"Son of Blackbird" -- the nation's newest spy technology

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http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/11...kworks-to-build-successor-to-sr-71-blackbird/​

A new hypersonic spy plane is coming from the company that helped invent the technology -- and this one will fly six times the speed of sound.

[OP's aside: You can safely multiply that by roughly 2.3 times and come up with a more accurate estimate of what the bird is really capable of doing.]

Dubbed the SR-72, or Son of Blackbird, the new unmanned spy plane is under development at Lockheed Martin’s famed Skunk Works division, where some of the company’s most advanced projects have been developed. It will be the successor to the famous SR-71, which the U.S. Air Force operated for decades but retired almost 20 years ago.

Lockheed built the Blackbird in the early 60s after Gary Powers’ U-2 spy plane was hit by surface-to-air missiles over the Soviet Union, a Cold War crisis that revealed the real need for faster planes and better spy capabilities. Built and tested at Groom Lake in Nevada -- right around the corner from Area 51 -- the Blackbird was designed to fly far faster than anything else around, maintaining speeds in excess of 2,000 mph.

The SR-71 was flown from New York to London in less than two hours in 1976 by U.S. Air Force crews, reaching speeds exceeding Mach 3 and setting world records that have held up for nearly four decades.

But Son of Blackbird? The SR-72 should make its aging ancestor look like a Sunday driver out taking in the fall foliage.

The old SR-71 will sit on the tarmac leaking oil like an incontinent dog leaks ... well, you know. Then you fire her up, let those big jet engines idle ...

... and she still leaks oil like my uncle's old '58 Chevy pickup (we always told him to buy Fords, but would he listen?).

But get her up in the air ... everything sucks up, seals up, tightens up and she flies like a bat out of hell with its hair on fire and it's butt catching. Can't wait to see this bird roll out. Wish she was manned, but ya can't have everything this day and age, I guess.