Due To The Increase In Terrorism And Isis Can The SR71 Blackbird Spyplane Be Used Again? (Air Force, military)
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What would the SR-71 see that a UAV or other sensor platform wouldn't see? Given that the type was retired for the second time in 1998, it's been a long time. There are a couple of birds @ NASA, possibly flyable. You'd have to find personnel, ground crew, recreate fuel, support equipment. Then find a place to base from. & chop the birds themselves, of course - to NSA?
In slugging it out with terrorists, it's not strategic level recon - armor (tanks), arty, companies of aircraft, ships, large regular military formations & logistics. It's more small-unit or tracking individuals - which requires comms intercepts, translation, traffic analysis, eyes on the ground, HUMINT, & so on. Even with appropriate observation targets, I'm not sure we could put together an SR-71 system quickly & reliably enough.
could the SR71 be used against ISIS? yes. would it be effective? no. would it be expensive? yes.
the SR71 was great for its day when satellites were in their relative infancy and UAVs were essentially unheard of. the SR was great for overflying russia and china, and photographing large swaths of territory very quickly. but these days satellites have been much improved, with the ability to photograph in real time, and distribute those photos to where ever they need to be.
and then there are the UAVs such as the predator drone that can not only photo the target, but then attack it as well, the SR71 was never meant to be an offensive weapon.
The SR-71 was a strategic reconnaissance aircraft, designed to fly high and fast over contested airspace. No need for that over ISIS. Persistent, accurate and even counteroffensive systems such as the RQ and MQ-1, -4 and -9 are much better for the task. The SR-71 would provide lower resolution imagery from such a height and speed that it would be effectively rendered useless. It COULD be retrofitted with newer imaging systems but there's really no point, with more effective, cheaper and numerous systems already in-place.
Everyone is forgetting one thing. It has been about 20 years since the SR-71 was retired. That means the entire support system has been dismantled. Everything from the special KC-135 tankers (they were extensively modified to dispense JP-7 at almost the tankers maximum speed) to special ground support equipment. On top of that I doubt there are many qualified air or ground crew for the aircraft any more.
Also the SR-71 was used to observe targets that had very strong air defense systems that had to be overcome. That isn't a problem with ISIS. So far they seem to have nothing except very low altitude Ainti aircraft capability. So there are many more cost effective choices available
Everyone is forgetting one thing. It has been about 20 years since the SR-71 was retired. That means the entire support system has been dismantled. Everything from the special KC-135 tankers (they were extensively modified to dispense JP-7 at almost the tankers maximum speed) to special ground support equipment. On top of that I doubt there are many qualified air or ground crew for the aircraft any more.
Also the SR-71 was used to observe targets that had very strong air defense systems that had to be overcome. That isn't a problem with ISIS. So far they seem to have nothing except very low altitude Ainti aircraft capability. So there are many more cost effective choices available
actually i dont think anyone is forgetting any of what you posted, and those things could be brought back on line easily enough. the issue though is the aircraft itself is no longer needed as drones and satellites can handle the job.
On top of that I doubt there are many qualified air or ground crew for the aircraft any more.
Man, it's been an entire Air Force career since the Sled was retired from serious military service. Thousands of airmen have entered service and retired since then--the Air Force is into it's second generation since then.
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Originally Posted by rbohm
actually i dont think anyone is forgetting any of what you posted, and those things could be brought back on line easily enough. the issue though is the aircraft itself is no longer needed as drones and satellites can handle the job.
Nope. The tooling was destroyed back in the 70s--that by act of Congress. As has been mentioned, the fleet of KC-135Q aircraft specially modified to handle the JP-7 fuel have been retired. Everyone on both the military and civilian side who knew anything about the program is long retired.
Lockheed-Martin doesn't have assembly line floorspace just sitting idle--some other contracts would have to either be completed or delayed, and that would have to be paid for on top of the cost of a new Sled program.
The specialized support system for the SR-71 was stupendous. Executing an SR-71 mission was pretty close to as extensive as launching the space shuttle.
Here are a couple of anecdotes from when I worked in the Strategic Reconnaissance Center in the early 80s and we were receiving the TR-1 order.
Lockheed was suffering some extreme losses because of the collapse of their L-1011 civilian airliner contracts. We were briefed that because of the loss of those contracts, the cost of the TR-1 would rise a million dollars per delivered airframe. What? Why would the cost of the TR-1 go up because Lockheed's civilian contracts crashed?
The government contract with Lockheed permitted the per-unit end price to "float" with Lockheed's construction costs. Lockheed had put their tenured high-wage workers on the L-1011 lines, their low-end workers on the TR-1 line. When the L-1011 contracts failed, they moved the high-wage workers to the TR-1 line...which increased their cost of construction. "But," the briefer told us, "If their costs ever drop, then so does the cost of the airplane."
Yeah, that'll happen.
When we did take delivery of the aircraft, we got some more bad news. Even though the TR-1 aircraft were supposedly built to the precisely same external specifications as the previous mode of U-2--so that all the existing reconnaissance sensors and such would fit--surprise! Nothing fit! So blue-suiters on the ground had to make flightline modifications, do a lot of shimming, et cetera, just to make the things useable. And the U-2 is comparatively a very simple airplane. That makes me question whether Lockheed could ever build another SR-71.
(BTW, I used the term "TR-1" here because that's how the budget to build them was appropriated.)
Last edited by Ralph_Kirk; 01-25-2016 at 07:53 AM..
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