honda civic SI and remarkably accurate mock up of the B2 stealth bomber.

I find it interesting that the project went dark. Kindof like the railgun project got “cancelled” but now the japanese are making solid progress on it. Any chance you could dig up some recent news on the railgun project?

These aircraft are amazing to witness in person. Glad we have some on our side.

There is a lot to consider, especially if these will be manned aircraft. There are so many dangers for a pilot at that speed and also human reaction may be too slow. But also you don’t want a computer alone to fly some of the most essential missions in the most sensitive areas. I feel like the biggest challenge will be to have an AI system that can give pilots info far enough in advance for them to make decisions at human speed.

@RANGER73CPT

5 ай бұрын

The reality, I fear, is that humans are already outdated and no longer relevant. That is scary to think about and to hear that so many of the developers are already warning about the difficulties of keeping AI "in check" AS WELL AS anytime you look at what "humans" do to the planet we are exactly as it was said in the Matrix. We are a PARASITE on this planet and we are NOT moving in the correct direction to fix it any time soon.... I hope that AI doesn't figure out how to take over the world......

@greenyoshi777

5 ай бұрын

Especially with all of the different types of jammers being developed to counter UAV's of all sorts. You don't want a $100 billion dollar prototype that you poured decades worth of work into landing on an enemy airfield after it got hacked into oblivion.

@jerrywatson1958

5 ай бұрын

@orbitalrocketmechaniccain3150 you forget that the Space Shuttle regularly did MACH 25 during reentry. They had to maneuver to bleed off speed to land. So flying at those speeds is a known factor. The computers of the day could fly it. The Astronauts trained to manually fly it in case of failure of all flight computer systems main, backup, then the astronaut.

@SonoftheBread

5 ай бұрын

Controlled manned flight at hypersonic speeds because it's exclusive to extreme high altitude. If you go by the Darkstar as a rough estimate of actual demonstration performance then you need to be at around 100k feet for Mach 10. A skilled and qualified military aviator on par with astronauts, test pilots, etc would be fine. Maneuvering at those altitudes means you just have huge turn circles. You can read about Blackbird pilots describing how many states theyd fly over completing a full turn.

@sjsomething4936

5 ай бұрын

@@SonoftheBread one of my favourite stories was of the SR-71 pilot speaking with ATC about where they were… “control we’re over Kansas, ope now Nebraska, no make that now South Dakota…” 😂

There is another top gun interview where they said if they wanted to use the hangar, the air force would have to move something. They originally were told they couldnt use that specific hangar. I think the spy satellite may have been trying to see what was in the hangar before the movie crew moved in. Just a guess.

@zach11241

5 ай бұрын

It was the beta version of Half-Life 3

Alex, had I not seen dozens of your episodes where you cleanly divide Fact from Speculation and humbly confess when there's insufficient evidence to conclude something, I'd have just smiled to myself and thought 'yes, would be nice if it were true'. Thanks for all your efforts to be an honest broker and laying the SR-72's case out so straightforward (including all of LM's nuanced hints) that we can trust the US isn't bringing up the rear in the superpower hypersonic arms race. Deano

Outstanding work. Great script and supporting footage. Clearly, you put some time into this. Well produced and very enjoyable!!!!!

So the part where he mentions engine restarts. That implies that the aircraft is stable at those speeds even if an engine were to fail which is quite an accomplishment in aerodynamics on it's own.

@Hythe01

5 ай бұрын

I took that to mean the restarting of the jet engines, as the speed came back down from the hypersonic range?

Good job Alex! I hope they move up that delivery date of the SR 72 because I’ll be 90 yrs old by 2030.😢

@TurboHappyCar

5 ай бұрын

I, a random guy on the internet, hope you get to see it. 👍

@jeffreyholdeman3042

5 ай бұрын

How cool is it that Alex as an 83 year old subscriber!

@lewiskemp5893

5 ай бұрын

Hope you make it. I'll be in my 60s then

@AURORAREVEALNOW

5 ай бұрын

We'll likely see the first flight next year or in 2025.

Great video. I had never seen the clip at the end, with the U2 and SR71 flying together. Very cool.

My ex father in law had worked at the skunk works in Burbank then transfered to Skunks Works in Palmdale. He accidently overheard engineers discussing the Aoura and this was about 25 years ago. Also I liive about an hour west of Edwards AFB, and typically on Sundays I can hear some sort of milititary jet that sounds much lower than it is. I can never see and there's never any contrail.

@wahidtrynaheghugh260

5 ай бұрын

How do you know it’s lower than it is if you don’t know how low it is

@jeromezingueur6366

4 ай бұрын

Because he didn’t see it so he think it’s higher

@marknewellmusic

3 ай бұрын

I've witnessed Aurora (SR-72?) over the Midlands here in the UK one summer maybe 2014 or 2015. Can't tell you what it looked like as it was too quick to spot the shape but this person is correct on it sounding lower (read that as louder) than it flew... I believe what I witnessed was the Aurora flying very high up and the noise it made were literal detonations, it flew approx from South to North over approx Birmingham during a very sunny afternoon. There was some high cloud in the sky but where it was clear I saw the following just before the cloud... What it left in the sky was literally line of contrail with ring donuts about 4 or 5 of them along the contrail line. This made me realise at that moment that pulse detonation engines were real and that the Aurora project airframe is stationed here in the UK somewhere. I've never really spoke to anyone about what I saw but can honestly say PDE aircraft are very much real and in use and have been for at least a decade. I feel privileged to have seen what I did back then, and always wondered what it was doing making that racket and drawing attention to itself over England, I guess it was in a hurry to land or refuel somewhere before setting off again over towards the East, middle East, or far East.

@jeromezingueur6366

3 ай бұрын

@@marknewellmusic at Mach 15 it takes few minutes to go from US west coast to England … there are some satellite pictures of dotted lines trails extending across continents. But yes I’m sure* UK could do this kind of things.

@marknewellmusic

3 ай бұрын

@@jeromezingueur6366 I am very confident that we UK don't have anything that advanced - I'm pretty sure this was USA military based here in UK. I say this as I can't imagine they would want to keep launching from USA when here in UK the USA military is very much based here for recon duties over the East/Middle East/Far East. I say this as I know the SR71 was stationed here in UK in the 90s due to a chat with a US Airman at an airshow here in England when I was lucky enough to get to see one do a flyby along with a Stealth Fighter. I've also seen something very unexplainable late at night once that flew very low overhead making zero sound and being angled like a Toblerone bar as I could see the moon reflecting on the side nearest me - I still don't know what to make of that as it was late at night and passed over the house when I was looking out the window staring at the sky and the moon reflecting perfectly off its angled side caught my eye. I never reported it to anywhere but it always left me puzzled as to what exactly I had seen. Moral of the story is, it pays to look up long and often :o)

It's pretty clear you're misinterpreting the Vago quote about re scoping. He clearly means it had to be scoped down to progress and that was due to challenges encountered. I have no idea why you just assumed that meant up scoping. Why would you describe unexpected out performance as a challenge?

My uncle worked for TI building missiles and he was talking about a Mach 7 plus “Dark Star” in the 90s.

@WigSplitters

4 ай бұрын

Cos he's a looney

@danieltaylor8556

2 ай бұрын

@@WigSplitters also just as valid 🤷‍♂️

Man, you do such a great job putting these stories together and getting them out to us, THANK YOU!!!! This is very interesting and probably more than we should honestly know but it is just so damn cool!!! Keep up the better than great work!!!

Good work, as always, Alex. Thanks for delivering this premium grade fuel for our hypersonic day-dreams.👍

@RebelSaturn-ld2oi

4 ай бұрын

US patent 10144532b2

@MrSatnavatron

4 ай бұрын

typical blocked replies , trying to share a patent system for the US , but YT refuses to let me post it

My aunt lives on acreage in the foothills out by Beale AFB in NorCal, I’ve seen countless U2 and other interestingly shaped craft always flying at night or early morning. Can’t wait to lay outside under the skies the next few summers and witness some cool fly byes. I hope so at lest.

@mikedroze1819

5 ай бұрын

I live within 5 miles of Beale. I've been keeping my eyes skyward.

@lewiskemp5893

5 ай бұрын

Hell yeah 👍

@AURORAREVEALNOW

5 ай бұрын

Some of these shaped aircraft are SR-91 Auroras(or one of them in general). There are also fastmovers that are like the Aurora but are less advanced.

Alex,this piece was absolutely outstanding! Keep up the magnificent work! 👏🇺🇸

Love the Busemann inlet designs. A lot of people have been trying to make them work at off-design conditions for a long time.

If it’s “agile” at hypersonic speeds, I would guess that it rules out being a manned aircraft. That would be some serious g forces. It would be really interesting to know what kind of material they would make an aircraft that can go that fast in the atmosphere reapeatedly.

@everettstormy

15 күн бұрын

If it's high enough it may be above the atmophere mostly

I believe it when Sandboxx touts it, and I don’t need receipts… you’re good bruh.

@nedkelly9688

5 ай бұрын

He isn't said he tells us about every hypersonic plane programme and not ever mentions Australia scramjet drone and joint USA Australia tests or that Australia has world fastest scramjet at mach 12. I knew 2017 USA and Australia went dead quiet on all their hypersonic tests during AUSMIN meeting. this is higher ups of defence ministers of both countries. they mention going dead quiet and USA not even telling congress about it. Raytheon DARPA HACM hypersonic missile is joint USA Australia programme called SCIFIRE. Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment is an American-Australian military technology partnership that is developing a solid-rocket boosted, air-breathing, hypersonic conventional cruise missile that can be launched by existing fighter or bomber aircraft. He also won't mention a Australian company with world fastest scramjet won a USA HYCAT DUI contract to help USA build hypersonic vehicles.

@nedkelly9688

5 ай бұрын

I found this years ago and told Alex about it. he ignores it all as isn't just a USA thing. While the media were understandably distracted by Secretary Esper’s comments on deploying intermediate range conventional weapons in the Pacific region in the lead up to the Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations (“AUSMIN”) in August, documents produced pursuant to Freedom of Information laws reveal our government’s longer running enthusiasm to ‘deepen our cooperation with the United States on hypersonics.’ The heavily redacted documents produced by the Department of Defence include a document titled ‘AUSMIN AGENDA’ and marked ‘Secret Aus/USA’. It includes statements like ‘We see a range of promising areas for science and technology collaboration including hypersonics - but I’d like to take the opportunity to drill down on hypersonics’ and ‘Bilateral Meeting Opportunity to discuss key Defence items that do not get discussed in detail during the AUSMIN meeting (eg hypersonics).’ In its 4 August media release the US Department of Defence confirmed that ‘Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper met today with Australia’s Minister for Defense Linda Reynolds at Victoria Barracks in Sydney, Australia. Minister Reynolds expressed appreciation for close collaboration on emerging priorities, including critical minerals and development and fielding of hypersonic weapons.’ Only weeks after AUSMIN the Defence Minister, Linda Reynolds, described hypersonics as “that disruptive new technology, missile or aircraft, goes up into the outer atmosphere and down very quickly, hard to detect and very lethal and no warning times.” She’d obviously done a little drilling, but how much? The Federation of American Scientists’ ‘Hypersonic Weapons: Background and Issues for Congress’ report of 17 September 2019 confirmed that ‘Since 2007, the United States has collaborated with Australia on the Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation (HIFire) program to develop hypersonic technologies. The most recent HIFiRE test, successfully conducted in July 2017, explored the flight dynamics of a Mach 8 hypersonic glide vehicle, while previous tests explored scramjet engine technologies. In addition to the Woomera Test Range facilities - one of the largest weapons test facilities in the world - Australia operates seven hypersonic wind tunnels and is capable of testing speeds of up to Mach 30. …the United States uses the Royal Australian Air Force Woomera Test Range in Australia…for flight testing…’ Richard Speier, a member of the adjunct staff at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation last year pointed out the proliferation risks: ‘Hypersonic missiles travel at a speed of one mile per second or more-at least five times the speed of sound. They are able to evade and conceal their precise targets from defenses until just seconds before impact. This leaves targeted states with almost no time to respond….It could authorise the military rather than the national leadership to conduct retaliatory strikes, but this would raise the risk of an accidental conflict…’ Journalist Jamie Seidel provided a comprehensive look at hypersonic weapons and Australia’s HiFiRE program in December 2018. He reported that ‘On November 15, 2018, the Australian Defence Science and Technology Group (DST) and the University of Queensland signed a $10 million agreement to consolidate their existing hypersonic expertise and test programs. It doesn’t say much else…Australia’s Defence Department has imposed a blanket ban on merely discussing the subject. And the US Department of Defence has made moves to tighten reporting under its generally much more open auditing systems. What we know is DST, UQ, BAE Systems Australia and the US Air-Force Research Labs and Boeing Phantom Works have been putting hypersonic test vehicles through their paces at the Woomera test range, in South Australia’s Outback, for the past decade.’ Of interest is the fact that the Rand Corporation hypersonic video which presents an overview of their key findings on hypersonic missiles contains footage from the Woomera hypersonic tests at 0.14 which also appears in this University of Queensland video.

@nedkelly9688

5 ай бұрын

Australia scramjet has been tested 11 times in atmosphere and 1100 times in wind tunnels can turn it on and off during flight and speed up and down and has reached mach 12. 2006 reached Mach 10 in HIFIRE Australia’s Hypersonix chosen for US DIU’s HyCAT1 programme Data from test vehicles will expedite development of future weapon system concepts, technologies and mission sets. Hypersonix’s DART additive engineering vehicle. Credit: © Hypersonix/Business Wire. The US Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) has selected Australian aerospace company Hypersonix Launch Systems to deliver hypersonic test vehicles. The new award is part of Hypersonic and High-Cadence Airborne Testing Capabilities (HyCAT1) programme. The DIU is executing this programme in collaboration with the US Air Force (USAF) and the Under Secretary of Defense for Research & Engineering (USD R&E). Hypersonix has been selected for this programme after a competitive process, in which a total of 63 international aerospace companies participated to offer their solutions for the DIU’s HyCAT project. The first hypersonics solicitation under this programme was issued by DIU and USD R&E’s Director of Hypersonics and the Test Resource Management Center in September last year. In response, Hypersonix proposed its ‘DART Additive Engineering (AE)’ vehicle, which is expected to have a modular payload bay of nearly 20lb. How well do you really know your competitors? Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge. This vehicle will leverage 3D-printing technology and will be powered by a hydrogen-fuelled SPARTAN scramjet engine that will allow the vehicle to fly with non-ballistic flight patterns, with speeds ranging between Mach 5 to 7 for up to 1,000km. The company said that the DIU has specifically requested for a hypersonic vehicle that can operate in a ‘representative environment’ with at least three-minute flight duration and ‘near-constant’ flight conditions. Hypersonix Launch Systems managing director David Waterhouse said: “Our vehicles are capable of non-ballistic flight patterns to at least Mach 7, which exceeds the HyCAT1 specification.” DART AE is anticipated to start operating from early next year. HyCAT programme involves development of a suite of low-cost, high-cadence, modern and dual-use airborne testing platforms (vehicles) that can be used for providing data to expedite the evaluation of various concepts, technologies, systems as well as mission sets. DIU space portfolio programme manager major Ryan Weed said: “Commercial companies are forging ahead towards reusable and low-cost test vehicles. The HyCAT project represents a paradigm shift in viewing the hypersonic realm as a place for aircraft, not just missiles and weapons.”

@greg.peepeeface

5 ай бұрын

@@nedkelly9688 ok

One thing to remember is that since the new B-21 Raider is not a supersonic platform, it is rumored to have a tuned F-135 engine for ultra high altitude operation in excess of 80,000ft. For standard combat operations, it cannot necessarily fly that high, nor would the pilots want to be on board, as pressure suits are needed. Piloted combat ops are rumored to be around 60,000ft. However, you don't need pilots when you remove the combat payload, and install a large fuel pod in the bomb bay, and lighter weight reconn equipment in the side missile bays.

@uku4171

5 ай бұрын

Good point. Makes sense they wanted it to be remotely operable.

@Condor1970

5 ай бұрын

@@uku4171 ...Yes. My point, is that it turns every B-21 in the fleet into an advanced RQ-180 reconnaissance type aircraft, and can be used anywhere in the world the B-21 may be stationed. So, gathering intelligence on a foreign adversary will be much easier and much more available when time sensitivity is a major factor. The other capability, is the side missile bays will also allow it to be an ultra high altitude on station missile platform/arsenal ship to be networked and assist Air Dominance aircraft in an aerial denial scenario. With exception to super maneuverability and supersonic performance, it will in fact be the technically capable "Jack of all Trades" the Air Force has been wanting for a very long time.

@onetruehitman7623

4 ай бұрын

@@Condor1970100%, you get the feeling that the B-21 is basically what old school B-2 engineers always wished the B-2 could have been and mucho more (like the possible addition of the B-21 having air to air missiles)

@RebelSaturn-ld2oi

4 ай бұрын

US patent 10144532b2

Can you imagine going Mach 9.4? Not that it’s going to be manned, I’m just a casual fan of all this, maybe it’s unnamed. Either way, the thought of being strapped into something like this sounds amazing. I’d do just about anything to go for a ride. (one can dream!)

@AURORAREVEALNOW

5 ай бұрын

It's possible to make it manned. You need cockpit force field technology, like the SR-91 Aurora and all the other Aurora aircraft have.

@dynestis2875

4 ай бұрын

​@@AURORAREVEALNOWwhat, like intertia dampeners? Isn't that just science fiction?

@AURORAREVEALNOW

4 ай бұрын

@@dynestis2875 No it's real.

@bald_agent_smith

Ай бұрын

you can fly manned aircraft at Mach 10,20 or any speed. It is not speed that kills but forces when some object accelerating.

@AURORAREVEALNOW

Ай бұрын

@@bald_agent_smith Aircraft that are capable of mach 10 and over are SR-91 Aurora and the TR series craft(ig. the TR-3B Astra).

As always, great content and very informative !!! Thanks

Here's hoping this project will be just as impressive as the SR-71 was when it launched! I know it's impressive still today, but it's not around anymore and it wouldn't dominate the skies today like it did 50 years ago 😊

@kathrynck

5 ай бұрын

I dunno, the YF-12 would still be just about the most formidable plane to ever fly to date. Mach 3.4, over 3000miles range, very low RCS, with three air to air missiles which have a range of over 100 miles and a warhead with a kill-radius of several miles ;)

@TesterAnimal1

5 ай бұрын

Hope it doesn’t leak fuel all over the taxiway!

@kathrynck

5 ай бұрын

@@TesterAnimal1 It may. SR-71 is using fuel as coolant... so they didn't want to isolate the fuel from the fuselage skin (which expands/contracts). SR-72 may have to as well. Hard to say.

@TraditionalAnglican

5 ай бұрын

@@kathrynck- A SR-71 did Mach 3.5 at least once, and that was in 1987. The A-12 might have flown a bit faster & higher. The SR-72 apparently can do Mach 10 at an altitude of 33+ km.

@kathrynck

5 ай бұрын

@@TraditionalAnglican I'm aware of the mach 3.56 quote referencing a flight over Libya. I've had some discussions recently which make me somewhat question it though. I'd be happy to say that the blackbird's top speed is "somewhere from mach 3.3 to mach 3.56". And the YF-12 was about mach 0.1 faster. I do think the archangel 12 series oxcart planes flew higher than is officially reported, but it's hard to say exactly how high. I'd just leave it at "certainly higher than the U-2's 80,000 ft". As for the SR-72, 33km (or 100,000 ft) or possibly higher, sounds very plausible to me. Mach 10, though? Nah. Based on the popular science spread of the plane, it looks like somewhere from mach 6 to mach 7. I mean, in terms of the speed capacity of that shape, as an object moving at supersonic speed... it has features in it's shape which betray it's intended speed, from an aerodynamics standpoint. I'll grant that is assuming those drawings are accurate though. I tend to think they are, because that was a lockheed martin pet project at that time, not a government contract. So they were under no secrecy agreements then. The design may have changed though. Mach 10 would require a very skinny fuselage... I think that would be somewhat impractical. A missile which goes mach 10+ "once" sure. A spacecraft which costs 11 figures and goes mach 10+++ on reentry, and then needs months of turn-around time? Sure. A 9 figures cost plane which goes mach 10 several times a week though? I don't see it. Mach 6 or 7 though, yeah.

Excited for this one! Thanks, Alex and team!

Amazing!!!! Great research Alex and Sandbox team!

Great article Alex! Thanks for your hard work.

Awesome content!! Best around. Please keep doing what you are doing. Thanks, Liam.

Usual solid and worthy content Alex. Thanks 🤙

@greg.peepeeface

5 ай бұрын

I agree

Excellent!! Thank you for all the hard work you put into this post. This is an amazing chapter in the history of flight.

You are the best, period. Nobody comes close. I appreciate what you do and can only imagine how much hard work you put in to provide us with real info about what's going on in the defence world. Thank you Alex, for what you provided us.

What an incredible video. Great job as always, Alex.

Internally funded almost 2 decades of cutting edge aviation R&D, including test articles. The bill for that has to just be eyewatering😂

@lucasokeefe7935

5 ай бұрын

Worth every cent for reliable intel within an hour or two

@jeffreyholdeman3042

5 ай бұрын

And yet was 50-70% less expensive than had the US taxpayer funded the research. Obviously LM will make it up on the backend when sales of this platform happen.

@Strype13

5 ай бұрын

Well, the Pentagon did just fail its sixth audit in a row. Once again, trillions are unaccounted for...

@erikswanson6687

4 ай бұрын

I promise LM didn’t “internally fund” anything. I worked in partnership with LM 9 years ago. They don’t do ANYTHING without getting paid. I was a test pilot for a new mini sub for the SEALs. LM was eyeballing swallowing our company to provide a replacement for the minehunting drone that was SO BAD that Congress scrapped it. They wouldn’t support training dives b/c the DOD hadn’t paid us to do training dives, even though all it would cost above the overhead we were already burning was the cost of 6 hrs of gas for the support boats. LM builds what the govt pays them to build. Period. If the govt actually wants it to work well, or be improved, they’ve got to pay extra for that.

I just found your channel with this video, and I'm very glad I did. Outstanding job!

Last year, I saw and took pictures of 4 B-2 Spirits flying very high above the city in a line formation in Cheyenne Wyoming. A B-2 is the only flying wing with two engines that I'm aware of, whether it's a drone or manned. The picture is clearly of a B-2 because of the points (Apex nozzles) in the back. It's extremely rare, especially in such large numbers, so it was an amazing sight for sure.

Given the current objective to field hypersonic weaponry, it´s almost a guarantee, this program is at least very mature. Lockheed Martin often had a head-start over many competitors. Now remember, even Boeing (which is often considered a poor performing company, a sentiment I do not share btw) had quite the success in a technology demonstrator 20 years ago, reaching almost Mach 10 and set official records with their ramjet-testbeds. Also consider, many reports about very fast and high flying aircraft for decades now, it can be assumed there was and still is a lot of development in this area. Since the SR-71 was always considered as an option shows, that it was still useful at that time. Which shows a clear need for speed. And where there is need there shall be government money. I would love to see some interviews with eye-witnesses or some people who claim to have photographed interesting stuff. Given how open Skunk Works was about the program I would be somewhat surprised if there wasn´t a tech demonstrator or even a few of them already in service. It´s very difficult engineering but so are most high-end programs and the only show stopper is money, which we know is spent on black projects such as this one.

@MikeOxlong-

5 ай бұрын

This story (and program if true) also does a lot towards explaining ‘some’ of the reasons why the US DoD has decided to keep gravity bombs of the spicy kind around (believing that delivering them is still going to be viable) and why they’re doing more than just life extension programs on them - like building new variants with super low and high yield effects. Mind you, they’ve not produced any new PU pits for the past 30+ years either (though they’re starting now) which is definitely the primary influencer behind refurbishment, but in developing these recently announced new(ish) types - not so much…

@greengoblin876

5 ай бұрын

​@@MikeOxlong-Gravity Bombs?

@misplacedstarman5455

5 ай бұрын

​@@greengoblin876- conventionally dropped bombs...i.e..no rocket motor add-ons.

@greengoblin876

5 ай бұрын

@@misplacedstarman5455 ahh right , that's what I thought. I saw Some clip where a youtuber had thought " Gravity " bombs were some kind of star trek world ending nuke like one of the grenades in Thor that suck everything into it like a black hole 😂. Was quite amusing tbh .

@kathrynck

5 ай бұрын

@@MikeOxlong- I think the "spicy" gravity bombs are mainly being kept for the B-2 and eventually B-21.

That’s awesome, I’m so glad that someone was on the ball and pulled that information. I’m gonna go out on a limb a say I hope they doubled down on it also.

I think that the technology that keeps this plane from melting is as interesting as the technology that makes it go fast.

@vladyvhv9579

Ай бұрын

Indeed. I have to feel a bit sorry for all of those who can't divulge to much about stuff that gets developed, due to the need for secrecy. I'm sure there's lots of stuff that these people would love to be able to geek out telling us about, and that we'd love to geek out hearing about. But the nature of the world means that some things just need to be left in the dark.

Some food for thought here. I will be bringing up some points that Ben Rich ( Kelly Johnsons successor at the Skunk Works ) also brought up at different times. #1 Coming up with materials to build the plane out of is incredibly difficult and expensive. Even at the time the SR71 was retired, we had not yet found very many replacement materials that can handle the heat generated by even the speeds the SR71 hit, let alone significantly faster. One also needs to keep weight in mind here. The Skunk works went thru an incredibly rough time getting rid of ounces of weight let alone pounds worth to build the A12 and SR71. #2 Then there is the whole fuel issue. They had a miserable time creating the fuel for the SR71. What is out there to replace that now? It is a neat idea but much harder in practice than people think.

@uku4171

5 ай бұрын

Hermeus doesn't seem to have an issue with fuel

@jj4791

5 ай бұрын

Space Shuttle went Mach-25 sustained above M12 for over an hour on reentry. It was made of aluminum, covered in ceramic. They now have Ceramic composites, not just tiles. You can make the whole airframe out of ceramics. And in the late 1950s they were developing a Nuclear ramjet powered bomber with a cruise speed of mach 3.0... at sea level. And a range of 15 years. They halted the program, because unshielded reactors make atmospheric pollution that would become detrimental. And because they didn't want Russia to copy that tech, as they were liable to actually use it. And they didn't want such a powerful weapon, because the world would not see them as virtuous if they ever used it to merc the USSR. True stories. The nuclear ramjet program dayes back to 1946 plenty of NACA discussions on it available online.

@lepermessiyah5823

4 ай бұрын

Technology has advanced significantly since the 60s

@JC130676

4 ай бұрын

@@jj4791 Well maybe not the entire airframe, a heat shield for the directly exposed parts would be enough. 3D printing techniques would allow those parts to have integral fuel ducts for cooling / fuel pre-heating. Something like aluminum oxide or boron carbide is able to withstand extreme heat while being lighter than titanium. They're brittle materials but maybe they've found a way to overcome that. There have been only two major obstacles for hypersonic flight: one is the airframe material, the other the powerplant. The aerodynamics of hypersonic flight have been fairly well known for many years now. We already know there are engines capable of working at those speeds so I'm fairly confident the required advanced materials are available as well.

@andyharman3022

4 ай бұрын

#3. Ben Rich also wrote in his book that life support for crew in an aircraft going significantly above Mach 3 would be impossible.

with the way you've added up the press releases, briefs, sightings, and all manner of information, it seems like Lockheed is just aching to show off the new bird. great work on this one. you indeed brought the receipts for an exciting time for aviation. It’s like the explanation for SIGINT in Midway, no invitations have gone out yet but the caterers are booked, the hottest band has a gig, all the flowers are getting bought up.

When you sayed "re-scoped" I assumed it was bacause maybe the aircraft was having issues.Guess I was wrong and Skunks Works is breaking records and limits. Amazing research and video Mr Hollings , really love your work

@Knights_Oath

4 ай бұрын

Rescopped means the government is changing what they require from the project. Typically either adding a required capability or changing the whole project.

Yes thank you! glad you made another video on this

Stellar reporting, Alex, just superb!

Great stuff 👏. Now then, I wonder if the Reaction Engines pre coolers factor in the design? Is that a practical theory? 🤔. Brilliant video mind👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

I would _love_ it if you would cover Reaction Engines, SABRE and their HTX project. I've read everything obvious but it'd be fascinating to see what else you could dig up. No combined cycle, just an engine that's going to run from Mach 0.0 to _checks notes_ Mach 25. Yes really. (It's for a space plane)

@AURORAREVEALNOW

5 ай бұрын

The Aurora is one of these aircraft(it's getting upgraded constantly).

@Hythe01

5 ай бұрын

Seconded! Alex, please do something on SABRE! As I recall, Boeing invested in the company/project, alongside the British government, in the past few years.

Your videos are absolutely terrific!!! Keep up the good work!

Once again, simply excellent research and reporting. Your channel is just fantastic.

It will be interesting to see how they launch weapons from a hypersonic plane without tearing off the doors to the weapons compartment or incinerating the plane.

@jonathanpfeffer3716

5 ай бұрын

if they were to do this (love you Alex but the 72 is still just overblown fiction) they would probably take design cues from the a-12 for weapons employment

@SwordOfApollo

5 ай бұрын

Yeah, I think it could perhaps be done by putting the bay doors behind a step-back in the fuselage that creates a near-vacuum at hypersonic speeds. This could perhaps shield the doors from the brunt of the ferocious wind.

@jacobwilbers9852

5 ай бұрын

It's a giant dick measuring contest. If it had practical use, they would not keep it secret because they would want to make lots of them and deploy them all over its not 1962. Everyone has a camera.

@Hythe01

5 ай бұрын

The issue for weapons deployment would probably not be opening the bomb bay - a Canberra/Buccaneer-style rotary door with suitable deflection could be engineered, but rather safe separation of the weapon into the airstream, without it just bouncing back up into the aircraft. Can’t help but think that the linear bomb bay, a la A3J/A-5 Vigilante, would be better. Also solves the challenge of finding space between the engines, if those are mounted beneath the body.

@appa609

5 ай бұрын

common misconception. All fadt aircraft are limited to a similar dynamic pressure. Hypersonic planes can only go fast at very hogh altitudes where the aerodynamic forces they experience are similar to just above mach-1 at sea level

Your efforts in this video truly shows throughout. Thank you for your continued focus on delivering quality content such as this one on the SR-72. Please keep up the outstanding job!

@RebelSaturn-ld2oi

4 ай бұрын

US patent 10144532b2

Stay in the groove Alex, keep bring that GOOD STUFF!!!

As usual, another wonderful report with excellent detail!

Alex, thank you for this video! Fascinating stuff, and once again shows that truth is stranger than fiction.

@claytonhall4908

5 ай бұрын

Astrophysicists Isaac Asimov said (correctly) that "Science fiction becomes science fact"

When they showed the 71, the 72 was flying. That's how it works

@gr8crash

5 ай бұрын

Not really no. By that logic the 72 "which it won't be called" would have been flying since the 60s and we know it wasnt

Oh, Alex! This is soooo tantalizing! Another brilliant story, exquisitely told!

Fantastic video. Appreciate you tying the timelines together. Now please find the actual videos of the plane flying or did we see it already in TGM? jk. Thanks again

Alex I always get excited when I see notifications from you. I'm 60 now I hope I live long enough to see your predictions prove out. BTW thank you for your service. Doc US Army Combat Medic

TG: Maverick hilariously may not the first time that China has been fooled by a prop. Back in '94/'95 the short lived TV show Space: Above and Beyond, also had a life sized prop of the shows "SA-43 Hammerhead - Endo/Exo-Atmospheric Attack Jet" This life size prop was shipped to Australia for the filming of the shows pilot, and was (allegedly) spotted by a Chinese spy at the port. The story goes that, as a result China put a lot of time, money and effort to gain access to get photographs and access to this craft.

@ronjon7942

3 ай бұрын

Laf. Good story. That was a great series - I have it on my computer somewhere, I need to dig it up and watch it again. Thanks for the reminder!

Also worth consideration with "re scoping" and the much smaller platform in testing... NGAD is coming, and is being talked about as being a C&C platform to task drones. A small, hypersonic recon or strike element that can fly at pace with a manned aircraft, then tasked in as part of a forward strike/recon element at mach 9 is a nasty thought. There's also the possibility they're considering the same thing using the actual hypersonic platform, but developing the smaller craft as drone elements. By pretty dang nasty if you're mach 9+ recon aircraft they when barely painting on radar suddenly became 3 or 4 mach 9+ recon aircraft as they entered the AO, all under local C&C.

The X-15 was a hypersonic rocket plane that broke records in the 1960's. The biggest obstacles were keeping the leading edges from ablating away in the heat, and preventing that material from depositing on the windows, blocking the pilots view. As an avid follower of rocket tech, I know that creating a vehicle that survives hypersonic flight without wearing away the heat shield has been one of the big challenges for reusable boosters. In the recent launch of the x-37b on Falcon Heavy, the side boosters detached at about 3500 MPH before turning around and returning to the launch site. While the boosters have to endure enormous heat for a few minutes, a hypersonic plane would have to keep its pilot, fuel, and payload from absorbing the massive amount of heat generated by ramming though air molecules faster than they can get out of the way for a lot longer. I wonder what type of material would survive air molecules sandblasting the surface without having to be replaced after every flight.

I saw a purple dot fly across the Kansas sky about 5 years ago in the middle of the night. At first, I thought it was a meteorite or the like, but it didn't flash out. It crossed the sky, horizon to horizon in about 5 or 6 seconds and it was gone. It went through a few clouds, so it was in our atmosphere and moving REALLY FAST

@mattt525

5 ай бұрын

Thats wild

Squeeeeeeeeeee. The SR-72 is just a wonderful idea. Take the Blackbird, make it 2-3x as fast, add stealth. The question being is if it looks like that goofy single-tailed drone, or if it looks like LMT's more recent renderings that look more like Dark Star, which looks absolutely BADASS. Also, I do wonder why Dark Star has the front of its cockpit sealed off instead of clear. But the idea that the SR-71 will finally have a real successor is wonderful. Let's hope that jet is every bit as iconic as the blackbird.

@AURORAREVEALNOW

5 ай бұрын

Which to be honest, the SR-72 might be the SR-91 Aurora in disguise.

@nj1255

5 ай бұрын

"I do wonder why Dark Star has the front of its cockpit sealed off instead of clear". At 23:25 you can see the front being full of instruments. You still have a good line of sight in front of the plane even if there's no window right in the center of the cockpit. It could also simply be a structural thing. I could only imagine what crazy physics problems you need to solve to design a reusable airframe capable of Mach 10. However, the Dark Star is just a movie prop. If the renders of the real SR-72 prototype shown in the video is anything to go by, it seems like it will have no windows at all.

@AURORAREVEALNOW

5 ай бұрын

@@nj1255 There is a design of the SR-91 Aurora in a retro Lockheed Martin black aircraft timeline that is similar to the Darkstar. The design in that retro timeline, might be the manned SR-72.

@Ilyak1986

5 ай бұрын

@@nj1255 that might be for the drone variant. How would the pilot *SEE*? Ace Combat like COFFIN type visuals with cameras all over the plane?

@AURORAREVEALNOW

5 ай бұрын

​@@Ilyak1986 In the future, yes we will need real life COFFIN(COnnection For Flight INterface) systems. In the 2022 chinese aerospace expo, they showed their spacefighter mock up that has a COFFIN system.

One of your best videos wver, if not the best. Thanks and congratulations!

I seriously doubt Mach 9.6. You can't have the fuselage in contact with it's own supersonic shockwave (apart from leading edges where that's unavoidable). SS shockwaves travel out to the sides from a supersonic object at exactly mach 1. If you're going mach 1 forward, then because the plane is moving, the shockwave propagates out at 45 degrees (relative to the plane). Basically at mach 1, the plane moves forward 1 meter, for every meter the shockwave moves outward = 45 degrees. At mach 2, the angle is 2-to-1, at mach 3, 3-to-1, etc. At mach 10, the SS shockwave would propagate outwards at 1/10th the forward speed of the plane. So you would need a plane with a needle shape which is skinnier than a 10-to-1 angle to avoid having the shockwave pressing on the fuselage. That would just be impractically skinny. As to why you don't want the shockwave ON the fuselage skin... it's an enormous amount of drag, and it causes plasma. You're gonna get plasma on the nose tip and wing leading edges anyway, but you'd definitely want to avoid getting plasma all over the whole forward fuselage. The space shuttle used heat tiles to go up to mach 25 on reentry... but it only did it for like a minute, and it was encrusted in heat tiles, and needed to cool off for hours upon landing, and then received 10,000+ labor hours of upkeep (per flight) just for heat shielding maintenance. So yes, you "can" go fast enough to push the SS shockwave against the fuselage, but not in a "frequent use" nor "affordable" platform. Basically a plane which just totally bathes itself in SS shockwave pressure and plasma would add two zeros to the cost, and make it a twice-a-year vehicle to operate. And it would need exponentially more thrust as well. That would be wildly impractical. I'm sure the air force wants a 9-figure$ highly reusable platform, not an 11-figure$ platform with months of turnaround time. Looking at the SR-72 layout in pop-sci... I'm pretty sure the nose shockwave is intended to be fairly close to the fuselage, and is meant to intersect the wing roots at that thick wing root extension. The vertical stabilizer is designed to stay tucked under the shockwave, so that it doesn't become a super-exotic part, a source of heavy maintenance, and a source of greatly increased drag. That kinda paints the picture of a minimum and maximum cruising speed. Shockwave has to intersect the robust wing roots, while the vertical stab is clearly meant to tuck under the shockwave, and the geometry of the forward fuselage also has to stay inside the shockwave. At that point, you can deduce it's intended cruising speed with just a common desktop protractor. I'd take "2 to 3 times the speed of the SR-71" as _marketing spin_ basically. How you phrase things when you're trying to sell them. That 41.1 inch tv? it's a "42 inch class tv", you get the idea. My protractor says mach 6-7, maybe a tad more (which does extend a little over "two times an SR-71", but far from "three times"). But this does assume that the drawings are accurate. Kinda nice when a project is started by the contractor, and then pitched to the DoD. Means the early stages of the program aren't top secret, as the company is really trying to generate "buzz/hype" rather than secrecy. I would regard the pop-sci presentation of the SR-72 as being very straightforward, since it's just LM talking about something they were working on 'off contract' in their free time, and trying to generate interest. It wasn't (at that time) classified, as it wasn't yet a govt program.

As the largest war machine in the world, the US or for any nation for that matter will never release the true speed or weight or technical matters of any aircraft, including the SR71. I'm quite sure when they stated 2 times the speed to maybe? 3 times the speed was a general Mach 3, 6 or 9. Mach 10 obviously is the goal. Quite sure they have met most of the parameters. For the SR-72. Just trying to put it in a frame that could withstand that type of speed boggles the mind 🤔 enjoyed it very much. Please keep them coming. Happy Thanksgiving to you! Hope you had a great day. Take care 🕊️

@dananorth895

5 ай бұрын

I heard a highly compressed quad sonic boom ever E Texas in the early 80's. Pretty certain that was the sr-71, all that tells me is it was moving between mach 4 and 5. And that was on it's way to nicarougra.

@RagsDCS

5 ай бұрын

@@dananorth895 😱👊😎 when I was younger I seen over the Atlantic in the ceiling was unlimited. Little little round contrails I don't know how to explain it like it was as of today as an Old Navy rotor head and have matured at 55 years old. It was a weird thing to hear but it was so far away and when I looked up that's all I seen was the little donuts way up in the atmosphere and it wasn't falling. That was for sure the trail was not so I can only imagine what made. It was not either. Other time I heard it, it was kind of like a silent boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom kind of thing. Hard to express in the words. I think that's awesome though

@randyscorner9434

5 ай бұрын

There have been rumors of the "pulse engine" for some time that would give the "donuts on a rope" contrail. No one has ever owned up to those. As research this would be very cool, but in practice the variable velocity and constant shocks would be a nightmare.

@JageeAgain

5 ай бұрын

Great reporting Alex. keep on that trail.

@poiujnbvcxdswq

5 ай бұрын

@@randyscorner9434 Rumours? You can go see an aircraft with the engine fitted, goto the USAF museum at wright-patterson...its the burt Rutan design with what looks like a cargo container slung underneath. It flew with it as far back as 2008.

I am assuming it's 3d printed titanium engine parts to allow internal cooling of the parts. Pretty cool stuff.

In Dec 2019 I was in a plane near Sydney, looked out the window at the red sky from the fires and saw a single tubular screw shaped air "vortice" (for want of a better term) outside the window that we flew under. Have never seen anything like it but the original promotional videos you showed with the twin engine scramjet seems to make a very similar pattern.

Fascinating to say the least. A very well done video among your many well done videos.

Not surprising either that Lockheed Martin succeeded. The book "Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed" by Ben Rich and Leo Janos noted that Kelly Johnson had commented that "they were 25 years ahead of anyone else". That apparently was not a boast. This closing for this true story is worth repeating and is as relevant today as it was 30 years ago. "The Skunk Works has always been perched at the cutting edge". And "That must continue to be our role into the next century, if we are to preserve what we have accomplished and be prepared for the hazards as well as the opportunities for the uncharted, risky future".

*SR 72 casts: YEETUS DELETEUS Spell on the chat. Coming to a country near you 🤫*

New Subscriber here, thanks for breaking the monotony of so many other aircraft channels with their AI voices and utilization of the same short clips over and over ad infinitum. Great content and video quality!

great info!! loved the update!

There's a legit reason why China diverted a satellite when Top Gun: Maverick was filming. The scuttlebutt is, the Dark Star scene is sort of a wink & nod documentary as to how far they've actually gotten in recent years of R&D.

The RQ-180 needing to be rescoped doesn't sound to me like bragging, it sounds like the limitations required it to be down-scoped from original intent. It says original intent was beyond current technical capabilities. What that says about the leap represented by the remaining scope is unclear. There have been projects for which rescoping has lead to abandonment.

commenting at the beginning of this but have to say do think this is cool, The SR-71 is my second favourite plane right behind the Nighthawk and like most was certain they were going to continue the program given how much of a success the SR-71 was while in service. It's nice to see stuff come out about the SR-72 finally.

I can't imagine how you would be able to deliver a payload from an aircraft at those speeds.

@TheWhiteWolf2077

5 ай бұрын

radar and targeting sensors are advanced enough aswell as the missile having its own navigation system.

@WilliamCollins-sh6lm

5 ай бұрын

Doors opening inward instead of outward and out of the airflow....

@lafeeshmeister

5 ай бұрын

Directed energy weapons

@Hythe01

5 ай бұрын

⁠A linear bomb bay might work well. Eject the weapon rearward, into the slipstream of the aircraft. Genius bit of overkill tech from the 1950s…!

@bald_agent_smith

Ай бұрын

they flight at the high altitude when air pressure is generally speaking the same as Mach 1 at sea level bro

Great video. LM and Skunk Works has always had a great sense of humor and a penchant for feigning loose lips just enough to make adversaries question themselves. Which is most certainly in coordination with the US gov.

That image of the SR-71 and U2 is hilarious. One was practically at stall speed and the other in a shallow dive. 😂

Outstanding work Alex 👏

Could you please make a video about the new helicopters for the us military.