The SR-71 Blackbird is an aviation icon. The Mach 3-capable reconnaissance aircraft set speed and altitude records that still stand. During one 1974 flight, a Blackbird flew from New York to London in less than two hours and, in 1976, another travelled from London to Los Angeles in under four. Now, 15 years after the Blackbird's last flight at the end of its five-year reactivation in the 1990s, Lockheed Martin's famous Skunk Works division has revealed that it's working on a successor - the SR-72. This unmanned aircraft will travel at hypersonic speeds, cruising at Mach 6 - six times the speed of sound (around 3,600mph or 5,800km/h), twice as fast as the Blackbird. Artists' impressions reveal a striking platform of sharply swept-back delta wings blended into a hump-backed fuselage. The high-altitude reconnaissance role formerly provided by the Blackbird is now undertaken by unmanned systems and satellites. But the former have speed limitations and the latter are governed by the laws of orbital mechanics. The Blackbird was not similarly encumbered. Its speed and altitude capabilities meant it could fly whenever, wherever - giving the United States a very flexible intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platform.
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