SR-91 Aurora Spy Plane: Mach 5 Fact or Fiction?
Story by Christian Orr • Yesterday 12:20 PM
Within my very first published article for 1945, a primer on the SR-71 Blackbird, I made a brief mention of the mysterious SR-91 Aurora spy plane as a possible successor to the Blackbird. Hypothetically, the Aurora could reach Mach 5+, making it indeed the fastest manned aircraft ever to fly.
However, it is a matter of speculation as whether or not the Aurora has ever even actually existed (the plane, that is; the American city of Aurora, Colorado certain does exist, and I imagine it’s upstanding and hard-working residents would not particularly care to be rendered “unpersons” a la George Orwell’s 1984). To make matters a tad bit more confusing to the casual researcher, there is an airplane with the Aurora moniker whose existence is a known commodity, that being the Lockheed CP-140 Aurora, a maritime patrol craft used by the Canadian Forces for activities such as antisubmarine warfare (ASW), but definitely not the science fiction-worthy capabilities of the (most likely apocryphal) spy plane.
SR-91 – A Real Life “X-File?”
The rumor intelligence (RUMINT) about the SR-91 Aurora kicked off in March 1990, when Aviation Week and Space Technology first broke the news that the term “Aurora” was inadvertently released in the 1985 US budget as an allocation of $455 Million for “black aircraft production” (as opposed to R&D) in FY 1987. The initial rumors quickly gained more ground (or more altitude, if you prefer) after observers in Nevada claimed to have seen and heard a distinctive aircraft flying over the Mojave Desert at high altitude and speed, usually in the early morning; these eyewitnesses described the contrail as “doughnuts on a rope” and claimed the engine note at take-off “sounds like the sky ripping.”
Furthermore, alleged sightings of the Aurora soon made their way “across the pond” to Britain, beginning in late August 1989 with Chris Gibson, a 12-year veteran of the Royal Observer Corps and an expert on aircraft recognition; Mr. Gibson saw a triangular plane—unlike anything he had ever seen—flanked by two US fighters being refueled in flight by a tanker while he was working on the Galveston Key oil rig in 1989.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/sr-91-aurora-spy-plane-mach-5-fact-or-fiction/ar-AA14Tohd?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=7512639377404824a68d9b2398146b8d
