Leland Haynes passed away on November 26, 2010. Read about the trillion dollar project here.SR-71 Alma-Mater and Recollections of the Past 2015 SR-71.Read about Russia’s new mach 4.0 interceptor here.But at the current stage all we can do is to watch while the experiments continue and maybe, just maybe, we will one day see the SR-72 with its brand new engines astonish us all, just like the Blackbird once did. Lockheed Martin has a long way to go and a lot of obstacles to pass, but if anyone should take on this risky but rewarding mission it is them, with tons of successful, first seeming impossible creations, such as the SR-71, F-117 and F-22. These kinds of engines might lead into an entirely new age of aircraft with Lockheed Martin at the very edge. With more than twice the speed of any other air breathing aircraft ever built, it will earn its place in the history books. Cheaper solution to the problemīut if Lockheed Martin manages to make a hypersonic engine and propell an aircraft to a speed of mach 6.0 it will be an achievement about as big as the SR-71 back then. The project might however have a rough time ahead as Lockheed Martin had, by the time of the concept unveiling, not yet secured the fundings needed to build this kind of scramjet, the complexity and therefore the pricetag being two possible reasons. How the engine of the SR-72 will work however is currently not known to the public – and it is an extremely complex piece of machinery featuring both a scramjet and a turbojet. The scramjet is still conceptual and there has not been any actual aircraft using one (expect the X-51, see further down), this is why Lockheed is collaborating with Aerojet Rocketdyne and Boeing to make the new engine, together currently leading the development of a scramjet. Because of the fact that a scramjet does not work at speeds of lower than mach 1, the aircraft will feature a turbojet as well to accelerate it to the speed to where the scramjet can take over. The engines that will be used to reach the top speed of the SR-72 are called scramjet engines (although they can hypothetically reach speeds of over mach 15). The engines needed to reach speeds of Mach 2.2 are called turbojets. The engine of it is one step up from the Blackbird’s. This is what Lockheed Martin wants to accomplish. Since its speed is so tremendously high, being spotted by the enemy will not matter (Only SR-71 has had this as its main feature before). The SR-72 will be a brand new type of aircraft. With its assumably Mach 6.0 capability, it will be able to penetrate enemy airspace, drop a bomb (for this it will have to be equipped with special equipment) or monitor before the enemy has time to intercept it. The special feature of the unmanned SR-72 is, just like with the SR-71, is pure speed. Other areas of use will be to cover the gap that currently is between surveillance satellites and subsonic manned aircraft within the USAF. It will be a successor of the SR-71, having the same purposes as the Blackbird, among others surveillance and intelligence gathering.
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