Meet the SR-72: The Air Force’s Big Plan for a Mach 6 ‘Bomber’?
Story by Christian Orr • Yesterday 11:50 AM
The Lockheed Martin SR-72 has not yet even made it past the conceptual stage of development.
Yet, it already has at least two distinct claims to fame:
(1) being the successor to the iconic SR-71 Blackbird (still the world’s fastest aircraft 58 years after its invention and 23 years after its official retirement), hence the unofficial sobriquet of “Son of Blackbird” (a more polite and decidedly non-profane spin on the “SOB” acronym, one could say); and;
(2) making a cinematic appearance—albeit in typical Hollywood-embellished fictitious form as the so-called “Darkstar”—in the film Top Gun: Maverick, the long-awaited sequel to the 1986 box office blockbuster starring Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer.
Indeed, the filmic Darkstar, in a somewhat amusing example of life imitating art (or would that be the other way around, or perhaps even life imitating art imitating life and thus going full circle?), actually managed to rattle the cranial cages of the People’s Liberation Army brass; as noted in another recent article right here on the 19FortyFive website, “the Navy apparently told Top Gun’s producer, legendary filmmaker Jerry Bruckheimer, that China re-oriented spy satellites to get a glimpse of the full-size mock-up they built for filming.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/meet-the-sr-72-the-air-force-s-big-plan-for-a-mach-6-bomber/ar-AA164W4A?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=ceb760fc595145ef9a869f750c6e6f4e&ei=11
