The need for speed

So yesterday, I posted a link to this at my own den of online iniquity:

We had crossed into Libya and were approaching our final turn over the bleak desert landscape when Walter informed me that he was receiving missile launch signals. I quickly increased our speed, calculating the time it would take for the weapons-most likely SA-2 and SA-4 surface-to-air missiles capable of Mach 5 - to reach our altitude. I estimated that we could beat the rocket-powered missiles to the turn and stayed our course, betting our lives on the plane’s performance.

After several agonizingly long seconds, we made the turn and blasted toward the Mediterranean. ‘You might want to pull it back,’ Walter suggested. It was then that I noticed I still had the throttles full forward. The plane was flying a mile every 1.6 seconds, well above our Mach 3.2 limit. It was the fastest we would ever fly. I pulled the throttles to idle just south of Sicily, but we still overran the refueling tanker awaiting us over Gibraltar.

That's the venerated SR71 Blackbird he's talking about, of course, and it ought to send a thrill up the spine of any dedicated go-fast gearhead who still registers a pulse in this age of underpowered eco-friendly eggmobiles. But just like Ron Popeil used to say: wait, there's more!

More reports suggest that the FY2009 budget will indeed include money for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) hypersonic demonstrator, named Blackswift. Ares and our colleagues over at Danger Room have been covering this since mid-2007 and the outlines have now emerged clearly.

It's a $750 million program to produce a small unmanned demonstrator - F-16-size or smaller - that will be able to fly off a runway, get to Mach 6 or higher, decelerate and land under power, using relatively conventional fuel.

Uhhh...Mach 6? On conventional fuel?

Yes, he has pictures. And there's video of a sort, and more info, here.

I'll be in my bunk.

Comments

[COOP]

The SR-71. It looks like it was designed by giving a eight-year old a piece of paper, crayons, and a case of Pixie Stix, and telling him to draw the coolest jet EVER. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!

[COOP]

"The SR-71 was the brainchild of Kelly Johnson, the famed Lockheed designer who created the P-38, the F-104 Starfighter, and the U-2."

That's a goddamn impressive resume.

[iowahawk]

It totally blows my mind that human beings designed and built that thing long before the advent of CAD, CAM, and CNC. Deus Ex Machina, indeed.

[Tolbert]

Kelly Johnson's successor, Ben Rich, wrote a book titled "Skunk Works" which detailed some of the goings on in the development of the SR-71 and the F-117. Ben was the thermodynamicist without whose contributions the SR-71 would not have been able to achieve the astonishing power output of the P&W J58 engine.

Ben, like his predecessor, Kelly Johnson, would die of cancer shortly after leaving his position as Director of Lockheed's Skunk Works.

Conspiracy therories anyone?

[Mike]

"Conspiracy therories anyone?"

Nah, I'd guess he just got bored after all that excitement. ;)

[Captain Ned]

Nah, just the usual disdain for the effects of hazardous materials common to that age.

As amazing as the SR-71 is as a plane even more amazing is the engineering and construction technology behind it, especially in how the Skunk Works conquered titanium as a construction material. I can't wait until they finally unveil Aurora or whatever they call the rumored Mach 5 recon plane.

[COOP]

"Skunk Works" is a great book, full of interesting stuff. Consider that the first stealth airplane, the f-117, was also designed and built without the benefits of computer assisted design. Yay for slide rules!