Does Blackbird successor Lockheed SR-72 Aurora actually exist?
 

Aurora Project Behind UFO Sightings In Scotland?

Source: The Press and Journal, Aberdeen, Sunday April 14 2002, via IndyMedia, UK,

LATEST U.S. STEALTH TECHNOLOGY MOVES TO WESTERN SCOTLAND
by The Press and Journal, Aberdeen 9:45pm Sun Apr 14 '02

Soaring at 5,000 miles per hour through the night sky these unidentified flying objects could be a 21st century addition to NATO's airforce. Radar stations at Prestwick, West Freugh and RAF Buchan may have tracked their movements as they fly between secret airbases and the Norwegian Fjords, but the Ministry of Defence and the US Air Force deny they even exist.

Nic Outterside investigates

ALMOST invisible to radar, the F-117 Stealth fighter is one of the most sophisticated warplanes ever built.

But for seven years the US Government denied that the top- secret aircraft - nicknamed Nighthawk - existed.

Then, in 1991, 40 Stealth fighters were suddenly deployed for action in the Gulf War.

Ranging the night skies over Baghdad on 1,270 missions the Nighthawks struck the most heavily defended Iraqi targets to stunning effect.

Now from the cloak of X-Files denial comes a Stealth successor: more powerful, blacker, faster and even more secret.

Under the codename Project Aurora - which may be a wrap for several secret aircraft - the planes are classified within the US defence department's black programme - one whose existence is not admitted by the authorities.

Experts claim experimental and prototype Aurora aircraft are using Scotland, the skies above the North Sea and the wilderness areas of far-Northern Europe as their testing ground.

Bill Sweetman, former technical editor for Jane's Information Group and an author of three books on Stealth technology claims the areas are ideal proving ranges.

"It certainly keeps them out of the eyes and ears of the US observers," he said.

He claims that after 17 years the US defence department is reaching the latter stages of trialing space-age military aircraft capable of astonishing speeds.

"There continues to be a huge black hole in what we know the Pentagon has spent money on," he told the Press and Journal.

"In 1999 black projects accounted for =A312.1billion of USAF research expenditure - that is almost 40% of the =A332billion research and development budget."...................

While there may be manned 'black' aircraft flying from Groom Lake and such places, and while there have been a succession of prototypes and technology demonstrators that we've learned about only after they were grounded, I remain unconvinced that any of the recent black aircraft programmes have actually entered full service.

For a while, it seemed most likely that there could have been a tactical reconnaissance/targeting platform (perhaps along the lines of the supposed TR-3A) whose existence might have explained some of the inconsistencies in F-117A operations, but as time has passed, and as we learned more about the -117A I personally started to think that this was probably fanciful.

I'm even less convinced by Aurora reports and rumours. None of the countries that might have been its targets have reported or complained about overflights, and there doesn't seem to have been any replacement for the int gathered by the Blackbird, that hasn't come from known sources (space-based, U-2, Global Hawk, etc.).

Every other secret programme has been spotted before it came out of the Black World - people had fleeting glimpses of the F-117A even before its existence was revealed, and there were plenty of compelling rumours that something was flying night sorties from Tonopah. The same happened with the MiGs and Sukhois flown by the USAF and indeed the F-117As that were kept active after the type was retired.

There's hardly anything with the same degree of 'believability' on the Aurora. There may have been a technology demonstrator or prototype, but reluctantly (because I'd love to believe that there was a secret hypersonic recce aircraft doing its stuff out there), I don't personally believe it.

Then of course there is the "Stealth" Blackhawk.... :)

They still can't match Blue Thunder for stealth...


...catch you later!

Bit thick this morning. Can someone take me through the math (sic) on this?

..........No

I could tell you but then I'd need to wipe your memory with my pen/light.

Although if you want a new recce asset look at X-37

Back in the day it was inadvertently referred to in the Pentagon's annual publication "Soviet Military Power" - according to Flight International the document was hastily gathered back in at a press event when one of the journos noticed it...

So in answer to your question, it definitely did exist on paper.

Edited to add: I'm sure some people hereabouts will be familiar with the story about some unknown & allegedly secret US mil aircraft having a mishap at Boscombe in the nineties or early noughties, resulting in much activity on the site with screens erected etc etc.

Which was subsequently explained as someone seeing TIARA in a hangar and adding 2 and 2 to get a lot more than 4. There was a thread about it that I cannot now find...

According to Ben Rich "Aurora" was a Pentagon name allocated for funding the B-2 programme... Or something like that.

Stuff, here's one thread and a relevant post: https://www.pprune.org/military-avia...l#post10017348

SR-71 successor thread
 

Think up to a point when L-M said 72 not in development lest exist, everyone thought it did exist via press releases plus reported sightings of scaled unmanned demonstrator landing at Plant 42 in the dark with a pair of T-38 Talons.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...t-skunk-works/

cheers

Whats this at TTR recently?
 

Censored Craft Near Hangar Appears In Satellite Image Of Secretive Tonopah Test Range Airport - The Drive


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....8c0f64df7b.jpg

Chopper, if you do a little thinking, you might revise some of your assumptions.
Tell me, chopper, what has the USAF been doing for the past 20 years without the SR-71 in order to meet their mission requirements that the SR-71 met?
Nothing?
Perhaps they replaced that capability with something else already, and Popular Mechanics might not be as credible a source (in terms of conclusions) as some think.
What is very true, however, is that USAF (and IIRC DARPA) have been spending money over the years on figuring out hypersonic flight. The presumption that this is to build a replacement for SR-71, whose mission area has been fulfilled by something else for about 20 years, strikes me as an unfounded assumption. What mission and role a hypersonic aircraft, manned or unmanned, would fulfill would seem at this time to be something less than 'written in stone' for the simple reason that you have to get it to work as something larger than a scale model.
Given the advances in a variety of tech, I am not convinced that this hoped for hypersonic aircraft would be a manned air vehicle. Think of the weight you can save by not having to account for all of that stuff needed to keep the human up and running for the length of a mission.

I could tell you the full story, but then I'd have to repeat a horrible cliche from a bad movie with gratuitous male beach volleyball scenes.

ORAC - It was a streetlight. Attached to a weather balloon.

Two things stick in my mind on this topic:

1. When the MoD declassified its 'UFO Guide' some years ago, it included a number of aircraft types that might explain the actual identity of a reported UFO. In the US section, it included obvious candidates such as the F-117 and B-2. But one aircraft type had been redacted in its entirety.
2. I'll need to dig out his name, but I read the autobiography of an RAF fast jet pilot a few years back, in which he stated he had seen something flying into RAF Mildenhall very late one Sunday night. It was triangular in shape (but not the B-2). I don't recall the details, but I think he was at that time on a ground tour, and had some kind of liaison responsibility between the RAF and USAF. He phoned Mildenhall the next day to enquire what the aircraft type was. They responded that there had been no aircraft movements that Sunday. He fairly rapidly then gets a call from someone in MoD telling him that he didn't see anything and to stop asking questions.

Just because there's
So-called SR-72 Aurora
Photoshop fake images
Doesn't mean the plane doesn't exist
In my mind this next gen step being kept from public domain would make a lot of sense
And no, I don't believe in crop circles or chemtrails folks ;-)