FighterControl

I was thinking and reading a bit about this hypothesised aircraft earlier today and the associated reported crash and rumblings/vibrations near to Boscombe Down back in the 90's.. and also the reported 'doughnuts on a rope' pulse detonation sounds and high frequency vibrations reported over the US etc.

As a very quick poll, who here thinks that this aircraft did or does actually exist? Some quite well respected publications seem to talk in a tense of it actually existing as opposed to just being a myth.

There seems to be a good supply of open minded but sensible people on this forum, as opposed to conspiracy theorists and those who believe anything! And given the knowledge of a lot of people on here and people that no doubt will have been closer to the military than the likes of me and many others, it would be interesting to see what the general consensus was.

Thanks and hopefully an interesting discussion point that's not been done to death before on here!

Marcus.

A very interesting subject that surely must have some foundation in the black projects area, if there isnt a replacement for the SR71 then why retire it? I dont believe satelites have replaced the need for an ircraft platform.

C.

I'm with the "yes" side here, as said cant see them NOT having a 71 replacement. How many they have is another question and when you consider they spent 58 BILLION on "Black Projects" in 2015 (allegedly) it must be going somewhere .... http://www.dreamlandresort.com/black_pr ... rcraft.htm has some interesting reading.

When Ben Rich retired from Lockheed, he said they had 6 Black Projects currently on the books. The pulse detonation phenomena has been going on for years. I strongly suspect that a replacement exists.

I,m also one of the YES brigade, I fully believe there was a SR-71 replacement that probably failed to deliver hence the regeneration of two SR71s in 1997. But coming in a bit closer, the US developed the F-117A as the first "Stealth" Bomber, if as most people now know it was as stealthy as claimed why wouldn't a Recce version of the F117 be developed, in my mind it was a logical step. It may not have been Hypersonic but if it could not be detected at night surely it would have been an ideal platform to support intelligence gathering agencies. And who really believes the 117 is still not used in some form or other, there is lots of video now becoming available online showing on-going operations with them at Tonopah.
Now, as for a Hypersonic Recce SR91, almost certainly something exists in the "Black" world, there's simply so much been commented on, my money would be on an unmanned platform.

Bluetail wrote:but if it could not be detected at night

Maybe the Serbs would disagree with that
Freeman

Cornish-guy wrote:A very interesting subject that surely must have some foundation in the black projects area, if there isnt a replacement for the SR71 then why retire it? I dont believe satelites have replaced the need for an ircraft platform.

C.

A few thoughts:

The SR-71 was starting to suffer from the same environment legal challenges in its later years as the F-117, mostly it's use of caesium from what I remember, which helped accelerate its retirement when SAC and then ACC were looking for a reason to retire it - there was quite a bit on the Facebook groups from retired crew chiefs about this a few years ago. An ambush of Mig-31s in the late 1980s also meant it lost its primary methods of defence, speed and altitude, so even though the Mig-31 had always been a thorn in its side, the Russians were now regularly reminding America that they could shoot it down if they ever wanted to. At the same time, the emergence of the next generation of Soviet SAMs threatened its survival in contested airspace - the replacements for the SA-2 and SA5, the SAMs that kept the U-2 away - now also kept the SR-71 away.

The role of the SR-71 was also changing to the extent that by the late 90s, the combined capabilities of satellites and drones didn't just replace it but exceeded what it would've needed to have done. Remember, that the attempt to bring the SR-71 in 1997 was dependent on getting its realtime datalink working - a very new role for an aging airframe. Global Hawk showed that a long loiter capability was now more important than an overflight capability. The U-2's various emerging datalinks also showed how quickly this innovation was needed in the European and Middle Eastern battlefields. The SR-71 did its job well, but it was quite rightly put to out to pasture when its time was up.

I would like to think something like a SR-91 exist's.
Surely the funding that is there in the "black world" can't just be spent on nothing ..(plus reporteted roumers that Lockheed's Skunk Works divisions staff parking area's are apparently full )and the famous sighting from Chris Gibson on a North Sea Oil Rig in 1989 of a AURORA type aircaft (triangular shaped was what he reported it to be)with a KC-135 and two F-111's)..I'm of a mind to think that it has been very much delayed in development to get the technology required for this sort of hypersonic Reconassisnce to mature and work effectively,anyway,does anyone not rember the PR poster Lockheed realised of a artistic rendering of a said SR-91 Aurora (think they called it a SR-72 attually ) ,also rember reading that apparently the SR-91 Aurora is a series of aircaft prototypes ,including the TR-3B and the ASTRA (Advanced, Stealth,Tatical,Reconassisnce ,Aircraft)(Air Vehicle Six (AV-6) 90-2414 this is the one that did allegedly visit Boscombe on the night of Sept 26,94 , a lot of the prototypes within the program called AURORA are just tech demonstrators to help mature the technology .But just to sumerise,you can never discount a black program from the outside,they are very hard to track,we may never know if a SR-71 replacement existed ,we can only go by reports such as the one from Boscombe ,so we can but hope that maybe one day (pehaps soon) they can feel comfertable enough to realise it out of the "black world"(rember how many years it took them to announce the F-117 to the public ) I very much belive that a Aurora type aircaft does exist and is currently matuering at places like Area 51 and Area 52 ( the recently extended runway at Area 51 at least would suggest this as well as the new (built sometime before 2007 ??) large hangar near the taxi ways would help support my theory ) .We just have to keep listerning and watching and hoping they publicly announce this sort of technology .
P.s also rember one thing ,it depends on weather they want us to know it exists or not,for all I know it could well be operating with a Special Flight Activities Squadron in pure securacy out of Area 51/52 doing real time recce work on current hostil countries of intrest ...

The SR-71 wouldn't have been retired without something to replace it's capability, unless there's been a huge change in the methods used to gather the intelligence it did. Reading everything above it'd make sense to me for an extremely high flying UAV with a long loiter time and live data link capability to be out there somewhere. The story of a B767 sized aircraft in Skoshi's link seems a bit unlikely to me, likewise it says photos exist in the public domain of some stuff but they aren't reproduced, would give the article a bit more credibility if they'd been included. But we won't know for sure for a very long time will we?

Lockheed have acknowledged they are working on an "SR-72".
Perhaps the Boscombe incident was this machine or a development aircraft?

This on Lockheed's website. Interesting footnote at the bottom they claim to have flown an aircraft at mach 20.

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/news/f ... sr-72.html

Interesting to note that a year after its retirement military commanders preparing for Desert Storm asked for a proposal and costs to bring back some SR-71's as they were lacking near real time intelligence.

I too believe that a replacement was fielded but failed to deliver.

It wouldn't surprise me if the capability gap was filled by something like the X-37B since that can stay in space for months at a time, can change its orbit and could probably carry some sensors/cameras.

Too many Janet flight and buses leave Vegas at least twice a day for there to be nothing going on, unless it's all a ruse to draw people's thoughts away from Dugway!

Skywatcher wrote:and the famous sighting from Chris Gibson on a North Sea Oil Rig in 1989 of a AURORA type aircaft (triangular shaped was what he reported it to be)with a KC-135 and two F-111's

I served in the ROC with Chris Gibson, and competed with and against him in a number of recognition competitions including the Gloucester Trophy. A more reliable and expert witness it would be difficult to imagine.

Good and interesting replies so far everyone, especially the brief character assessment of Chris Gibson. That could speak volumes...

Thanks, keep it going!

I too am of the opinion that black projects still exist. Its more probable than not that there was a replacement for the SR-71.

I've always wondered if the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident was caused by a black project aircraft . Woodbridge is a very secluded base & I guess its possible that a black aircraft could have gone in there either on its way to or from a mission over the Soviet Union? The craft in question was apparently a black triangle... Very similar in description that of the rumoured TR-3B aircraft .

TankBuster

Didn't the object land in the forest???

reheat wrote:Didn't the object land in the forest???

Indeed it did, or so the story goes... which could tie in nicely with the alleged VSTOL capabilities of the TR-3B .
Perhaps the TR-3B was a drone which the operator accidentally plopped down in the forest short of the runway?

TankBuster

SR-71 was killed financially. When the project came from the Black world into the White one, the USAF had to pay rather than the CIA. The USAF got little benefit from the programe and all the costs. The backers in the Pentagon who were ex SR-71 had retired, and the knives were out from others who coveted the capital outlay for other projects.

As for Rendlesham, I knew of it within 48 hours of the event. I personally know 3 civilian witnesses who were within 60 feet of the craft in the air. I have also met and spoken with Burroughs, Penistone, Pope, Warren. Many more civilians saw it, the domestic animals on the surrounding farms went apes*** (they were used to aircraft) and the duty Radar officers at Wattisham and Neatishead those nights confirm the USAF came and took the radar tapes away. A team from USAFE flew in from Germany with Noddy suits and took all manner of readings and samples. Whatever it was didn't come from the Skunk Works. The night of the second landing, another large craft hovered above the trees to the South of the base. On the third night, the big craft landed, and nobody will talk about it.
Halt released one tape from that night. He has FIVE more, which is why he can talk about it without getting interfered with.

Like Quid 21 I think the answer is the XB-37B which can be used in peacetime with no political problems.
The problem with the Keyhole satellite program is that they are very expensive and have predictable orbits unless you use the limited on board fuel to manoeuvre them. They cannot be recovered and since the Shuttle programme ended most likely can't be serviced, though they might have developed refuelling. The XB-37B can be easily launched,manoeuvred, and retrieved for refuelling, payload change and updating. If stealthed it would be very difficult to detect. The system is most likely cheaper as you don't throw it away but constantly improve it. The USAF would also have recon versions of their regular stealth aircraft but because the Russians would have, by now, sufficient capability to shoot some down their politically unusable in peace time. Drones (stealthed) might be useable when piloted aircraft are not in peacetime.
For the above reason who needs "Aurora"?