Popular Mechanics: We Know a Bit More About Boeing's SR-71 Replacement Concept
Possibly called "Valkyrie II," the hypersonic aircraft concept could serve as a strike or reconaissance plane.
At the beginning of the year, Boeing revealed a concept design at an aerospace forum for a strike and reconaissance aircraft that could fly five times the speed of sound—a spiritual successor to the famed Mach 3 SR-71 Blackbird reconaissance plane. A model and artist's rendering show a twin-tail, highly swept delta-wing jet in a so-called "waverider" configuration, meaning the hypersonic aircraft would use the shock waves it produces during flight to increase lift and reduce drag.
The Boeing concept is thought to be internally called "Valkyrie II," according to Guy Norris at Aviation Week, though Boeing has not yet green-lighted development of the aircraft. If the aerospace company does move forward with a hypersonic strike and reconaissance plane, it would likely build a scaled, single-engine, proof-of-concept demonstrator aircraft about the size of an F-16 before moving on to a full-scale, twin-engine aircraft the size of the 107-foot-long SR-71.
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WNU Editor: Boeing has a lot of catching up to do .... Boeing's Hypersonic Valkyrie Will Likely Struggle To Catch Up With Lockheed's SR-72 (The Warzone/The Drive).
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