NASA appears to be pulling its SR-71 Blackbird, the fastest production plane ever made, out of retirement as the Trump administration teases its new line of hypersonic surveillance jets — but doubt…
Seeing Blackbird fly again after all these years would be incredible. I’d love to know what NASA has planned for it.
As cool as they are this is the truth. Once spy satellites began transmitting digital images (the first few used film and dropped capsules back to earth to be developed) the SR71 began obsolete and too risky to fly.
Now we have satellites that are constantly observing the “hot spots” around the planet which is safer than having pilots fly across enemy airspace.
My guess is NASA is using these to test supersonic attributes since they have tons of data on the SR71 and NASA is currently developing supersonic planes that don’t create sonic booms.
As cool as they are this is the truth. Once spy satellites began transmitting digital images (the first few used film and dropped capsules back to earth to be developed) the SR71 began obsolete and too risky to fly.
Now we have satellites that are constantly observing the “hot spots” around the planet which is safer than having pilots fly across enemy airspace.
My guess is NASA is using these to test supersonic attributes since they have tons of data on the SR71 and NASA is currently developing supersonic planes that don’t create sonic booms.