SUBJECT: AIR FORCE ABONDONED SR-71 FILE: UFO3104
From Aerospace Daily, Wednesday January 13, 1993
Aviation Week Group, McGraw-Hill Inc.
Aerospace Daily Special report
Air Force abondoned SR-71 follow-on in mid-1980s
The Air Force gave up on a 1980s attempt to develop a follow-on to the SR-71
Mach 3-plus reconnaissance aircraft because the technology was out of reach and
unaffordable, according to active and retired service, Pentagon and industry
sources familiar with the program.
The aircraft, originally envisioned as succeeding the SR-71 in the 1990
timeframe, was being developed at least in part by Lockheed's Advanced
Development Co. or "Skunk Works" unit in Burbank, Calif., but was
canceled about 1986, sources said.
"There was a program, but we couldn't make it work," an industry source
reported. An Air Force official added that "we would have been remiss in
our responsibilities if we didn't try."
Sources said they were willing to discuss the top-secret, special-access-
required program in a limited fashion because of an increasing number of media
reports that the AF is operating a hypersonic SR-71 follow-on. They believe,
as one source said, that the stories should be "debunked".
The aircraft, of which only drawings and small models were made, was to have
been capable of sustained speeds of about Mach 4-5 with an intercontinental
range. It would have been a large aircraft, about the size of the B-1B bomber,
with a long, tapered fuselage.
Sources said the AF and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency were
pursuing the technology against the wishes of the Central Intelligence Agency,
which wanted the funding diverted to develop and procure more sophisticated
spy satellites using technologies such as imaging radar.
But the AF countered that an aircraft could be more responsive than a
satellite if imagery was needed of a location faster than a satellite could
be positioned over it. This argument "still holds", a Pentagon source said.
Sources were reluctant to discuss the specific technologies that would have
been applied to the aircraft, except to say that they were similar to those
now being wrestled with on the National Aerospace Plane.
"Let me put it this way," an ex-Pentagon official said. "Many of the same
people working on NASP (also) tried to make this thing work. If they had
succeeded years ago, why would they be having so much trouble now?
A senior AF official ridiculed the suggestion - made in some press reports -
that NASP is a huge cover for the hypersonic plane.
Though unwilling to discuss technical details, sources did say that slush
hydrogen or methane was the intended fuel for the aircraft, but that the
materials technology didn't exist to keep slush supercooled for the length
of a mission in fuel tanks only a few inches from skin temperatures of
thousands of degrees.
Propulsion technology also had not advanced far enough tp provide the
desired increase in capability over the SR-71, sources said.
"The analogy of lighting a match in a wind tunnel is valid," observed one
source. "It's not an easy thing to do, and it hasn't been done yet."
The project "did not, in the final analysis, cost all that much money," an
industry source once connected with the program said. "But there was no way
to cost it out and see where we would end up. We did not have a blank check,
and there were competing programs deemed by the most senior Air Force
leadership to have (higher) priority.
One of these higher priorities was the B-2 bomber. Ironically, one of the
"hiding places" for funding for the then-secret B-2 was "Aurora," a program
name which accidently made its way into a 1985 Pentagon budget document.
The "Aurora" line item in the P-1, or procurement, budget book was slated to
increase to $2.7 billion in 1986 and was listed as an aircraft. This accidental
reference is what spawned a near-cottage industry in speculation about a secret
hypersonic plane.
The speculation increased when the Air Force decided to retire the SR-71
without an obvious successor in public view. Coupled with the AF's
clandestine development, production and operation of the F-117 stealth
attack plane, many industry observers refused to believe the service's
denial that it had an "Aurora" or other top-secret reconnaissance aircraft.
Air Force Secretary Donald B. Rice has of late aggressively denied persistent
reports of an "Aurora." Sources said Rice has been challenged by members of
Congress who also refuse to believe his denial of the program's existence,
insisting that they are being kept in the dark about a program for which they
are supplying funds.
An exasperated Rice told reporters last fall that the persistent rumors are
creating "certain beliefs and expectations in some quarters that are just
unfounded" (DAILY, Nov. 2). Rice said the reports have "gotten way out of
hand," and he added "categorically" that "the system described in those
articles does not exist. We have no aircraft that flies at six times the
speed of sound or anything up close to that." He said such a program would
be impossible to conceal because it would involve too many people and cost
too much money.
During the years of speculation about the then-secret F-117, Air Force
officials and spokesmen never categorically denied the program's existence,
but instead chose the ambiguous, "I have nothing for you on that," or a
flat "no comment."
Rice fired off a terse letter to The Washington Post in December complaining
about two "Aurora" stories that accused the AF of spreading "disinformation".
He insisted that the service has no such program "either known as 'Aurora'
or by any other name. And if such a program existed elsewhere, I'd know
about it - and I don't." He added that he has "never hedged a denial" about
it, and the AF "has never created ... cover stories to protect any program or
vehicle like 'Aurora.' I can't be more unambiguous than that." Rice echoed
the remarks in a rare interview with CNN the next day.
The AF has investigated various reports of phenomenon that suggested an
"Aurora"-type aircraft, because, as one service official said, "it wasn't
one of ours and we wanted to know if it was someone else's."
The service had MIT's Lincoln Laboratories do an independent analysis of data
recorded in Southern California by a U.S. Geological Survey seismologist. The
data allegedly showed that some aircraft was routinely causing triple-sonic
booms. But Lincoln Labs found that "the data matched documented flight tests
of Navy aircraft along the California coast," according to an AF document.
"Aurora" was reported to have made a covert night landing at Lockheed's
Helendale, Calif., facility on July 12, 1992, but the AF said this would be as
"amazing" feat, since the field is "short, narrow ... only 4,000 feet long and
400 feet wide ... and could not possibly accomodate a billion dollar, one-of-
a-kind hypersonic aircraft nearly the length of a Boeing 747."
A "long, slender, aerodynamic shape with rounded chines" seen being loaded
into a C-5 at the Skunk Works - and reported as "Aurora" - was actually an
F-117 radar cross section pole model, the AF asserted.
After checking out a reported near-miss between a commercial airliner and an
unusual supersonic aircraft last year, the AF couldn't find a military plane
that would have been in the area, and "based on our investigation, we can
unequivocally state that no military aircraft was involved in this incident."
The AF also said that some "sightings" of the mystery plane "will probably
remain unchallenged simply because there is not enough information available
to even hazard a guess." In this category the service places reports of a
wedge-shaped plane over the North Sea in October 1989 and "puffs" of smoke
resembling "doughnuts on a rope.""
While the hypersonic "Aurora" is not a reality, sources and independent
evidence suggest that the AF may indeed operate secret aircraft unfamiliar
to the general public. The Skunk Works, for example, routinely accounts for
more work in Lockheed's annual report than can be accounted for by overt,
or "white" programs. But these would not, as Rice said, "come close to"
the performance attributed to "Aurora".
The Pentagon revealed the existence of one of these aircraft in a synopsis
of a classified Inspector General audit released last year. The IG is
required to summarize audits that it isn't permitted to publish.
The audit, labeled simply "Report No. 92-110 - Top Secret," was ordered "to
determine if the Program was responsive to contingency requirements and to
evaluate the overall management of the peacetime program."
The synopsis described "the Program" as needing "improvements ... in
procedures for transitioning from peacetime (to wartime) operations and for
approving peacetime reconnaissance flights." In addition, it said that
"the Air Force budget for one aircraft type was overstated by $14.4
million for the six-year period ending in FY 1997."
Pressed repeatedly to explain this secret aircraft, since it would, at
first glance, suggest an "Aurora," a Pentagon official would only advise
the questioner to "think lower-tech."
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