Massive Breakthrough: Manned & Unmanned SR-72 “Hypersonic” Spy Plane by 2025

by Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

It may almost too space age to be true, the idea of a manned or unmanned spy plane operating at “hypersonic” speeds … such a platform is likely soon to exist, should Lockheed Martin’s plans for the SR-72 “Son of Blackbird” come to fruition. 

The SR-72 is an ambitious and amazing concept which breaks hypersonic flight technology into a new era from the current ability to fire projectiles such as hypersonic weapons to the ability to reach as sustain hypersonic speeds with large platforms.  A large manned or unmanned fully hypersonic spy plane would be a staggering development quite possibly, given the many well documented challenges when it comes to hypersonic flight.  Air flow complexities such as “boundary layer phenomenology” and thermal management such as an ability to sustain hypersonic fleet at unprecedented high temperatures have both been massive areas of focus for Air Force weapons developers. 

SR-72: What should we make of the rumors? As the fastest air-breathing manned aircraft ever to exist, the SR-71 spy plane has forever emblazoned itself upon any record of aviation history as a sleek-looking, high-altitude, stealthy aircraft which has made a difference for the Pentagon.

The aircraft, which had several retirements with the most recent being 1998, goes back many years to the 1960s, a development which suggests early sophistication among engineers thinking about building low-observability platforms.

Perhaps the aircraft was arguably ahead of its time, as it was conceived of and crafted by Lockheed Martin’s famous Skunk Works division.

The SR-71s fuselage does indeed look stealthy, as it is rounded with a blended fuselage and slightly curved wing formations devoid of sharp angles. As something that first flew in 1964, the aircraft features some impressive technologies, according to a Lockheed Martin essay called “Creating the Blackbird” which points to the aircraft’s side-looking radar, signals intelligence and long-range electro-optical cameras. Specs for the aircraft list it as being capable of flying Mach 3 and reaching altitudes of 85,000 feet. A PBS documentary in 2006 explained that the historic Blackbird simply used its unparalleled speed to essentially outrun ground-based radar and air defenses.