'Son Of Blackbird': Boeing, Lockheed Martin Racing To Build Hypersonic Plane

Boeing unveiled a plane, nicknamed "Son of Blackbird," which would be able to travel five times faster than the speed of sound, according to claims made by the company.

The concept hypersonic plane by Boeing was nicknamed by some as "Son of Blackbird," while the plane being developed by Lockheed has been dubbed the same.

The SR-71 "Blackbird," a Cold War reconnaissance aircraft which was retired by the U.S. Air Force three decades ago was one of the fastest aircrafts in the world. Now, both Boeing and Lockheed Martin whose hypersonic planes would have similar designs, are battling to be the first company to launch the successor to the SR-71, as stated by the Epoch Times report.

The concept model was revealed last week at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SciTech forum in Orlando, Florida. The aircraft was designed in a manner which would enable it go at speeds faster than Mach 5. Mach 1 is the speed of sound, which is approximately 767 miles per hour. Hence, the plane needs to travel at 3836 miles per hour if it has to travel at Mach 5, the report said.

Kevin Bowcutt, chief scientist at Boeing told Aviation Week: "It’s a really hard problem to develop an aircraft that takes off and accelerates through Mach 1 all the way to Mach 5 and beyond."

"The specific impulse of an air breathing engine goes down with increasing velocity, so you have to make the engine bigger to get to Mach 5," added Bowcutt.

"But doing that means a bigger inlet and a bigger nozzle, and trying to get that through Mach 1 is harder," he added.

Boeing requires the plane to have the capability to take off, slow down, accelerate and land on its own; features which were installed in the SR-71, The Epoch Times report stated.

Boeing planned to make use of a standard turbojet which would enable the plane to operate at Mach 3. Then the plane would be using a different system which would help it to reach Mach 5.

Lockheed Martin, have been working on developing the SR-72 since 2000. The plane is reported to be a hypersonic strike and spy plane and is expected to fly at speeds faster than Mach 6.

According to a report by Bloomberg Technology, Lockheed Martin vice president, Jack O’Banion, said at the SciTech forum last week that due to a "digital transformation" that came from computing capabilities and design tools developed recently, hypersonic aircraft was now possible.

Lockheed officials stated that the hypersonic plane SR-72, also dubbed as the "Son of Blackbird," could be operational by 2030.

By pointing at a rendition of the hypersonic aircraft, O’Banion said: "Without the digital transformation, the aircraft you see there could not have been made."

"In fact, five years ago, it could not have been made," he added.

O’Banion said computer processing power along with new tools made making of a three-dimensional design of a scramjet engine possible (scramjet refers to engine combustion which happens during supersonic speeds and adds to complexities in engineering), according to the report.

With regards to digital advances made in 3D design, O’Banion stated that these advancements were similar to the build process which was used by Tony Stark in the movie "Iron Man."

With reference to the engine of the hypersonic aircraft, he said: "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."

"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," added O’Banion.

Lockheed Martin declined addressing the comments made by O’Banion. A spokeswoman for the company, Melissa Dalton, wrote in an email that the company "continues to advance and test technologies, which will benefit hypersonic flight."