Sure, I didn't mean to imply THIS one was a flying model, simply we sorta knew they were supposedly working on a prototype for 2025 flight testing just we've never seen anything about it or really heard much in the last few years.
>just we've never seen anything about it or really heard much in the last few years.
They posted a fucking trailer video for it like 6 months ago man and this image looks like it was from that video
Sure, I didn't mean to imply THIS one was a flying model, simply we sorta knew they were supposedly working on a prototype for 2025 flight testing just we've never seen anything about it or really heard much in the last few years.
You don't plug umbilicals into mockups, Anon. Whatever that is, it's flying.
It would be the first time I've seen it. Umbilicals are ugly and detract from the look the designers are going for. I've never seen a mockup with them on.
>Be Chang Zhao Ling >Through great intel work and cunning find out design for top sekrit US plane >show bosses, your social credit is gonna be so high >Design is literally used in a hollywood movie, bring great shame >Secret police 'coincidentally' find out your family tree is actually all Uyghurs >Get sent to concentration camp >Turns out design was legit
The new design still seems pretty great.
Skylon is probably never gonna happen because it took so long that SpaceX is already about to make it obsolete. The engine itself might still find some applications though.
SSTO will never work on earth. Especially not now that people have figured out reusable boost stages.
And certainly nothing shaped like a plane will ever go to orbit under its own power. With chemical propulsion ISP ranges you need a mass ratio of about 22. >inb4 skylon
It's been on the drawing board for like 30 years now. The mixed cycle engines are vaporware and it gets payloadmogged by falcon or starship.
making spacecraft that's lands on runway is like making a car that flies
you can do it if you try hard enough, but the resulting vehicle will be garbage as a car and garbage as a helicopter
making it SSTO as well is like making the flying car that's also a bathyscaphe
X-33 was so close, they just didn't have the material science to make the tanks work at the time. Given the progress made in manufacturing, I think it could work.
Lockhead, have you built that prop plane we asked for so we have something to base our CGI on? >Prop? CGI? This is a working mach 10 aircraft, we built two so you can use one to film the other
See their tweet about the SR-71 being the fastest **acknowledged** crewed, air-breathing aircraft? L-M confirmed for having employed an Australian as social media manager
See their tweet about the SR-71 being the fastest **acknowledged** crewed, air-breathing aircraft? L-M confirmed for having employed an Australian as social media manager
I'm just wishing they'd suddenly reveal some kind of insane, nuclear powered air ionizing EM drive or something truly beyond combustion driven in every sense and REALLY knock the pants off everyone worldwide.
Just pray really hard for China to go full retard so the black box toys get to come out to play, anon.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>China invades Taiwan >Initial assutal repelled, low level bombings for a month and border skirmishes >China bombs Guam >Two hours later everything within a mile of Beijing is struck by lightning repeatedly for five hours straight despite there being no signs of a pressure system the day prior
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>mile of Beijing is struck by lightning repeatedly for five hours straight despite there being no signs of a pressure system the day prior
That would still be air breathing you spastic. But yes, I do agree that some ayy tier propulsion tech being unveiled would be cool, though I doubt if ayy tier tech existed that the gov would decide to unveil it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere-breathing_electric_propulsion exists but ion engines have pathetic thrust
(fission) nuclear thermal jet engines are already possible, but the radiation is a problem
if fusion is ever figured out and sufficiently miniaturized then fusion powered jets will be quick to follow
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
I fucking hate this fusion meme. Fusion still releases radiation and radioactive isotopes. Fusion is also unlikely to be miniaturized, nor is it going to be hugely efficient. I fucking hate this fucking >zomg fusion is going to fix all our problems
bullshit.
See: https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusion-reactors-not-what-theyre-cracked-up-to-be/amp/
Yes yes, I think their doomsday clock is also dumb bla bla bla and I'd rather they stay out of politics, but restricted to the topic of nuclear physics the bulletin is still a good source.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>Fusion overhyped >Literally the power source for the known universe
Yeah, let's just burn coal and dung for another 500 years.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>ignores the conditions in which fusion exists naturally >ignores implementation as an aspect of technology >somehow imagines me saying anything about fossil fuels
My dumbfuck detector is going off the charts!
Fission is likely to be, at least in the foreseeable future, the primary source of portable nuclear power. Unless some kind of whacky new tech appears that allow us to sustain fusion in a lightweight, compact form, with a competitive energy output and without using isotopes like deuterium and tritium, you're going to have something worse than fission.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>ignores the conditions in which fusion exists naturally >ignores implementation as an aspect of technology >somehow imagines me saying anything about fossil fuels
My dumbfuck detector is going off the charts!
Fission is likely to be, at least in the foreseeable future, the primary source of portable nuclear power. Unless some kind of whacky new tech appears that allow us to sustain fusion in a lightweight, compact form, with a competitive energy output and without using isotopes like deuterium and tritium, you're going to have something worse than fission.
Lol hasn't fusion been just a decade away for like 50 years? I'm actually moderately concerned about the development of pure fusion tech. Fallout and the residual issues are one reason against the liberal use of nukes in modern war, imagine having one less reason not to use tactical nukes. sure MAD still holds but I'm sure it lowers the use threshold just a bit.
I actually don't know very much about the topic but say in 100 years if it's figured out, would that mean countries pursuing nuclear weapons would be able to eventually build pure nuclear fusion weapons without immediately being sussed out? Like in a similar situation to Iran/North Korea, currently, there's tons of ways to know what they're up to and if they've tested weapons because we can detect the radiation/weapons grade enriched bullshit with nuke sniffers etc. If hypothetically the same situation exists in a world where pure fusion is viable are they able to get warheads in secret given they have the know how and tech? Assuming espionage fails to find out about it.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
If tech ever advances that far, we will probably already have stuff like energy shield, force field, or whatever ultra advanced alien/magic-like tech that render nukes moot anyway. Of course, that may probably open another different can of worms.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>hasn't fusion been just a decade away for like 50 years?
the meme number is 20 years away, but yea, something like that
turns out creating and sustaining a mini-sun is kinda hard, engineering-wise
it also doesn't help that most research into fusion is just an excuse to keep around the sort of scientists you need to make h-bombs
and that the oil lobby is very rich and influential, and obviously not a fan of serious research into fusion, as it would render hydrocarbon use for energy production completely obsolete.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Another problem is its 20 years away at $10b/year+ in funding, then the scientists are given $30m and 10 years of time and when the politicians come back in a decade to check on progress and you tell them you're still 20 years away at $10b/year in funding so they huff and puff then give you $50m and another decade of time. And the cycle continues.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Hydrocarbons for fuel should be made obsolete, since we need oil for so many other things.
reminder that sr71 is 1950s technology, early 60s at best. there's literally 0 chance it hasn't been tested even by a tech demonstrator.
not saying it can go faster, but the f-22 produces significantly more thrust than the sr-71. the record was probably broken in the 70s or 80s
Thrust at sea level =/= thrust at altitude. Air density/pressure (at) altitude matters.
Normal jet engines are making 1/8th or less their Sea Level Rated thrust at the planes maximum level flight altitude.
The SR's burners were pseudo-ramjets, with a different operational profile than a typical fighter engine like the -22's
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Considering it's taken 10 years to get half way through building a commercial sized reactor that wont be done till 2028 iirc
"just 20 years away" was always a ploy for more funding. Materials science had to come a LONG way to get where we are now.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>I actually don't know very much about the topic but say in 100 years if it's figured out, would that mean countries pursuing nuclear weapons would be able to eventually build pure nuclear fusion weapons without immediately being sussed out? >He doesn't know...
(Hint:Meta-stable Hafnium)
I'll just skip to the chase, DARPA already confirmed in 2006 that pure fusion bombs (aka not needing any uranium, plutonium, or any other nuclear regulated material) are both possible, and have been made already. They IIRC created a 3000lb device that was estimated to be just above the bare minimum to work and detonated it and it went off with the same force as it's tnt weight equivalent. HOWEVER, they claimed it is economically infeasible to procure that much for use in nuclear weapons even though they were able to make and test a functioning one on just one of their departments funding. Also it is believed that Israel, with funding and backing from South Africa, developed and detonated 2 such devices above ground for testing and had drastically reduced fallout and detectable radiation compared to a normal fission-fusion detonation (aka average nuke). It is believed that South Africa pulled out of the program and Israel has between 32-48 active nuclear devices as of today.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
moron once we minturise fusion pellets and lasers, were literally gonna be in the fusion age.
Get used to it.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>miniaturize pellets and lasers
ICF is never gonna be a viable power generation method. They might've had positive gain at NIF but that's before considering the ~1% efficiency of the whole laser setup. Plus they need a super precisely set up configuration for the ignition to work.
If you're looking for viable fusion, check out SPARC. Same design as ITER but with high temperature superconducting coils. So it's pretty likely to actually work.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>~1% efficiency of the whole laser setup
Diode-pumped solid-state lasers are already pushing 35% efficiency. Get with the times grandpa
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
They're not using diode pumped solid state lasers at NIF you utter retard.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
The goal of NIF is not a commercially viable fusion device. They're doing science, not producing power. Claiming ICF wont work because NIF doesn't produce enough Q when its not optimized to is foolish. Both techniques appear to be making great strides especially recently.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Not when you're pulsing a 14,000% overcurrent. Lern 2 electronics.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>fusion
Fusion is pretty much the same as electric propulsion thrust-wise and it also only works in a vacuum.
There are some proposals to dump water into the exhaust for more thrust but those still have pretty pathetic thrust.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
I was referring to nuclear ramjets, which require an atmosphere. Same concept as a traditional ramjet but you're using nuclear reactions for heat instead of combustion. They built fission ramjets in the 50s/60s, but fusion ramjets would be much more practical if we ever get there.
There's Bussard ramjets for use in space but that's getting very scifi.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
nuclear ramjets are suboptimal compared to nuclear rockets in terms of speed afaik, airbreathing is kind of an issue at high speed and when you dont need oxygen to fuel your conventional jet engine theres not much point bothering with it
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>but fusion ramjets would be much more practical if we ever get there.
No they wouldn't be. Fission has inherently much higher power density. As in, it's piss easy to make a small, really hot fission reactor whereas it's very hard to make the same thing with fusion.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
All the lit I've seen on Bussard ramjets require magnetic mono-poles to get a strong enough electric field to keep the reaction going. Would be nice if we lived in a nebula or something 🙁
reminder that a lot of the expertise and industry supporting the manufacture and maintenance of that 1950s technology is completely lost
a new sr71 could not be built today
This seems like a complete fucking meme but I see it eveRywhere. Post some sources or something that confirM this. It’s not that I don’t believe it tho
example from a similar industry >NASA astronaut Don Pettit speaking at the Space for Innovation conference at London’s Science Museum in 2017 >“The lunar base is bound to happen – it’s the next logical step,” he said. “I’d go to the moon in a nanosecond. The problem is we don’t have the technology to do that anymore. We used to but we destroyed that technology and it’s a painful process to build it back again.”
>So, when the Apollo program ended, the factories that assembled those vehicles were retasked or shut down. The jigs were disassembled. The molds were destroyed. The technicians, engineers, scientists, and flight controllers moved onto other jobs. Over time, some of the materials used became obsolete. >If we, today, said - "Let us build another Saturn V rocket and Apollo CSM/LEM and go to the moon!" it would not be a simple task of pulling out the blueprints and bending and cutting metal. >We don't have the factories or tools. We don't have the materials. We don't have the expertise to understand how the real vehicle differed from the drawings. We don't have the expertise to operate the vehicle. >We would have to substitute modern materials. That changes the vehicle. It changes the mass, it changes the stresses and strains, it changes the interactions. It changes the possible malfunctions. It changes the capabilities of the vehicle. >We would have to spend a few years re-developing the expertise. We would have to conduct new tests and simulations. We would have to draft new flight rules and procedures. We would have to certify new flight controllers and crew. >We would essentially be building a new vehicle.
also comrade, if you think modern USA has nearly the same industrial base or capacity as 1950s USA coming out of WWII then you are delusional.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Why would anyone with modern computers and materials want to rebuild old crude junk instead of redesign when there is zero urgency to send meatbags where robots should precede them for a thousand years?
It's 2023 and private companies like SpaceX can be subbed out for silly gestures if that's imagined important.
They're right in the sense that production lines and such would need to be built from scratch, and problems would need to be re-solved accounting for modern manufacturing techniques and technology, we couldn't just build a new SR-71 tomorrow. It's the same story as the tech for a moon landing, we know *how* to do it, but there's still a shitload of work involved.
SR is a broken moped compared to modern systems and as a manned aircraft itself is obsolete for its old mission set.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
what do you do when your glorified multi-billion dollar drone gets jammed and crashes?
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>letting old designs pass >reinvest into newer designs with modern manufacturing techniques
I now understand why this concept terrifies the vatnig
old tech will always be preferable for extreme risk environments like space because they are far less unknowns to its function and nature, and any potential unpredictabilities that only appear in active use are mapped out
it's the same reason why banking runs on code older than the average person
or why a lot of aircraft systems use designs, parts and code that can be even older
the f35 has flight critical systems that run code that's thirty years old
updated, polished, maintained code yes, but the base functionality, the "core" of the code itself is old and there's three decades of understanding exactly how it works
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>letting old designs pass >reinvest into newer designs with modern manufacturing techniques
I now understand why this concept terrifies the vatnig
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
anon this just means that "If you want to do something you did a while ago again, you have to redevelop the basis to do it". That doesn't mean they can't do it, it just means "It's not a 5-minute job"
They're right in the sense that production lines and such would need to be built from scratch, and problems would need to be re-solved accounting for modern manufacturing techniques and technology, we couldn't just build a new SR-71 tomorrow. It's the same story as the tech for a moon landing, we know *how* to do it, but there's still a shitload of work involved.
You ever work in a company doing more than flipping burgers? Developing manufacturing processes and learning what works and what doesn't in doing it for even one specific machine requires a few people to become experts at that one thing. At the height of Apollo there were probably dozens of people who knew exactly what needed to happen for a specific component to come out perfectly within spec in ways that might not have been well-documented. Most of these people are dead or dying, meaning we'd need to go through a learning process like that all over again. Highly specific technical details that are only known to and understood by a few select people closest to thing, what my employers call "tribal knowledge" is the bane of long-term repeatability and as far as I can tell no org really ever cracked it.
It’s more that the original production line, toolings, and tribal knowledge among the people working on it are gone. So if we wanted to build ANOTHER SR-71 or anything Apollo mission related, we’d basically be starting from scratch, production wise.
It DOESN’T mean we can’t build a new design rocket or new SR71 replacement. I don’t know how retards went from the above legit issue to somehow thinking we lost all knowledge.
Imagine if the darkstar was actually real and they were going to announce it anyways, so they put it in a fucking movie and didn't say anything else about it until now.
>Chinese spy satellites spot black budget prototype aircraft >Uhh no you didn't that's just a prop for a Hollywood movie
... >oh yeah by the way actually it was a real black project spy plane
I mean, it would be pretty smart. If you want to broadcast to the world (and to your shareholders) about your capabilities as a country and a company, do the unveil in the new Top Gun. How many people watched the new Top Gun vs the B-21 Raider unveiling?
I thought the latest rumors were NGAD would be a larger plane with 3 or more occupants and used to control and coordinate wingman drones for the dirty work.
two seater would surprise me, the sheer amount of automation they're going for should make it less needed. Plus the B-21 and other big platforms have been pitched for drone control operations too which would shoulder the burden too.
NGAD should be bigger but I'm assuming that's more for the speed/range then for crew space.
2 seems reasonable to have the pilot and the drone guy, while going beyond that seems excessive for what is nominally a fighter, since they've made it a point to talk about how the loyal wingmen are going to be managed from the NGAD instead of purely from something like the AWACs.
I think the key to the one man fighter design is that the drones are going to be heavily autonomous, so the work load for one person is low enough not to need the second guy. But who knows, you could be right. I want a damn official render already. We were actually given a render of the B-21 that looks exactly like the currently prototypes so part of me think some of these LM models are close to the final design.
The question is if you want to have the pilot, who's nominally on constant lookout for threats to his own plane, having to spend mental energy directing the drones. Autonomous makes sense for and is very good at doing tasks, but deciding what tasks to do is much harder, especially in the context of a low information, highly dynamic situation, while the cost of returning to having 2 seater probably isn't that high.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
every pilot now has an A.I. waifu the projects into the cockpit wearing skimpy clothing with five times the processing power of the fastest quantum computer.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
See, the problem with this plan is you now have the pilot projecting this waifu onto his drones and now he'll be unwilling to sacrifice them when needed. I also imagine that boners are not conducive to avoiding blackouts at high Gs.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>also imagine that boners are not conducive to avoiding blackouts at high Gs.
Give pilots whatever drug cocktail is necessary for the production of blood plasma and platelets.
Blood can be stored in the erect johnson for use at high g pressures, similarly to how pee is stored in the balls.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Filgrastim and gatorade.
t. oncologist
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>battle harems become a reality
FUCK YES FUND IT
imagine riding your NGAD at mach 5 and having your harem bicker with each other in the cockpit while slaughtering hordes of chink j-7 automatons
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>battle harems become a reality
FUCK YES FUND IT
imagine riding your NGAD at mach 5 and having your harem bicker with each other in the cockpit while slaughtering hordes of chink j-7 automatons
by which I mean each DRONE should have an avatar and they should project themselves to speak and ask for input
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>every pilot now has an A.I. waifu the projects into the cockpit wearing skimpy clothing with five times the processing power of the fastest quantum computer.
Then what happens when it's time to punch out and you have to watch your waifu death spiral into the ground?
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Waifu is stored on an RFID chip on a lanyard similar to dog tags. When you enter the aircraft, so does your waifu.
>the bizarre idea that you could use an airship to transport Abrams tanks to the top of mountains in Afghanistan to shell the Taliban
based retard congressman and his flying mobile oppression palaces
>Skunkworks made a black project Mach 10+ plane >turdies will never be able to match it >use it as a movie prop just to rub it in
Absolutely based if true
>missing the F-22
The P-3 and C-5 are fairly notable too
>p-38 >f-104
Not that worthy of praise tbh
The P-38 did a lot of the heavy lifting for the USAAF in the earlier half of the war, and the F-104 was at least a bit more useful than most of the other Century fighters (though not necessarily good)
I actually got to visit skunkworks for work in 2019, the meeting center had scale models of all their declassified projects and a F117 on a pedestal outside, super cool. Their project team members were impressive individuals
I worked for a congressman in the mid-2000s who was on the take from Lockheed, and they gave him a model of that airship. He kept it on his desk and spent hours playing with it until he finally became obsessed with the bizarre idea that you could use an airship to transport Abrams tanks to the top of mountains in Afghanistan to shell the Taliban.
they were considered for heavy lift and the idea they would eventually move an armored company in one go was popular back then. that's pretty huge logistics wise and he wasn't the only one.
That was actually a fairly serious proposal, at one time. There was a big study in the late '90s regarding how the US would handle the next conflict, which was expected to be a "pop-up" threat from an Iraq or Serbia-style opponent. Basically Desert Storm 2 but with a smarter opponent who learned from Saddam's mistakes.
Since nobody knew who would kick off the next war, and Peace Dividends made it too expensive to keep troops stationed all around the world, there was a lot of thinking around rapid deployment from CONUS. The goal became to get a medium-weight brigade from CONUS to anywhere on the planet within 96 hours... and the rest of the entire DIVISION 24 hours later.
That's what gave us concepts like airships, and the Boeing Pelican, and FCS. The only option that ever made it into service was the cheapest one: slightly increasing the pre-positioned stocks (3 of which--Kuwait, Qatar, and Diego Garcia--would later be used by 3ID against Saddam).
So, it's not just a pork thing, or a corrupt congresscritter; it was an actual contender. Ultimately, the cost and developmental risk were too high. It didn't help that LockMart's prototype had serious issues in high winds, caught on camera by a documentary team.
So is this sorta semi confirmed the SR-72 prototype that was supposedly going to be flying by 2025?
maybe a mock up of what they're working on? just because its "real" doesn't necessarily mean its flying
Sure, I didn't mean to imply THIS one was a flying model, simply we sorta knew they were supposedly working on a prototype for 2025 flight testing just we've never seen anything about it or really heard much in the last few years.
>just we've never seen anything about it or really heard much in the last few years.
They posted a fucking trailer video for it like 6 months ago man and this image looks like it was from that video
You don't plug umbilicals into mockups, Anon. Whatever that is, it's flying.
The umbilical itself could be part of the mockup. Wouldn't be the first time.
It would be the first time I've seen it. Umbilicals are ugly and detract from the look the designers are going for. I've never seen a mockup with them on.
And how many mock ups have you seen anon?
The correct response is to post images of mock-ups with umbilicals and not play pretend.
>It would be the first time I've seen it
>hey bob lets attach some pipes make it look real good, i bet the rest of the world never seen umblicals attached let's surprise'em heh
SR-72 was/is a UAV. UAVs don't need cockpits.
Its a drone with capability to carry a kommando who will wing suit into the Kremlin and drip cosmoline into Putin's ear
Where do i sign up?
landing gear looks pretty stout, that's nice. I hate seeing delicate little twigs on planes, they oughta have cankles.
So is this the same darkstar plane from topgun? I honestly can't see any difference between them.
https://www.space.com/top-gun-maverick-darkstar-air-show-edwards-air-force-base
I fucking knew it. They pulled out the real thing for the movie and claimed it was fake to troll China.
>Be Chang Zhao Ling
>Through great intel work and cunning find out design for top sekrit US plane
>show bosses, your social credit is gonna be so high
>Design is literally used in a hollywood movie, bring great shame
>Secret police 'coincidentally' find out your family tree is actually all Uyghurs
>Get sent to concentration camp
>Turns out design was legit
The sr72 has been flying since 2018.
That's when they started mentioning it frequently in the media.
Looks like a frog.
>SR-72
I'm betting on NGAD/PCA
Holy shit what’s happening bros
eastern thirdies getting a reminder that they're 50 years behind in tech at all times
Wow they actually made dark star.
Was a B-52 the parent craft? or was it the B-1?
it couldn't have been SSTO?
SSTO dream would be kino
I would love that but SABRE is dead in the water. The new design of the engine sucks dick compared to what was envisioned
The new design still seems pretty great.
Skylon is probably never gonna happen because it took so long that SpaceX is already about to make it obsolete. The engine itself might still find some applications though.
>SABRE is dead in the water
They got the pre-cooler working and got brought by BAE a couple of months later, make of that what you will.
SSTO will never work on earth. Especially not now that people have figured out reusable boost stages.
And certainly nothing shaped like a plane will ever go to orbit under its own power. With chemical propulsion ISP ranges you need a mass ratio of about 22.
>inb4 skylon
It's been on the drawing board for like 30 years now. The mixed cycle engines are vaporware and it gets payloadmogged by falcon or starship.
Only spacecraft acceptable in 21st century takes off the runway, and lands on the runway. Anything else is antique.
making spacecraft that's lands on runway is like making a car that flies
you can do it if you try hard enough, but the resulting vehicle will be garbage as a car and garbage as a helicopter
making it SSTO as well is like making the flying car that's also a bathyscaphe
X-33 was so close, they just didn't have the material science to make the tanks work at the time. Given the progress made in manufacturing, I think it could work.
Modern CF looms are pretty cool.
While cool, the machine in your pic isn't a loom, it's an AFP machine.
Advanced carbon fiber looms look like pic rel.
Lockhead, have you built that prop plane we asked for so we have something to base our CGI on?
>Prop? CGI? This is a working mach 10 aircraft, we built two so you can use one to film the other
See their tweet about the SR-71 being the fastest **acknowledged** crewed, air-breathing aircraft? L-M confirmed for having employed an Australian as social media manager
>acknowledged
Based af
>of real aircraft
>acknowledged
Muh fucking dick.
>air-breathing
if it's not air breathing it's just a rocket
I'm just wishing they'd suddenly reveal some kind of insane, nuclear powered air ionizing EM drive or something truly beyond combustion driven in every sense and REALLY knock the pants off everyone worldwide.
Just pray really hard for China to go full retard so the black box toys get to come out to play, anon.
>China invades Taiwan
>Initial assutal repelled, low level bombings for a month and border skirmishes
>China bombs Guam
>Two hours later everything within a mile of Beijing is struck by lightning repeatedly for five hours straight despite there being no signs of a pressure system the day prior
>mile of Beijing is struck by lightning repeatedly for five hours straight despite there being no signs of a pressure system the day prior
That would still be air breathing you spastic. But yes, I do agree that some ayy tier propulsion tech being unveiled would be cool, though I doubt if ayy tier tech existed that the gov would decide to unveil it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere-breathing_electric_propulsion exists but ion engines have pathetic thrust
(fission) nuclear thermal jet engines are already possible, but the radiation is a problem
if fusion is ever figured out and sufficiently miniaturized then fusion powered jets will be quick to follow
I fucking hate this fusion meme. Fusion still releases radiation and radioactive isotopes. Fusion is also unlikely to be miniaturized, nor is it going to be hugely efficient. I fucking hate this fucking
>zomg fusion is going to fix all our problems
bullshit.
See: https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusion-reactors-not-what-theyre-cracked-up-to-be/amp/
Yes yes, I think their doomsday clock is also dumb bla bla bla and I'd rather they stay out of politics, but restricted to the topic of nuclear physics the bulletin is still a good source.
>Fusion overhyped
>Literally the power source for the known universe
Yeah, let's just burn coal and dung for another 500 years.
>ignores the conditions in which fusion exists naturally
>ignores implementation as an aspect of technology
>somehow imagines me saying anything about fossil fuels
My dumbfuck detector is going off the charts!
Fission is likely to be, at least in the foreseeable future, the primary source of portable nuclear power. Unless some kind of whacky new tech appears that allow us to sustain fusion in a lightweight, compact form, with a competitive energy output and without using isotopes like deuterium and tritium, you're going to have something worse than fission.
Lol hasn't fusion been just a decade away for like 50 years? I'm actually moderately concerned about the development of pure fusion tech. Fallout and the residual issues are one reason against the liberal use of nukes in modern war, imagine having one less reason not to use tactical nukes. sure MAD still holds but I'm sure it lowers the use threshold just a bit.
I actually don't know very much about the topic but say in 100 years if it's figured out, would that mean countries pursuing nuclear weapons would be able to eventually build pure nuclear fusion weapons without immediately being sussed out? Like in a similar situation to Iran/North Korea, currently, there's tons of ways to know what they're up to and if they've tested weapons because we can detect the radiation/weapons grade enriched bullshit with nuke sniffers etc. If hypothetically the same situation exists in a world where pure fusion is viable are they able to get warheads in secret given they have the know how and tech? Assuming espionage fails to find out about it.
If tech ever advances that far, we will probably already have stuff like energy shield, force field, or whatever ultra advanced alien/magic-like tech that render nukes moot anyway. Of course, that may probably open another different can of worms.
>hasn't fusion been just a decade away for like 50 years?
the meme number is 20 years away, but yea, something like that
turns out creating and sustaining a mini-sun is kinda hard, engineering-wise
it also doesn't help that most research into fusion is just an excuse to keep around the sort of scientists you need to make h-bombs
and that the oil lobby is very rich and influential, and obviously not a fan of serious research into fusion, as it would render hydrocarbon use for energy production completely obsolete.
Another problem is its 20 years away at $10b/year+ in funding, then the scientists are given $30m and 10 years of time and when the politicians come back in a decade to check on progress and you tell them you're still 20 years away at $10b/year in funding so they huff and puff then give you $50m and another decade of time. And the cycle continues.
Hydrocarbons for fuel should be made obsolete, since we need oil for so many other things.
Thrust at sea level =/= thrust at altitude. Air density/pressure (at) altitude matters.
Normal jet engines are making 1/8th or less their Sea Level Rated thrust at the planes maximum level flight altitude.
The SR's burners were pseudo-ramjets, with a different operational profile than a typical fighter engine like the -22's
Considering it's taken 10 years to get half way through building a commercial sized reactor that wont be done till 2028 iirc
"just 20 years away" was always a ploy for more funding. Materials science had to come a LONG way to get where we are now.
>I actually don't know very much about the topic but say in 100 years if it's figured out, would that mean countries pursuing nuclear weapons would be able to eventually build pure nuclear fusion weapons without immediately being sussed out?
>He doesn't know...
(Hint:Meta-stable Hafnium)
I'll just skip to the chase, DARPA already confirmed in 2006 that pure fusion bombs (aka not needing any uranium, plutonium, or any other nuclear regulated material) are both possible, and have been made already. They IIRC created a 3000lb device that was estimated to be just above the bare minimum to work and detonated it and it went off with the same force as it's tnt weight equivalent. HOWEVER, they claimed it is economically infeasible to procure that much for use in nuclear weapons even though they were able to make and test a functioning one on just one of their departments funding. Also it is believed that Israel, with funding and backing from South Africa, developed and detonated 2 such devices above ground for testing and had drastically reduced fallout and detectable radiation compared to a normal fission-fusion detonation (aka average nuke). It is believed that South Africa pulled out of the program and Israel has between 32-48 active nuclear devices as of today.
moron once we minturise fusion pellets and lasers, were literally gonna be in the fusion age.
Get used to it.
>miniaturize pellets and lasers
ICF is never gonna be a viable power generation method. They might've had positive gain at NIF but that's before considering the ~1% efficiency of the whole laser setup. Plus they need a super precisely set up configuration for the ignition to work.
If you're looking for viable fusion, check out SPARC. Same design as ITER but with high temperature superconducting coils. So it's pretty likely to actually work.
>~1% efficiency of the whole laser setup
Diode-pumped solid-state lasers are already pushing 35% efficiency. Get with the times grandpa
They're not using diode pumped solid state lasers at NIF you utter retard.
The goal of NIF is not a commercially viable fusion device. They're doing science, not producing power. Claiming ICF wont work because NIF doesn't produce enough Q when its not optimized to is foolish. Both techniques appear to be making great strides especially recently.
Not when you're pulsing a 14,000% overcurrent. Lern 2 electronics.
>fusion
Fusion is pretty much the same as electric propulsion thrust-wise and it also only works in a vacuum.
There are some proposals to dump water into the exhaust for more thrust but those still have pretty pathetic thrust.
I was referring to nuclear ramjets, which require an atmosphere. Same concept as a traditional ramjet but you're using nuclear reactions for heat instead of combustion. They built fission ramjets in the 50s/60s, but fusion ramjets would be much more practical if we ever get there.
There's Bussard ramjets for use in space but that's getting very scifi.
nuclear ramjets are suboptimal compared to nuclear rockets in terms of speed afaik, airbreathing is kind of an issue at high speed and when you dont need oxygen to fuel your conventional jet engine theres not much point bothering with it
>but fusion ramjets would be much more practical if we ever get there.
No they wouldn't be. Fission has inherently much higher power density. As in, it's piss easy to make a small, really hot fission reactor whereas it's very hard to make the same thing with fusion.
All the lit I've seen on Bussard ramjets require magnetic mono-poles to get a strong enough electric field to keep the reaction going. Would be nice if we lived in a nebula or something 🙁
alien pilots confirmed
That's a very specific set of qualifications. I'll bet the 72 has been flying combat missions for years now.
reminder that sr71 is 1950s technology, early 60s at best. there's literally 0 chance it hasn't been tested even by a tech demonstrator.
not saying it can go faster, but the f-22 produces significantly more thrust than the sr-71. the record was probably broken in the 70s or 80s
>tested
*bested
reminder that a lot of the expertise and industry supporting the manufacture and maintenance of that 1950s technology is completely lost
a new sr71 could not be built today
This seems like a complete fucking meme but I see it eveRywhere. Post some sources or something that confirM this. It’s not that I don’t believe it tho
example from a similar industry
>NASA astronaut Don Pettit speaking at the Space for Innovation conference at London’s Science Museum in 2017
>“The lunar base is bound to happen – it’s the next logical step,” he said. “I’d go to the moon in a nanosecond. The problem is we don’t have the technology to do that anymore. We used to but we destroyed that technology and it’s a painful process to build it back again.”
>So, when the Apollo program ended, the factories that assembled those vehicles were retasked or shut down. The jigs were disassembled. The molds were destroyed. The technicians, engineers, scientists, and flight controllers moved onto other jobs. Over time, some of the materials used became obsolete.
>If we, today, said - "Let us build another Saturn V rocket and Apollo CSM/LEM and go to the moon!" it would not be a simple task of pulling out the blueprints and bending and cutting metal.
>We don't have the factories or tools. We don't have the materials. We don't have the expertise to understand how the real vehicle differed from the drawings. We don't have the expertise to operate the vehicle.
>We would have to substitute modern materials. That changes the vehicle. It changes the mass, it changes the stresses and strains, it changes the interactions. It changes the possible malfunctions. It changes the capabilities of the vehicle.
>We would have to spend a few years re-developing the expertise. We would have to conduct new tests and simulations. We would have to draft new flight rules and procedures. We would have to certify new flight controllers and crew.
>We would essentially be building a new vehicle.
also comrade, if you think modern USA has nearly the same industrial base or capacity as 1950s USA coming out of WWII then you are delusional.
Why would anyone with modern computers and materials want to rebuild old crude junk instead of redesign when there is zero urgency to send meatbags where robots should precede them for a thousand years?
It's 2023 and private companies like SpaceX can be subbed out for silly gestures if that's imagined important.
SR is a broken moped compared to modern systems and as a manned aircraft itself is obsolete for its old mission set.
what do you do when your glorified multi-billion dollar drone gets jammed and crashes?
old tech will always be preferable for extreme risk environments like space because they are far less unknowns to its function and nature, and any potential unpredictabilities that only appear in active use are mapped out
it's the same reason why banking runs on code older than the average person
or why a lot of aircraft systems use designs, parts and code that can be even older
the f35 has flight critical systems that run code that's thirty years old
updated, polished, maintained code yes, but the base functionality, the "core" of the code itself is old and there's three decades of understanding exactly how it works
>letting old designs pass
>reinvest into newer designs with modern manufacturing techniques
I now understand why this concept terrifies the vatnig
anon this just means that "If you want to do something you did a while ago again, you have to redevelop the basis to do it". That doesn't mean they can't do it, it just means "It's not a 5-minute job"
They're right in the sense that production lines and such would need to be built from scratch, and problems would need to be re-solved accounting for modern manufacturing techniques and technology, we couldn't just build a new SR-71 tomorrow. It's the same story as the tech for a moon landing, we know *how* to do it, but there's still a shitload of work involved.
You ever work in a company doing more than flipping burgers? Developing manufacturing processes and learning what works and what doesn't in doing it for even one specific machine requires a few people to become experts at that one thing. At the height of Apollo there were probably dozens of people who knew exactly what needed to happen for a specific component to come out perfectly within spec in ways that might not have been well-documented. Most of these people are dead or dying, meaning we'd need to go through a learning process like that all over again. Highly specific technical details that are only known to and understood by a few select people closest to thing, what my employers call "tribal knowledge" is the bane of long-term repeatability and as far as I can tell no org really ever cracked it.
It’s more that the original production line, toolings, and tribal knowledge among the people working on it are gone. So if we wanted to build ANOTHER SR-71 or anything Apollo mission related, we’d basically be starting from scratch, production wise.
It DOESN’T mean we can’t build a new design rocket or new SR71 replacement. I don’t know how retards went from the above legit issue to somehow thinking we lost all knowledge.
and they can build b-21 bombers and hypersonic missiles today so what's your point?
You're right, we build things that are far better.
t. knower
>acknowledged
>crewed
>air-breathing
Love the disqualifiers.
>acknowledged
>acknowledged
There's no way they don't have shit that flies faster. They just don't wanna go public with it.
Oh FUCK
Cultured Hyouge Mono enjoyer
>military grade shitposting on social media
does that say Navy?
Did the Navy tender a contract for a persistent manned Hypersonic ISR aircraft? lol
That is the Darkstar model for the movie lol, it's navy cause topgun
Ooooh okay lol boomer moment
UFOs are just bored Navy/DARPA techs making demonstrators.
woah there anon, this is a blue board. >>/s/>> is that way.
that's fucking beautiful
Imagine if the darkstar was actually real and they were going to announce it anyways, so they put it in a fucking movie and didn't say anything else about it until now.
>Chinese spy satellites spot black budget prototype aircraft
>Uhh no you didn't that's just a prop for a Hollywood movie
...
>oh yeah by the way actually it was a real black project spy plane
>plane was real
>movie got made just to pretend it was a prop
I mean, it would be pretty smart. If you want to broadcast to the world (and to your shareholders) about your capabilities as a country and a company, do the unveil in the new Top Gun. How many people watched the new Top Gun vs the B-21 Raider unveiling?
That's the NGAD you brainlets.
I thought the latest rumors were NGAD would be a larger plane with 3 or more occupants and used to control and coordinate wingman drones for the dirty work.
two seater would surprise me, the sheer amount of automation they're going for should make it less needed. Plus the B-21 and other big platforms have been pitched for drone control operations too which would shoulder the burden too.
NGAD should be bigger but I'm assuming that's more for the speed/range then for crew space.
2 seems reasonable to have the pilot and the drone guy, while going beyond that seems excessive for what is nominally a fighter, since they've made it a point to talk about how the loyal wingmen are going to be managed from the NGAD instead of purely from something like the AWACs.
I think the key to the one man fighter design is that the drones are going to be heavily autonomous, so the work load for one person is low enough not to need the second guy. But who knows, you could be right. I want a damn official render already. We were actually given a render of the B-21 that looks exactly like the currently prototypes so part of me think some of these LM models are close to the final design.
The question is if you want to have the pilot, who's nominally on constant lookout for threats to his own plane, having to spend mental energy directing the drones. Autonomous makes sense for and is very good at doing tasks, but deciding what tasks to do is much harder, especially in the context of a low information, highly dynamic situation, while the cost of returning to having 2 seater probably isn't that high.
every pilot now has an A.I. waifu the projects into the cockpit wearing skimpy clothing with five times the processing power of the fastest quantum computer.
See, the problem with this plan is you now have the pilot projecting this waifu onto his drones and now he'll be unwilling to sacrifice them when needed. I also imagine that boners are not conducive to avoiding blackouts at high Gs.
>also imagine that boners are not conducive to avoiding blackouts at high Gs.
Give pilots whatever drug cocktail is necessary for the production of blood plasma and platelets.
Blood can be stored in the erect johnson for use at high g pressures, similarly to how pee is stored in the balls.
Filgrastim and gatorade.
t. oncologist
>battle harems become a reality
FUCK YES FUND IT
imagine riding your NGAD at mach 5 and having your harem bicker with each other in the cockpit while slaughtering hordes of chink j-7 automatons
by which I mean each DRONE should have an avatar and they should project themselves to speak and ask for input
>every pilot now has an A.I. waifu the projects into the cockpit wearing skimpy clothing with five times the processing power of the fastest quantum computer.
Then what happens when it's time to punch out and you have to watch your waifu death spiral into the ground?
Waifu is stored on an RFID chip on a lanyard similar to dog tags. When you enter the aircraft, so does your waifu.
> every pilot in that moment
IIRC it was supposed to have a sleeping bunk, it's gonna be more than 1 crew member but they'll be working shifts
meanwhile Russia is deploying vehicles built in the 1950s in its rapidly deteriorating land war against a bordering nation
Holy shit Maverick really was advertising for their new aircraft
Dangerously based
RIP, she certainly tried her best
When you got movies like Tom Cruise in them, you can't lose.
Yes.
UwU why don’t you turn around for us B21
You seen this fucker's close-up pics? The skin looks like it was made from Spackle and carpet tape.
Would you like to apply the $3,000,000 lotion for her?
I've got a friend that works on the ram. It's an enormous pain in the ass.
They really don't like to show her butt.
that's where all the super duper secret stealth geometry is
>the bizarre idea that you could use an airship to transport Abrams tanks to the top of mountains in Afghanistan to shell the Taliban
based retard congressman and his flying mobile oppression palaces
>Skunkworks made a black project Mach 10+ plane
>turdies will never be able to match it
>use it as a movie prop just to rub it in
Absolutely based if true
I didn't realize Lockheed were the chads of aviation
>took >6 months to make the greatest first gen jet
>it was also the prettiest plane of all time
The writing was on the wall
Always have been
Up until now I was more of a Northrop guy
>p-38
>p-80
>f-104
>f-117
>f-35
>(now) f-16
>u-2
>sr-71
moron is this your first day here
he is probably a
>le brrrt
moron
>p-38
>f-104
Not that worthy of praise tbh
>missing the F-22
The P-3 and C-5 are fairly notable too
The P-38 did a lot of the heavy lifting for the USAAF in the earlier half of the war, and the F-104 was at least a bit more useful than most of the other Century fighters (though not necessarily good)
what's up with the grammar
This whole thread is literally just best of today on r/NonCredibleDefense.
How do you even know about these random reddit boards?
fuck off, redditor
So how did Tom Cruise survive ejection at mach 10?
High Thetan levels
Ligma
Probably had an ejection capsule/pod
Faith in Xenu
Real answer, the cockpit was probably an ejectable capsule like the F-111
Lockheed Martin has higher revenue than entire agricultural sector of Russia.
Yes but can you make ethanol and heroin out of F-35's? No you can't.
Checkmate fascists.
Holy shit, lol.
>Here's the 7th gen aircraft we are working.
Foreigners absolutely btfod.
Did we just skip 6th gen all together?
Left it open for everyone to claim the title of having the first 6th gen
Maverick just flew over my house in a dorito
It will get cancelled by Congress.
Nice
can't wait to see the Afghan traitors trying to flee the Taliban falling out of that plane as they leave Kabul airport again
I didn't save that sr 72 pic. Someone post it.
topkek
I actually got to visit skunkworks for work in 2019, the meeting center had scale models of all their declassified projects and a F117 on a pedestal outside, super cool. Their project team members were impressive individuals
I worked for a congressman in the mid-2000s who was on the take from Lockheed, and they gave him a model of that airship. He kept it on his desk and spent hours playing with it until he finally became obsessed with the bizarre idea that you could use an airship to transport Abrams tanks to the top of mountains in Afghanistan to shell the Taliban.
they were considered for heavy lift and the idea they would eventually move an armored company in one go was popular back then. that's pretty huge logistics wise and he wasn't the only one.
That was actually a fairly serious proposal, at one time. There was a big study in the late '90s regarding how the US would handle the next conflict, which was expected to be a "pop-up" threat from an Iraq or Serbia-style opponent. Basically Desert Storm 2 but with a smarter opponent who learned from Saddam's mistakes.
Since nobody knew who would kick off the next war, and Peace Dividends made it too expensive to keep troops stationed all around the world, there was a lot of thinking around rapid deployment from CONUS. The goal became to get a medium-weight brigade from CONUS to anywhere on the planet within 96 hours... and the rest of the entire DIVISION 24 hours later.
That's what gave us concepts like airships, and the Boeing Pelican, and FCS. The only option that ever made it into service was the cheapest one: slightly increasing the pre-positioned stocks (3 of which--Kuwait, Qatar, and Diego Garcia--would later be used by 3ID against Saddam).
So, it's not just a pork thing, or a corrupt congresscritter; it was an actual contender. Ultimately, the cost and developmental risk were too high. It didn't help that LockMart's prototype had serious issues in high winds, caught on camera by a documentary team.
I wonder if the fucking ms flight simulator model is actually based on sr72
>air force got embarassed hard in front of the whole world
>quickly, announce something to save face
Top kek