http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviationspace...ecbccdrcrd.html

 

I was in San Diego that day and 100% believed that it was a sonic boom, regardless of what the news said.

 

I can't imagine what is being developed and is flying nowadays.

The CIA's A-12 (not the one in the article) was developed in the 50's. The A-12 was the fighter version of the SR-71.

The F-117 Stealth fighter was developed in the Have Blue program of the 70s and the F-117 supposedly entered service in 1983.

The B-2 was developed in the 80s.

Now 20 years later, who knows what they have. I think UAVs are the next big thing. Specifically, multiple UAVs that are networked together in a hive mindset.

 

Futureweapons on TLC had something about that. They are working on drones that are essentiallly flying kamikaze bombs. The theory is you would launch a couple hundred of these towards an enemy area, once the enemy is spotted, these things all fly in together and pick an individual target and divebomb like mad killer bees.


Sweet. But scary at the same time.

Note to self: Do not mess with US military.

 

crazy stuff

 

Two, we know about.
F-22 Raptor undergoing final testing.
F-35 under development.

No telling what sort of black projects are out there, though.

 

Unmanned has to be the frontier because human G-force tolerance is a serious limitation.

 

Well, this is true, except in the case of Aurora; where you'd try to get 8-10 people across the world in 2-3 hours. Even then, that unit will probably work more like a space shuttle (since it would be, virtually)