I'd love one of those. It would make visiting my parents a lot easier. I could get to my parents' house in three hours, instead of 30.
10x the time savings @ 100x the cost... but what a ride.... Heck with an aircraft that goes that fast... you really don't need to worry about stealth... By the time you see it....Its already to late...
I remember watching a film of one refuel... it was leaking real bad on the ground, and needed to refuel in the air after it got up to speed and heated the skins to expand and seal up.
SR71 -- it didn't fly into the 21st Century, but was retired in 1999. Besides the skin expansion while reaching flight temperature, was there any chance that its maximum flight weight was greater than its maximum takeoff weight, allowing additional fuel to be loaded once it was in the air?
Great link! That plane probably goes too fast for a human to be in it, so it will be a drone! I think they already have the ram jet engine.
The X-15 went a bit faster, with human pilots. One of them, Bill Dana, who flew its last flight in 1970, died just last week.
At that speed, the occupants would be at ~.75G. The faster it goes, the lower the lift induced drag. Go fast enough and the plane would have to fly inverted to stay in the atmosphere. What a great way to loop the earth but like a meteor, it would be easily if briefly seen. Bob Wilson
Can you imagine!! If they are publicly saying the above,,, what do they really have already? You know,, they never release the top secret info, until its no longer secret. I can not imagine a human surviving inside something with an outside surface temp of 3500 degrees!!! Not for long anyway! I bet that would be a "Shake n Bake"!
UK developing something similar: If all goes to plan, the first test flights could happen in 2019, and Skylon could be visiting the International Space Station by 2022. It could carry 15 tonnes of cargo to a 300 km equatorial orbit on each trip, and up to 11 tonnes to the International Space Station, almost 45% more than the capacity of the European Space Agency's ATV vehicle. Source: Skylon (spacecraft) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Pretty much once a month for most of my childhood, my local newspaper would have a story about HOTOL (HOTOL - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), Skylon's predecessor. It was going to be made locally and secure jobs for decades. It could carry 8 tonnes into a orbit, or be converted for passenger use, taking people from Sydney to Heathrow in 50 minutes (plus two hours to find a parking space at Sydney airport, two hours in the check-in queue at Sydney, four hours for security and immigration checks at Sydney, an hour sitting on the apron at Heathrow because they'd forgotten that a scheduled flight was going to turn up, six hours queueing at at Heathrow immigration, and five hours chasing the airline for the baggage that the Heathrow baggage handlers were going through to see whether there was anything worth stealing). Oddly enough, it never happened. I see the British government has committed to investing GBP 60 million in Skylon, though, which is pretty good seed capital. So maybe this time....
This could be the same vehicle as the highly rumored "Aurora" project that has been talked about in the webosphere/History Channel Shows for more than a decade. The SR-72 Wiki page has been up since 1 Nov. 2013. So not exactly new news, but I suspect some version of this plane is already flying. SR-72 Wiki Page
Deliver a message? At one time, there was speculation that ICBMs could be used to deliver conventional, ordinance. But the launch vehicles are easily spotted by the missile detection satellites which can not tell what kind of warhead they carry. In contrast, a high-speed aircraft is harder to spot and identify from space, unless it is flying exceptionally high and fast. Heat would give it away. Bob Wilson
