(December 30, 2019 at 10:37 am)onlinebiker Wrote: The YB71 - the SR71 prototype went in service in 1958. It was still classified almost 30 years later.
....
It is almost unconcievable to NOT have an in-service spy plane that can do recon in places where satellite recon isn't effective.
I would bet everything that they did not pull the SR71 from service till they had a replacement.
Meh. They're getting so that they're launching satelites by the dozens of dozens in even a single launch.
As you've pointed out. The YB71 helped in/gave rise to the development of the SR-71. Which, as I pointed out, the retirement of the SR-71 puts anything like the Aurora at something of 30 years old as we conjecture.
By now something like the Aurora would already be nearing retirment.... Heck ,even just through air frame fatigue, in favour of something using modern materials and CAD assisted airodynamic design.
Still.. we can but dream and speculate, hey?
Not at work.
