alt Hacker NewsI'd be more astonished if there isn't something superior to the SR71 (likely unmanned) that has been flying around at night from facilities like Groom Lake for years. Look at how long the RQ180 was flying around in semi-public and known about before it became seen in daylight by plane spotters in Greece. And a long time before that there were public relations approved photos of the Lockheed Martin Polecat.
There were a series of extremely public quotations from senior DoD officially recently about how they plan to aggressively retire the Global Hawk program (which is a mostly non stealth aircraft), reading between the lines it's because they have something much better.
edit: for those who haven't seen the RQ180: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=RQ180+gre...
edit 2 (apologies for the X link): https://x.com/MechDesignxyz/status/2041281689838584193
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The 'SR-72' timeline makes for interesting reading, LM was talking about it for a while when it was their private concept then suddenly scrubbed all mention of it from their website a few years ago, which some suggest that it became an official government funded black project. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_SR-72
Not sure why they would need an old SR-71 unless maybe they plan to test out something like new generation engines at very high speed, maybe with plausible cover to hide the newer more secret aircraft as flying at Mach 3+ tends to cover a lot of distance so it would be difficult to keep within secret test areas.
I suspect everything comparable of late has been orbital, which begs the question what is it they’re worried about with orbital? Satellite warfare is already accelerating if the rumors are true, is it that this is untouchable still? Is there some new camera sensor where eliminating that extra atmospheric diffraction or slowing down (lol) is needed?
This has got to be a trump thing. "Big beautiful ramjets!" And so on
Didn’t satellites with superior optics and realtime video streaming … kill the need for an SR71 update?
> I'd be more astonished if there isn't something superior to the SR71
Makes me wonder if this whole operation is just public cover for something like that.
Non-Google, non-Musk link: https://theaviationist.com/2026/04/06/incredible-footage-eme...
I know it's probably a forbidden topic around these parts, but the 'tic tac' thing that those FA18 pilots saw several years ago may be indicative of what Lockheed etc are flying up there. It's a hot topic in conspiracy circles but it wouldn't surprise me if a bulk load of ufo sightings were black projects being tested.
I wonder if people are 1. proud, 2. in awe, 3. regretful, 4. spiteful of the people (engineers, technicians, administrators, executives, and back office people) who make secretive kinetic hardware like this under USG contract / prospective contract.