Message posted by Vahe Demirjian (Member since 04/28/2022) on November 11, 2023 at 14:16:53 PST:
The US Air Force has yet to release official images of the Northrop Grumman P-ISR/"RQ-180" reconnaissance flying wing UAV being stationed at Groom Lake or during testing, even though this aircraft began flight tests in 2010 and entered IOC in 2017 judging from internal documents cited in an October 2019 Aviation Week and Space Technology article and amateur photographers have captured the "RQ-180" in flight (the F-117 was kept under wraps for seven years after its first flight). If the Lockheed Martin recon platform mentioned in the podcast turns out to be a hypersonic vehicle based on the "SR-72" concept (which in turn was derived from the canceled Lockheed Martin HCV and HTV-3X Blackswift projects), whatever test vehicles have been reportedly delivered to the USAF are most probably experimental vehicles because hydrocarbon-fueled scramjet engines optimized for sustained flight in the Mach 4 to 7 range are yet to progress beyond the experimental stage. As a matter of fact, Lockheed Martin stated in late 2018 that the "SR-72" could fly by 2025, and because Aerojet Rocketdyne teamed up with LM to work on design of the aircraft's turbine-based combined cycle (TBCC) propulsion system.
In Reply to: Re: Def & Aero Report: LM Skunk Works is working on a new Recon platform. posted by n01_b4_flash on November 03, 2023 at 13:40:28 PST:
Replies: