Maybe Hollywood got it right – that somewhere in the US, the best brains in the American defense industry have been developing an updated successor to the SR-71 Blackbird, the Cold War-era spy plane that carried out spy missions at 80,000 feet, traveling three times the speed of sound.
That’s the speculation in a recent story published on various defense websites.
The stories point out that the questions began in 2022, when the movie “Top Gun: Maverick” was released. In the film, Tom Cruise is the test pilot on a hypersonic plane dubbed Darkstar.
It was more than just a screenwriter’s fantasy.
“Lockheed Martin worked with the filmmakers to create the aircraft’s outward appearance, leading to the conclusion that airframe is at least nominally grounded in actual aerospace design concepts,” 19FortyFive notes.
Lockheed certainly didn’t keep it a secret, boasting in a press release that the movie spy plane was designed by the company’s famed Skunk Works team and that “Darkstar’s capabilities met Maverick’s ‘need for speed,” pushing the boundaries of flight to support a critical mission.”
Several months after the film came out, Lockheed tweeted that “the SR-71 Blackbird is still the fastest acknowledged crewed air-breathing jet aircraft,” which the essay says could imply that there is a faster aircraft.
So what would a successor to the SR-71 be like?
First of all, it would have to be much faster. The SR-71 could hit speeds of Mach 3 – enough to outrace the fastest anti-aircraft missiles in the Soviet inventory. Now, though, there are missiles that can reach Mach 3.5 (such as the British Starstreak). A new plane would be expected to be hypersonic – maybe not reaching the Mach 10 that Maverick and Darkstar achieved in the movie, but certainly capable of going five times the speed of sound or better.
It would also need advanced stealth and ability – because the 70s tactic of simply outrunning enemy defenses isn’t enough anymore.
From time to time over the last two decades, there have reports and pure speculation about the development of plane once called “son of Blackbird.” Early in 2018, Lockheed denied that such a plane existed. Less than a year later, the company said a prototype could fly by 2025.
But there’s no indication that timetable is accurate. For now, your best chance of seeing the SR-71’s successor is to sit down in front of a TV screen and rent the movie.
