Lockheed Martin SR-72?

anyone here read the story about a project called "RS-85 Dolos", started service in 1993 -
Hypersonic-Top-Gun-Maverick.png
, it was declassified in 2018, the same year TOP GUN MAVERICK started filming.
http://zerohurt.blogspot.com/2022/03/just-incase-this-story-isnt-hoax-well.html
 
There is an article on Popular Mechanics about the SR-72 but it’s behind a paywall. From what little I can see it is linked to something called Project Mayhem and a hypersonic bomber.
 
The USAF was toying with ejecting a 2,000 lb, tooled steel projectile out of the YF-12 at M3.2, didn't need a rocket motor or warhead, pure kinetic energy.
 
Kin to the 'Starwars' God-rod notion of tungsten tent-poles ??
 
quellish said:
Ejecting / deploying a munition through a hypersonic flow is not simple or easy.
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There is that, there's probably a way though. Bagsy not test pilot though. That would be an extreme butt-clenching launch.



If you had some way of applying control without air, you could use the speed to climb above 70-80km and then launch.
 
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robot700 said:
anyone here read the story about a project called "RS-85 Dolos", started service in 1993 -
Hypersonic-Top-Gun-Maverick.png
, it was declassified in 2018, the same year TOP GUN MAVERICK started filming.
http://zerohurt.blogspot.com/2022/03/just-incase-this-story-isnt-hoax-well.html
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"According to Pentagon spokesperson Luke Mentira, “The type was known as the RS-85 which grew from Project DOLOS in the early 1980s. Its declassification is following its withdrawal from service.” A public reveal of the appearance of the aircraft is expected this week.

Just something of note.... Mentira is the Spanish word for "lie". As in, telling a lie.
 
robot700 said:
posted wrong link, you can find the articles here :
http://zerohurt.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-billion-dollar-secret.html
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Thanks for sharing. Most articles can be discarded as pure speculation, and especially Nick Cook and his ramblings about anti-gravity are utter nonsense.

However, it would be very nice if Steve Douglas would provide his video that he made in New Mexico of an unidentified black triangle to see if it will yield new results or insights if someone with modern imaging software takes a look at it.

I’m aware Steve is on this forum, as is Tyler Rogoway from The Drive, and probably David Cenciotti as well. Perhaps an idea for an article?

(Edit: my bet is that it’s an F117)
 
bobbymike said:
I take his stuff with some skepticism but from time to time he seems to get things right
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'some'? this is classic 1945/WarriorMaven net - 'if', 'shell', 'would' wordsnumberpaid BS
what NEW does it add to AWST article published exactly ten years ago?
 
flateric said:
If we are speculating much about using C-300VM and S-400 in context of destroying -already talks about this - ICBMs warheads at reentry phase, what then about 'SR-72' then?
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Intercepting an RBA is difficult due to the speed they fall at, not due to maneuvers or anything else. I mean, they're basically a constant bearing decreasing range (CBDR) target, or very close to one because the intercepting missile is very close to whatever the RBA is landing on.

CBDR is a very simple target to engage. The challenge is hitting a CBDR target falling at Mach 6+, because you have very short reaction times to detect, track, and launch before that RBA lands on your head.

The SR-71 at 2200mph could make a 2g turn and accelerate to completely wreck the intercept course the missiles had been launched at. Not to mention that at 85+kft the missiles are running out of energy to climb.
 
RyanC said:
I just realized this just now reading the posts:

The fact that MIRV busses deploy their RVs one at a time over a period of time completely defeats the decoys, unless you release them at the same rate!

You can't just spam out 10 decoys at once; that's too obvious, and the ABM system will say "hahaha, who do you think you are fooling?" and reject it as an obvious fake.
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No, some missions for mass surface destruction involve dropping a large pattern of RVs at once, so the ABM system cannot automatically reject that. A large pattern of RVs covers a larger area in blasts than a single higher yield warhead.
 
Woody said:
Hi guys - sorry I've been busy but I couldn't resist this one:-

Sundog said:
Just a slight turn of one degree changes the missiles intercept course by miles. As such, they wouldn't need to perform "high G" maneuvers to avoid missiles.
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Wouldn't this also cause the reconnaissance aircraft to also miss it's objective by miles or are we forgetting the whole point of air defence now.
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Recon aircraft like the Blackbird tend to use side-looking sensors, which means that they don't have to fly a perfect track. They can be a few miles off track and still get the data. But that few miles off track also means that the missile is too far away to hurt the plane.
 
iverson said:
Colonial-Marine said:
While l always appreciated the SR-71 and the A-12 Blackbird for the awesome reconnaissance aircraft they were I was always more intrigued by other perspective uses of the design. The F-12B interceptor almost made it to service but IIRC there was consideration of using the design for the fast delivery of a tactical nuclear weapon or two.

I'm sure the anti-nuke crowd would go ballistic over the idea of using the supposed SR-72 in that role but what else besides for strategic reconnaissance might such an aircraft be used for? Launch aircraft for an anti-satellite missile? suppose the F-15 could do that again if needed though? High priority precision strike?
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While this could be apocryphal, I have read that the "SR-" prefix ("Strategic Reconnaissance") originated in the idea of using a larger, two-man, nuclear-capable version of the A-12 as as a sop to US right-wing politicians who were outraged by the cancellation B-70. The proposal called it the "RS-71" (for "Reconnaissance Strike"). But somewhere during the roll-out of the idea, the letters got transposed. The nuclear role was never really practical/serious (heat problems and reduced range, I think, plus the superiority of missiles). The aircraft continued as a reconnaissance airplane.
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This comes up in IIRC Ben Rich's book about the Skunkworks, complete with diagrams. A basic AGM-69 SRAM at Mach 3 and 80,000ft ends up with about a 600mile range straight ahead, about 200-300 laterally. Problem is, the basic Blackbird airframe could only carry 4 missiles in the chine bays, with imaging sensors in the nose to see what got missed in a strategic strike.

That may or may not be enough "cleanup" for the mission.
 
FighterJock said:
Where did you hear/see that information dark sidius? I am highly interested. The SR-72 has gone very quiet as of late, I was worried that Lockheed had cancled the program.
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It seem to be the project in works the last 3 pictures in the Lockheed video, NGAD , CCA and Hypersonic ISR . This is communication remember the Northrop video before the B-21 contract..
 
FighterJock said:
Where did you hear/see that information dark sidius? I am highly interested. The SR-72 has gone very quiet as of late, I was worried that Lockheed had cancled the program.
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Lockheed never had a program to cancel.
 
FighterJock said:
Perhaps Lockheed had realised that the SR-72 was too advanced for the current time technology wise and has gone back to the drawing boards.
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Lockheed realized nobody was going to give them billions to develop it, especially since several years earlier the estimated cost was much smaller.
 
Flyaway said:
This says differently.

https://theaviationist.com/2023/11/...ayiXW-dYZ4Qn5KeDuhBghiIpUkuWe7CW6h-zqpO8MZHdA
Considering your one of those who also didn’t think the ‘RQ-180’ existed..,
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From the article:
While there is no confirmation of this, a hypothesis that arises following the description of the “article” points to the rumored SR-71 successor: the SR-72. Lockheed Martin revealed the existence of such a project back in 2013, describing it as an unmanned hypersonic intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike platform designed for Mach 6.
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The supposed connection between a rumored new Lockheed reconnaissance aircraft and the "SR-72" concept is an unproven hypothesis with nothing to substantiate it.

I have thousands of pages of (expensive) USG documents that show the "SR-72" was never a program. The concept was used in other programs, but it was a dead end and was replaced by something else. The DARPA FALCON program included the HTV-3/HTV-3X hypersonic cruise vehicle. That was later spun off into the "Blackswift" demonstrator competition, which was quickly cancelled. In 2013 Lockheed rebranded their Blackswift concept "SR-72" and put out press releases saying, essentially, "if someone gave us a few billion we could build this". The Blackswift/"SR-72" concept was used for propulsion studies by other agencies - because hypersonic aircraft have tight integration between the propulsion system and the airframe, you can't test/validate/study a propulsion system on it's own. These propulsion studies were various iterations of TBCC concepts and would not have been appropriate for a "SR-72" demonstrator or operational aircraft.

Further discussion of the "SR-72" should be moved to the appropriate thread, it has nothing to do with NGAD.
 

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