Darkstar hypersonic plane from Top Gun 2: Maveric

Dynoman said:
Also, if the Dark Star was designed to separate the forward fuselage section and then eject at a lower altitude then there's another possibility.
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Now if you had, say, Starship’s crew not in the nose, but along the spine in a semi-recessed pod…looking a bit like the 1980 Flash Gordon rocket…could that pod do like a cruise missile and fold out wings at lower speed? No need of typical launch abort. This system may work on Darkstar type craft of larger size?
 
Dynoman said:
Also, if the Dark Star was designed to separate the forward fuselage section and then eject at a lower altitude then there's another possibility.
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I think the idea of ejecting is that you need to eject there and then. Given the scene in question in the film, I would not want to have rode that plane down to 'low altitude', after a loss of control and partial disintegration at Mach 10+, it would probably become akin to being a cat stuck in a centrifuge.
 
You are right in most cases. Some pilots tend to stay with their aircraft until its too late, so making the decision early to eject is important. The man/seat performance envelope dictates where you can eject, unfortunately the aircraft's performance envelope may exceed the seat/man envelope. For example, the North American X-15 could fly Mach 6.7 (accomplished at 102,000 ft) and 67 miles altitude (flown at Mach 4.98). The X-15 seat was rated for Mach 4 at 120,000 feet, so the pilot would have to make the decision to elect to stay with the aircraft and ride the cockpit down until the seat was within its envelope or eject and get what you get.

This occurred when Bill Park flew the M-12 (SR-71 derivative) with D-21 drone on it back in 1966. The drone contacted the aircraft after launch causing the aircraft to break up. The pilots rode the tumbling aircraft down to a speed and altitude in which it was safer to eject.
 
Dynoman said:
You are right in most cases. Some pilots tend to stay with their aircraft until its too late, so making the decision early to eject is important. The man/seat performance envelope dictates where you can eject, unfortunately the aircraft's performance envelope may exceed the seat/man envelope. For example, the North American X-15 could fly Mach 6.7 (accomplished at 102,000 ft) and 67 miles altitude (flown at Mach 4.98). The X-15 seat was rated for Mach 4 at 120,000 feet, so the pilot would have to make the decision to elect to stay with the aircraft and ride the cockpit down until the seat was within its envelope or eject and get what you get.

This occurred when Bill Park flew the M-12 (SR-71 derivative) with D-21 drone on it back in 1966. The drone contacted the aircraft after launch causing the aircraft to break up. The pilots rode the tumbling aircraft down to a speed and altitude in which it was safer to eject.
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I believe you are correct in this. Here is a high res screencap of the full scale Dark Star cockpit (taken from the making of video on You Tube). There are no other warning or “Danger” signs except for the one stating for the ejection seat.
 

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Dynoman said:
Some pilots tend to stay with their aircraft until its too late, so making the decision early to eject is important.
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That brings to mind,

Ejection Decision - A second Too Late! (1981)​

Department of Defense - Ejection Decision - A Second Too Late Developed for aircrews who fly aircraft with ejection seats. Emphasizes the importance of making timely ejection decisions and features live ejection sequences.
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publiusr said:
Dynoman said:
Also, if the Dark Star was designed to separate the forward fuselage section and then eject at a lower altitude then there's another possibility.
Click to expand...
Now if you had, say, Starship’s crew not in the nose, but along the spine in a semi-recessed pod…looking a bit like the 1980 Flash Gordon rocket…could that pod do like a cruise missile and fold out wings at lower speed? No need of typical launch abort. This system may work on Darkstar type craft of larger size?
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For reference, Phil Bono's ejectable cockpit pod concept.

IIRC, some of the X-30-related hypersonic concepts put the cockpit in the left 'armpit' to provide a view for takeoff and landing since direct centre forward vision was pretty much irrelevant at high speeds.
 

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For those who believe the nose section of the Darkstar could separate prior to the pilot using the ejection seat, here is an argument for it: attached is a screengrab of the instrument panel (DS03). The red arrow denotes the panel line seen in the full scale mockup (DS04) and the yellow arrow the bulkhead behind the ejection seat. The official Lockheed art of the plane, the same panel line is pointed out by the green arrows (DS05).

On the lack of markings for the nose separation, I looked up photos of the Bell X-2 and Douglas D-558-2, who had something similar, and none could be found or easily seen.

We will never know unless those Lockheed designers come forward and say something.
 

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From Aldo Spadoni (he used to work as a designer for Northrop and made a lot of artworks) Facebook page.

"The world debut of the Lockheed Martin “Darkstar” SR-72 mock-up from “Top-Gun: Maverick” is happening this weekend at the Edwards Air Force Base 2022 Aerospace Valley Open House, Air Show, & STEM Expo.

Now where have I seen something like this before?

20 years ago, I was working as an aerospace technical consultant/concept designer for the movie “STEALTH”, which came out in 2005. At the time, the working title of the film was “WARRIOR.” I designed a series of advanced hypersonic aircraft for the film and this is one of the early concept sketch examples.

It's always fun to see concepts like this make their way into a movie."
 

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Orionblamblam said:
Sure, it looks cool. But if it's hydrogen powered, it would have an engine run time measured in seconds. Likely single-digit
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I agree with you. But any increase in size of the Darkstar would be an improvement. On his Instagram account, designer Daniel Simon states the Darkstar was 70 feet long-its size was dictated by the size of the hanger that the production was allowed to use at China Lake.
 
I reckon any aircraft with this type of performance would need an automatic syste,. As has been pointed out, the human will wait too long.

With this type of system the crew would have no need to be involved in the process until at least the point of leaving the ejection capsule at a lower altitude.
 
Hydroman said:
It would be great if a Firefox remake was considered, especially with modern CGI.
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I’ve posted and tweeted for years about a Firefox sequel but this time Firedragon stealing the new Chinese hypersonic bomber. But now with Putin/Ukraine Russia as the bad guys has been brought to the fore the remake would be interesting.
 
Hydroman said:
It would be great if a Firefox remake was considered, especially with modern CGI.
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Nah. It's not a movie screaming for a remake. That said, a Special Edition where the rather lackluster in-air shots were replaced with modern VFX could be interesting.
 
aliensporebomb said:
Did anyone notice Daniel Simon's website has been updated and has sections regarding the various iterations of concepts leading to the final vehicle? It does indicate the entire nose is an escape module.
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Thanks for the update on Simon’s site. Some of the design concepts look horrific. Happy with the one that was chosen.

Well, we have our answer on how Maverick escaped: nose escape module and ejection seat.

Daniel Simon ® | Top Gun: Maverick

danielsimon.com danielsimon.com
 
Interesting, from Simon's instagram page:

The entire nose cone is originally a hypersonic escape pod, at least on the early manned version. Later unmanned version would have no cockpit or window, but the exact same fuselage shape.
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Early manned version? Later unmanned version? He's discussing it like this is a real deal project.
 
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aonestudio said:
www.facebook.com

Edwards Air Force Base

Feels like only yesterday we welcomed the community back to Edwards Air Force Base to celebrate #AF75 and the 75th Anniversary of Supersonic Flight! Here are a few images that captured the sights...
www.facebook.com www.facebook.com
View attachment 686410
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Now that the Rebels found a dampening field that counteracts repulsorlift and antigravity—-the Empire was forced to look elsewhere for new ideas:

“You know the T.I.E. Fighters right? They were just meant to be surveillance-sats, like the Vostok/Zenit deal. The twin ion engines were just Hall effect rigs…no wonder we kept getting shot down.”

“But wait til’ we get on an X-Wing’s six with THIS.”
 

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