
America’s Fastest Spy Plane May Be Back and Hypersonic - adventured
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-16/america-s-fastest-spy-plane-may-be-back-and-hypersonic
======
atonse
Reading this, I just realized that I bet we do more and more testing of
cutting edge aircraft in computer simulations nowadays, waiting until later in
the stage to actually build prototypes.

This might also explain why we've got fewer "UFO" sightings than we used to
even 20-30 years ago, in spite of all of us carrying cameras in our pockets
(apart from the fact that many of these were hoaxes to begin with).

~~~
godelmachine
I don't think even modern day smartphones are fast enough to capture objects
traveling at hypersonic speeds. Just a guess, I may be wrong here.

~~~
Retric
Distance makes speed irrelevant. The moon is traveling 1km every second but
that's hard to directly notice.

If you every watched a jet moving at ~600mph then I think we can agree
something going 10 times as fast would still be easy to notice.

~~~
maxerickson
Possible to capture if you noticed it anyway.

Jets cross out of view in a couple minutes and are big (and probably flying
lower). So a little thing in ~20 seconds.

~~~
Retric
If it's tiny, dark, and distant then it's hard to see even if stationary. Thus
the real issue would not be speed.

~~~
maxerickson
Yeah, I was agreeing with that part of you comment and quibbling over "easy to
notice".

Even with the tiny size the speed is still a big factor because the
opportunity to sight the object from a given location will be pretty short.

------
maze-le
It is noted in the article that this airplane has no real mission profile. I
mean hypersonic cruise speed is an impressive feat on its own, and may result
in new methods and applications in space travel. But the military usage of a
plane like this is questionable. Recon aircraft have long since been abandoned
in favor of satellites, and a fleet of bombers might not be maintainable
because of the huge costs involved.

~~~
dingaling
Satellites can be re-oriented into different orbital inclinations but that
requires fuel and in the absence of a Shuttle fleet they cannot be refuelled.
So despite movie depictions they don't go swerving hither and thither to
follow a camel up a mountain track.

Such limited manoeuvring also requires planning and 90 minutes between passes.
Lots of opportunity for bad guys to push their missile back into a hangar.

An atmospheric aircraft can follow an arbitrary course to take in as many
targets as required, can be rerouted on a moment's notice and can approach
from unexpected vectors to catch the target out in the open.

~~~
outworlder
> Satellites can be re-oriented into different orbital inclinations but that
> requires fuel

A LOT of fuel. So much so that even if lifetime wasn't an issue, it makes more
sense to launch additional satellites in the proper inclination, rather than
moving one.

I know that, in one instance, a company wanted to use the moon's gravity to
change a satellite's inclination, as it was cheaper to all the way to the moon
and back (and then circularize again). That maneuver seems to be patented,
though.

~~~
techdragon
Patent number/reference please? I’d love to use this as a test case in an
orbital dynamics library I’m building.

~~~
msl
I am fairly sure that "US 6116545 A" [1] is the patent in question.

[1]
[https://www.google.com/patents/US6116545](https://www.google.com/patents/US6116545)

------
irishjohnnie
Video from SciTech conference
[https://livestream.com/accounts/6056055/events/8001237/video...](https://livestream.com/accounts/6056055/events/8001237/videos/168229789)
starting at around 41 minutes

~~~
vpribish
the bombshell part is from 00:58:58 - 01:00:28 where his phrasing is as if the
hypersonic plane has actually been built within the last 5 years, with a 3-d
scramjet engine (and 3-d printed as well).

------
dsnuh
There was something about the SR-71 Blackbird that really captured the feeling
of the time. Whenever I drive the 215 past March AFB and see the one they have
on display, it reminds me of the age of movies like Firefox and War Games.

------
AmVess
This has been known for a while. Seismologists discovered it and tracked one
at 5000 MPH. The ability to be anywhere in the world in a very short time is a
compelling tool for the military.

~~~
thatcherc
Can you elaborate on that? I'd be very interested to see how seismologists
tracked a plane. Can you pick up high-altitude shockwaves from seismographs?

~~~
vpribish
1992: 4,000mph, Los Angeles
[http://articles.latimes.com/1992-04-17/local/me-607_1_spy-
pl...](http://articles.latimes.com/1992-04-17/local/me-607_1_spy-plane)

USGS on seismographs and sonic booms generally:
[https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/sonic-
booms.php](https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/sonic-booms.php)

------
ceejayoz
This seems a bit "reading the tea leaves" to me. The statements in the article
are easily read as "the technology that _would_ allow this is new".

~~~
jmngomes
'a Lockheed vice president a “digital transformation” arising from recent
computing capabilities and design tools had made hypersonic development
possible.'

The "digital transformation" part alone gives this up as vaporware...

------
Top19
I won an essay contest in college that NASA set up regarding the future of
supersonic and hypersonic aviation.

Even back then, supersonic, let alone hypersonic, aviation was such a pipe
dream for civilian aviation. Not saying it can’t be done, but I can’t imagine
the breakthroughs that need to be made would be made outside of any context
short of a World War.

Let me list the problems:

1\. Materials Science. Very hard to design materials that survive those kind
of stresses, and that you know will last 30+ years. Airplanes routinely have
60 year life cycles, so 30 years of material survival is the minimum. The
stresses on these things are huge. The Concorde would actually expand 10
inches from head-to-tail during flight because of the heat.

2\. Overpromising dating back 40 years. My favorite example is Ronald Reagan
promising an “Orient Express” that would be 90 minutes New York to Tokyo. That
was in his 1986 “State of the Union”.

3\. Acceleration. Flying Mach 6 is one thing. Having a plane that can
accelerate up to that speed fast enough that the flight doesn’t already end,
AND THEN slow down an equal amount, is another thing.

4\. Sound. This sounds like a nuisance thing, until you hear one of these
aircrafts in action. THEY ARE SO DAMN LOUD. It’s a health and safety issue
almost. I would compare it to being around artillery fire, maybe worse. It
stays with you for days.

The Japanese and Australians from time to time do some good work on this kind
of aviation. Boeing had a civilian supersonic project in the 70’s, but it’s
all been given up except for the occasional private jet or military
experiment.

~~~
gaius
_supersonic, let alone hypersonic, aviation was such a pipe dream for civilian
aviation. Not saying it can’t be done_

One word: Concorde.

------
madengr
I’d like to see the modified UH60 used in the bin Laden raid. The only hint of
it’s existence is the remains of the tail section.

~~~
mhandley
Interesting, I hadn't heard about that before, but here's a link to an article
about it: [https://www.defenceaviation.com/2011/05/stealth-
uh-60-black-...](https://www.defenceaviation.com/2011/05/stealth-uh-60-black-
hawk-revealed-by-death-of-osama-bin-laden-in-operation-neptune-spear.html)

~~~
lostconfused
Also [https://theaviationist.com/2016/05/02/five-years-ago-
today-t...](https://theaviationist.com/2016/05/02/five-years-ago-today-the-
raid-that-exposed-the-stealth-black-hawk-helicopter/)

------
vpribish
Having a degree in aerospace engineering and being a lifelong air and space
fan this discussion is mostly disappointing. hacker news comments are of
distinctly poorer quality outside the subjects of software and startups -
sensation, urban legend, and ignorant story-telling is rising to the top
instead of explanation, context, and insight. 8 of the top 10 comments are
inane (UFOs! Movies! tinfoil-hats! Sophomore-year economics!).

Makes one wonder how much the mainstream hacker news threads are suffering
from similar problems that I just can't perceive.

------
kazinator
I can't see how even America's seventh fastest spy plane could be anything
less than hypersonic, let alone the fastest one. :)

------
touristtam
is that the follow up to the Aurora project ?
[https://www.defenceaviation.com/2007/06/sr-91-aurora-
aircraf...](https://www.defenceaviation.com/2007/06/sr-91-aurora-
aircraft.html)

------
linkmotif
This is obviously cool on many levels but fundamentally this is very sad.
This, while places in the US don’t have clean running water. The best national
defense is creating a next generation that’s healthy, worldly and educated.
Instead, this.

~~~
rayiner
I’m not sure what your point is. We already spend more on education and
healthcare per capita than almost every other developed country. At what point
is it appropriate to spend the incremental dollar on defense instead?

~~~
linkmotif
I was with you until you called it the "incremental dollar". We spend 3x more
on defense than the nearest competitor[0]—0.6 trillion dollars per year. Given
that we only collect $3 trillion per year[1], after debt service we're not
really left with that much.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures)

[1] [https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-
bud...](https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-
budget-101/revenues/)

~~~
fehfehfoo
I'm under the impression that if the USA doesn't maintain a significant level
of military superiority, it will quickly find itself under duress from myriad
sources.

This is a path which once you start down, you're somewhat committed to in
perpetuity.

~~~
linkmotif
> I'm under the impression that if the USA doesn't maintain a significant
> level of military superiority, it will quickly find itself under duress from
> myriad sources.

Is England under duress? Is France under duress? Are the Dutch under duress?
Is Spain under duress?

Most importantly, at what point do we ask ourselves what it is that we are
even defending? 50% of the population making less than 5 richest people?

~~~
rayiner
> Is England under duress? Is France under duress? Are the Dutch under duress?
> Is Spain under duress?

Those countries were under duress for years during the Cold War, and were
protected by the U.S.'s massive military spending during that time. And given
that Russia recently annexed part of a sovereign country, those times may be
back.

~~~
linkmotif
Right, but Russia spends less than one tenth of what we spend on defense.
Certainly the Western World can scrape together enough to defend itself from
Russia. They took Crimea and Eastern Ukraine because they knew no one would do
anything. I think they know where the lines are drawn, and I don’t know why
those lines cost the United States $550-600bn per year to maintain.

~~~
rayiner
First, unofficial estimates of Russia’s defense budget are about $70 billion:
[https://www.rt.com/business/russia-increases-military-
spendi...](https://www.rt.com/business/russia-increases-military-
spendings-702). Second, Russia doesn’t pay soldiers US salaries. Russia’s
purchasing power parity (PPP) GDP is 2.6x higher than its exchange rate GDP.
Applying that same factor to Russia’s defense budget results in $182 billion.
Third, we quite reasonably don’t want to maintain mere parity with our
enemies. We want a decisive if not overwhelming advantage. That costs
exponentially more money. It’s like Intel’s spending on fab R&D. Intel spends
6x as much as TSMC and 4x as much as Samsung. That buys Intel a well under 50%
advantage in fabrication process over those companies. Or airliners. In
constant dollars, the 777 cost twice as much as the 747. The 787 cost another
factor of two more. For 4x the cost, improvement in fuel use per passenger
mile is under 40%. It would be amazing if the less than 3x (real) difference
in spending gave us even a twice as capable military.

~~~
linkmotif
So that is a compelling argument! Thank you.

------
trhway
in my view the first stage of SpaceX Falcon is the thing which is most close
to the hypersonic transport today. One can imagine that such reusable stage
would accelerate the high-altitude/suborbital plane thus solving the task of
having engines for different regimes. Cost-wise - the few millions such a
reusable stage launch would cost isn't that far from ~$35K/hour costs of SR71
on missions of 10+ hours.

------
bactrian
“However, Aboulafia noted, such a capability could also be considered a
destabilizing development if a U.S. adversary decided to react preemptively to
such an aircraft’s existence.”

In other words China and Russia may contemplate fighting WW3 now rather than
waiting to be leap frogged. Fun.

~~~
melling
China is already working on hypersonic weapons. They aren’t waiting for
anyone.

[http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a14512512/c...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a14512512/china-
reportedly-tests-new-df-17-hypersonic-weapon/)

~~~
bactrian
China is always “working on” whatever the US is. Issue comes down to timing.

~~~
adventured
Similar to Russia. The increasing gap there of course is that Russia can't
keep up with the US and China on investment, they're going to increasingly
fall behind except in a few isolated segments of defense tech. Russia is
becoming a second tier military power, if they're not already (that is, closer
to Germany, India, France etc. than the US and China).

The US and China are now spending $1+ trillion per year on their militaries.
The combined sum will likely eclipse the entire value of Russia's annual
economic output in the next 15-20 years.

~~~
outworlder
Is it just a budget game, though? How efficient is each country with their
budget?

US spending one trillion dollars, and China spending one trillion dollars, it
doesn't guarantee that they will be technologically matched.

It does not have to be symmetric. You only have to spend as much as you need
to nullify an adversary's capability. Ex, one does not need to manufacture an
aircraft carrier to counter one, you just need to take it out of action.

------
peterwwillis
_“We couldn’t have made the engine itself—it would have melted down into slag
if we had tried to produce it five years ago,” O’Banion said. “But now we can_
_digitally print that engine_ _with an incredibly sophisticated cooling system
integral into the material of the engine itself and have that engine survive
for multiple firings for routine operation.”_

They made a computer model that wouldn't immediately destroy itself. Let's
calm down a bit.

~~~
Robotbeat
I'm not saying they've actually built it. But "digitally print that engine"
sounds to me like they're talking about additively manufacturing the engine.

"Digitally print" is used as a synonym for "3D print" or "additively
manufacture."

