I'm amazed there are so many people interested in military equipment. Is this a USA thing? Would love someone to explain the appeal.
I wouldn't call the fastest airplane ever built to be just "military equipment". It's probably one of the greatest engineering achievements ever and it's still unsurpassed. It's also a beautiful machine.
Didn't realise it was the fastest airplane ever built, that sheds some light on it. It is really a greater engineering feat than anything in the space program?
I wouldn't call the fastest airplane ever built to be just "military equipment". It's probably one of the greatest engineering achievements ever and it's still unsurpassed. It's also a beautiful machine.
Didn't realise it was the fastest airplane ever built, that sheds some light on it. It is really a greater engineering feat than anything in the space program?
It depends on if you count the X-15 or the Shuttle, but neither of those were air-breathing.
Or heat its skin. A laser defense weapon, coupled with the black titanium skin, likely already close to its thermal limits, might produce results of interest to a defender.
In the meantime, its going to take a lot of time and money to develop those weapons as well. I mean, you're talking about hypothetical countermeasures that don't even exist as a solid concept yet.
Not entirely true. LAWS has been in active tests and is, I believe, being deployed now:
So given Lockheed's track record on the F-35, we'll see this finally cancelled around 2040 (the first $1 trillion aircraft program) when everyone else has built similar planes better, faster, and more reliably.
People easily remember the bad projects but the f-22 program didn't have the same problems.
By comparison, the SR-71 was first proposed around 1960 and operational by 1966. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-71_Blackbird
This is one of the most perplexing things about our modern world - the seemingly exponential increase in the length of time it takes to get anything done, especially large, technically complex projects. This is true for the Saturn V, for the World Trade Center, dams, highways, high speed rail, etc. It makes me wonder where these "productivity improvements" really are, especially the ones that computers presumably giv…
That's a good question, I think, thought I'm not sure, the answer is people are now far more expensive, adding more people means less money is made. Let's use your dams example. They built a bunch of big dams in the 50s and 60s and each one had more than 10,000 people working on it. They were mostly publicly financed, so more or less not built to make money. They didn't worry about adding a few more (or a few hundred more) people to the job because they were cheap. Now, the people that do this work are really expensive, and adding a few more means the people in charge make less money. Another big thing is probably rules and regulations and laws, far fewer back then. Good? Bad? I dunno.
Didn't realise it was the fastest airplane ever built, that sheds some light on it. It is really a greater engineering feat than anything in the space program?
It depends on if you count the X-15 or the Shuttle, but neither of those were air-breathing.
The shuttle should be considered a glider (a lousy one) when landing. The X-15 is a rocket with wings and should be called a spaceplane - it crossed the 100 Km border twice after all, and couldn't take off by itself.
This is one of the most perplexing things about our modern world - the seemingly exponential increase in the length of time it takes to get anything done, especially large, technically complex projects. This is true for the Saturn V, for the World Trade Center, dams, highways, high speed rail, etc. It makes me wonder where these "productivity improvements" really are, especially the ones that computers presumably giv…
That's a good question, I think, thought I'm not sure, the answer is people are now far more expensive, adding more people means less money is made. Let's use your dams example. They built a bunch of big dams in the 50s and 60s and each one had more than 10,000 people working on it. They were mostly publicly financed, so more or less not built to make money. They didn't worry about adding a few more (or a few hundred…
I don't think it's the cost of people. Technology has done a pretty good job of reducing the cost of simple labor. But technology hasn't done a great job of managing complexity. See, for example, the above jab at the "millions of lines of software code" managing the SR-72. That stands in stark contrast to the "keep it simple stupid" motto attributed to Kelly Johnson, the SR-71's designer.
The other thing you can do at that speed is intercept enemy planes. The SR-71 was developed from an interceptor project: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_YF-12
That's not an accurate description at all. Both the SR-71 and the YF-12 were developed from the A-12, which was purely a reconnaissance aircraft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_A-12 The whole concept of using the "Blackbird" family of planes as interceptors was an experimental offshoot that was quickly cancelled, the SR-71 certainly wasn't developed as some byproduct of an interceptor, it it was the other way…
You are right. I read the first paragraph of that page too quickly, and got the order wrong.
The main point was that interceptor is the other role for very fast plane, including the active service MiG-31 (around Mach 2.8).
It depends on if you count the X-15 or the Shuttle, but neither of those were air-breathing.
The shuttle should be considered a glider (a lousy one) when landing. The X-15 is a rocket with wings and should be called a spaceplane - it crossed the 100 Km border twice after all, and couldn't take off by itself.
Agreed. The X-15 even had a RCS for when control surfaces no longer had enough air to bite into.
The shuttle should be considered a glider (a lousy one) when landing. The X-15 is a rocket with wings and should be called a spaceplane - it crossed the 100 Km border twice after all, and couldn't take off by itself.
Agreed. The X-15 even had a RCS for when control surfaces no longer had enough air to bite into.
The coolest thing is the analog computer that seamlessly went between control surfaces and RCS as if it were flying using surfaces within an atmosphere. It may not be a "real" plane, but that doesn't make it any less amazing.
I'd love to see the X-15 progress into the X-20 and onwards.