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Lockheed Martin SR-72 is Only a Plane on Paper -- USNI News
Lockheed Martin Skunk Works and Aerojet Rocketdyne have made a breakthrough in hypersonic propulsion technology, but the Mach 6.0-capable SR-72 remains more of aspiration than a real airplane.
The companies have found a way to pair a conventional turbine jet engine, such as those in existing fighter aircraft, with a supersonic combustion ramjet— an engine that can operate effectively only if an aircraft is traveling at very high speeds.
The pairing—first reported by Aviation Week on Friday—makes a hypersonic plane a practical possibility, but Lockheed still faces scores of technological and funding challenges before the so-called Son of Blackbird becomes a reality.
The breakthrough is in the “proprietary way we join up those two systems,” Bradley Leland, Lockheed Martin Skunk Work’s portfolio manager for air-breathing hypersonics, told USNI News in a Monday interview. “The turbine, which works well up to Mach 2, and the scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) work well at Mach 4 and above. By making those work together down at Mach 3—below Mach 3—that’s really the key.”
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My Comment: You have to start somewhere.