Boeing Is Working on a Mach-5 Spy Plane

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The Valkyerie II could compete with Lockheed’s SR-72.

David Axe [2]

In early January 2018, Boeing announced it’s developing a concept for a hypersonic reconnaissance and strike drone that could compete with Lockheed’s own SR-72 [3]. Both Boeing’s “Valkyrie II”concept and Lockheed’s “Son of Blackbird” could be capable of cruising at speeds exceeding Mach 5, potentially allowing them to evade all but the most sophisticated enemy defenses.

Since Boeing officials revealed the Valkyrie II concept at a Florida trade show, details of the possible design have appeared in the press, most notably trade magazine Aviation Week [4]. The Boeing concept relies on a so-called “combined-cycle” propulsion system that lumps together conventional jet turbines with powerful ramjet engines. The turbines accelerate the vehicle past the sound barrier. At high supersonic speed, the turbine shuts down and the ramjet takes over.

The competing demands of supersonic and hypersonic flight dictate this dual arrangement. “It’s a really hard problem to develop an aircraft that takes off and accelerates through Mach 1 all the way to Mach 5 and beyond,” Kevin Bowcutt, Boeing chief scientist for hypersonics, told Aviation Week.

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