By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
Stealthy, manned hypersonic flight might thrust itself upon the combat scene in just the next several years, provided the mysteriously “revealed” Darkstar aircraft flown by Tom Cruise in Maverick.
However, despite the hollywood appearance, there is no actual or official confirmation that the aircraft actually exists. That being said, images, concepts and “renderings” have been made available and of course some kind of aircraft flew in the movie….so there might well be a Lockheed-engineered secretive Mach 6 Darkstar “Son of Blackbird” high-speed stealthy jet which resembles the futuristic aircraft shown in the blockbuster film.
Manned “hypersonic” flight would indeed suggest a massive breakthrough now that hypersonic weapons are just starting to arrive. Engineering a projectile to sustain hypersonic speeds and remain “on-course” for its target trajectory under extreme temperatures is challenging enough, yet it may be that sustained “manned” hypersonic flight may be in the not-too-distant-future.
Many refer to the new “possible” aircraft as an SR-72 “Son-of-Blackbird” as it could be seen as a follow on to the groundbreaking high-speed SR-71 Blackbird.
The new, “Son of Blackbird” as it is called, is slated to take to the sky by 2025, according to Lockheed’s paper. A potentially-secretive manned-Mach 6 Darkstar “son of Blackbird” was potentially featured in Top Gun Maverick. The high-speed jet flown by Tom Cruise in the movie does resemble an image of the aircraft posted by Lockheed Martin, however there is no actual confirmation that such an aircraft exists.
It would make sense that a Blackbird follow-on would be manned or unmanned, given that it allows for the possibility of hypersonic flight and leverages decades of technological breakthroughs since the advent of the Blackbird in the 1960s. It makes sense that the amazing Mach 3 speed of the 1960s-era Blackbird set the stage for its follow on, as a hypersonic Blackbird son SR-72 would simply need to stretch to Mach 5 or faster to qualify as hypersonic. Should the SR-72 be capable of manned- hypersonic flight, that would indeed be a massive breakthrough, as it would require a potentially unprecedented technology enabling a human to travel at hypersonic speeds of Mach 6.
The available images of DarkStar, to the extent they resemble or replicate an actual aircraft, do appear quite sleek and stealthy with a rounded fuselage and blended wing-body, however, stealth aside, it seems a manned jet capable of flying at sustained hypersonic speeds of Mach 6 would likely elude enemy air defenses purely on the basis of speed. Stealth would of course alway be an advantage, yet an aircraft traveling at hypersonic speeds would likely travel from one radar aperture or “field of regard” to another qo quickly that ground-based radar would have almost no chance to establish a continuous “track” on the aircraft for targeting.
Kris Osborn is the Military Affairs Editor of 19 FortyFive and President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
