US air force has new scramjet hypersonic plane plans

Who remembers the Blackswift – the planned hypersonic successor to the legendary SR-71 Blackbird spy plane of Cold War fame?

The Blackswift was intended to take off and land from a runway like a normal plane and achieve speeds of Mach 6 on scramjet propulsion (comfortably eclipsing its illustrious turbo/ramjet predecessor's Mach 3.5) – and carry out a barrel roll while doing so.

Unfortunately for lovers of spiffy hyperplanes, the Blackswift (aka Falcon HTV-3X, as seen above) never got off the drawing board.

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