Thread: SR71 Blackbird: The Fastest Plane On Earth

Originally Posted by JDM61

Actually, the guys back in the early 60's pretty much pushed the boundaries of how fast you could go with conventional air breathing engines and rocket engines to boot. What has been done since then is to make the engines a hell of a lot more efficient and harder to spot, but the heavy lifting was mostly done in the big spending days of the Cold War, including the F-22. While the F35 builds on that structural advances from the F-22 and XF-23 programs and has more advanced avionics and electronics, its engines or at least its intake setup are not of the same caliber, nor ar the other Gen 4.5 fighters like the Typhoon or Rafale even though the engine in the F-35 supposedly produces more thrust. We still don't have another fighter anywhere that can STEALTHILY supercruise at Mach 1.6-1.8. The Raptor very well may be the last true "cost no object" fighter we see, no matter what the Charlie Foxtrot F-35 program ends up costing. I think that we saw in the F-23 is the next level of "black art" that we have grown accustom to form the special projects divisions of L-M, N-G and Boeing. The REAL trick is going to be if they can pull off the B1 and B-2 "replacement'" the LSR-B, the tricky part being acquiring it at the price they want, which is about 30% of the current cost of a B2. I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to happen. LOL

Well, having the best equipment does not necessarily win anyone a war. It is interesting to push boundaries but a lot of times it is not necessary to go for the last 5% of what may be possible. Don't get me started on the F-35 and our governments involvement in procuring some, not really a big fan of it.

Bob

From a purely technical standpoint, I think that the B model for the USMC and the Royal Navy is the one that has caused a lot of the trouble. You guys actually ordered that one that appears to work.

Originally Posted by BobH

Well, having the best equipment does not necessarily win anyone a war. It is interesting to push boundaries but a lot of times it is not necessary to go for the last 5% of what may be possible. Don't get me started on the F-35 and our governments involvement in procuring some, not really a big fan of it.

Bob

Originally Posted by JDM61

From a purely technical standpoint, I think that the B model for the USMC and the Royal Navy is the one that has caused a lot of the trouble. You guys actually ordered that one that appears to work.

Even if we ordered the one that seems to work the cost is waaaay too much imo. The government here ran into a real crap storm when they announced what they were planning on doing and how they were involved in the procurement process. They pulled in their horns and mumbled something about having to reassess the whole thing. The real situation here wrt the F-35 is about clear as mud to the average Joe from what I can see. We will see what we will see eventually. Seems when you try and built a jack of all trades you wind up with a master at none.

Bob

I think that now the most advanced technology and are classified on the TV do not see.

You are correct. They managed to keep the F-117 secret for a LONG time even though the basic science behind the early "faceted" stealth design was published by a Russian scientist in 1964 and his work was either ignored of calculated to be way too expensive to implement.the first static model, the "Hopeless Diamond was built in 1975 and they had flying demo stators in 1977, and full production of the final model was funded in 1979. the first one was delivered 30 months later in 1981. By the time we found out about in 1988, a little over a year before it was first used in combat in Panama, the USAF and the defense contractors were YEARS down he road on the next bit of technology that we saw in the B2, F-22 and F-35. The B@ project was started in the Carter years and the final award of he project to Northrop-Grumman was made in 1981.

Originally Posted by Gipson

I think that now the most advanced technology and are classified on the TV do not see.