I heard of some kind of new engine developed that was installed and being tested on a SR-71?

Question

Can't remember where I heard this it may have been the internet..But it is a new super fast jet engine...I do not think it is a scram-jet...Has anyone else heard of this? If you have do you have anymore details cause I can't find a think

I meant to say is I can't find a thing about it on the net anywhere.

I found a couple of articles on it..It was called the x-33 test plane with the Aerospike engine..
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/SR-71-LASRE/HTML/EC97-44205-5.html

Dang...this is like 10 years old I though it was something new...sorry to bother you guys...

So I guess my question could be do you think NASA still has a SR-71 flying for test purposes?

Answer 1

For those who believe the SR-71 is retired, its not, trust me. The US Air Force gave up the SR-71 for funding reasons. They could not afford to keep maintaining it. So NASA adopted the SR-71. It still does missions for the military. Matter of fact, we refueled one over the ocean a few years back. The Air Force asks for help from the NSA, who in turn asks NASA to fly over these areas of interest and its a big cluster. But that aircraft even though its almost 50 years old, is still a marvel of engineering. To use it as a test bed seems to be a good use for it. I have some pics from midair refuelings of it from a not to distant past if you get my drift. I will try and post them here.

Answer 2

1 The Sr-71 was Retired from ACTIVE use by the USAF.

2 Many of them as well as the A-12 which were actually slightly faster are now on Museum Display

3 NASA Accepted 2 of them for the purposes of testing and research into Hyper Sonic Flight. They modified 1 to carry a TEST engine. The Engine was mounted on a Plyon such was used for the D-21 Recon Drone Test Program. This engine gave them the Data they need for the X-34 Project. It was NOT intended to be a Replacement for the Pratt and Whitney Engines.

Answer 3

The SR71s are retired, that's for sure, three of them are parked outdoors at Beale AFB and down in Palmdale, or thereabouts. So it is pretty unlikely that anything is being tested on one.

But there have been recent reports of sonic booms over California again, high altitude, high speed something or others heading into darkest Nevada late at night.

There have also been reports of odd contrails, described as donuts on a rope. The speculation is that this might be a pulse detonation wave engine. But there's nothing certain.

One of my friends, a PhD in physics, appeared to be working in Tonopah, NV for many years but could never tell his wife what he did for a living. Decades later the F117 became public and he could show her what he did for all those years.

I don't necessarily believe anything at the sites below, they are probably about as reliable as the National Enquirer. But the article on the PDWE has some interesting pictures, if that's all it's good for. I wouldn't expect more than 10% of what you hear on the conspiracy sites has any basis in reality, but even that 10% is a lot.

It's always amusing to see those who have only lived on the outside of the secret world talk about what can and cannot be. It is naive to assume that the military stopped being able to keep a secret after the F117 became public, many years after it entered service.

Answer 4

Easy dude you didn't bother us. No engine is being tested but the current SR-71 engine is quite entreging and unique.


The SR-71 engine is a hybrid jet engine. At low speed's it's a regular turbofan, but at high speeds it becomes a ramjet.

This is how P&W did it. They built a turbojet engine in the middle of a ram jet. At low speeds the air was allowed to pass and the engine was utilized like a turbojet. At highspeeds air was ducted around the turbojet and the engine became a ram jet.

Answer 5

The have a new jet called the "Aurora" and I believe they test it out in Nevada. It supposed to blow away the sr-71. When it "supposedly" flew over it went so fast the shock waves caused tremor reading on the seismograph here in CA. At least that's what the news said...

Answer 6

I doubt it was installed on the SR-71 seeing as how these birds have all been retired and no longer fly the friendly skys. If you could give some information about the engine that may help in locating what you are refering too. If your talking about the all electric fan jet that Boeing has been working on thats on the Boeing and GE sites.

Answer 7

Why would they test a new state of the art engine on a 20 year old plane?

Answer 8

I get Smithsonian Air and Space magazine and there is an article in it that may interest you. I have not read it yet, but here is the on-line version.
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http://airspacemag.com/issues/2007/september/hypersonics.php
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Answer 9

NASA's X43-A uses a scramjet. What makes scramjets so totally cool, is that the faster they go, the faster they go !

Answer 10

Don't believe it, that is just disinformation.