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Will We See Top Gun Maverick in the Skies with the Son of SR-71 in 2025?

In the movie Top Gun 2, our hero pilot Maverick was flying a hypersonic jet called Darkstar. But did this jet actually exist, or were there jets like it? Since the release of the first trailer for the movie, aviation enthusiasts have noticed Maverick's sleek black, hypersonic jet and theorized about what it was.

We missed Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (Tom Cruise), the hero pilot of our youth. In the 1986 movie Top Gun, our hero had the rank of captain and mesmerized us with his F-14 Tomcat. In the second Top Gun movie, which we watched in 2022 as "Top Gun Maverick", our hero was at the rank of colonel, he could only be promoted from captain to colonel in 36 years, while his circuit (class) mate Tom "Iceman" Kazansky; was at the rank of vice admiral, time was very cruel to Maverick's career!...

The aerospace and defense company Lockheed Martin worked on the film, consulting on the real jet fighters in Top Gun 2. The director explained that the design of the planes in the film (including the Darkstar) was taken from experimental aircraft created by Lockheed's special and secret projects department, "Skunk Works." (For more information on Lockheed Martin-Skunk Works, see Ref.-1)

SR-72 Blackbird II; "Son" of SR-71 Blackbird

The SR-72 project, carried out by the Lockheed Martin "Skunk Works" unit, is the successor to the SR-71, also referred to as the "son" of the SR-71, and is designed to fly at Mach 6 (six times the speed of sound). Lockheed Martin reports that the jet will make its maiden flight in 2025 and could be in mass production by 2030.

Due to the SR-72's legendary status and immense power, aviation experts consider it highly likely that Top Gun 2's Darkstar was inspired by it (see Ref.-2 for more information on the SR-71, whose only weapon was its speed).

In the movie, the Darkstar is incredibly high-tech, has all kinds of features and even reaches just over Mach 10. Since most of the planes in both Top Gun movies were real airplanes or modified versions of real jets, rather than CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery), the Darkstar attracted the attention of many aviation enthusiasts because of its capabilities and appearance. Aviation experts claim that the Darkstar in Top Gun 2 is a close, if not exact, image of the SR-72 and that this aircraft was specifically shown in the movie, in fact, the SR-72 project is still being carried out in top secret, but the message "soon I will be in the sky with this capacity" was given with our hero pilot Maverick in Top Gun 2.

In 2017, Lockheed Martin announced that the SR-72 will begin development in the early 2020s, with a top speed exceeding Mach 6, a prototype is scheduled to fly by 2025, and the aircraft could enter service in the 2030s. Lockheed Martin, DARPA and the US Air Force are coordinating this project (see Ref.-3 for more information on DARPA).

Manned "hypersonic" flight could indeed represent a major breakthrough at a time when hypersonic weapons (missiles) are just entering the military aviation arena. It is very difficult to design an aircraft to sustain hypersonic speeds and stay "on course" for a target trajectory in extreme temperatures, but sustainable "manned" hypersonic flight could be in the not too distant future.

The SR-72 project put the possibility of hypersonic flight and aircraft on the agenda and opened up for discussion the possibility of hypersonic flight and aircraft that were considered unmanned and seemed more logical to be unmanned. At the same time, the NGAD (Next Generation Air Dominance) project, which was launched by DARPA in 2014 and is being carried out separately by the US Air Force and Navy, has also contributed to a lot of talk. However, the SR-72 project is not part of the NGAD program. Skunk Works is designing or testing a different system for the NGAD program. Since the NGAD project is also top secret, there are no findings based on real findings to talk about the project yet.

Given that the SR-71 Blackbird has benefited from decades of technological breakthroughs since its emergence in the 1960s, the SR-71 Blackbird's successor, the SR-72 Blackbird II, should be ready for manned or unmanned flight.

Since the SR-71 Blackbird, the son of the SR-71 Blackbird, which could reach Mach 3 supersonic speeds in the 1960s in an incredible way, needs to reach Mach 5 or more for the SR-72 to qualify as hypersonic speed, it is logical to lay the groundwork for its successor. In other words, reaching speeds of up to Mach 10 may seem incredible, but it is not a dream.

The SR-72's manned hypersonic flight capability would indeed be a major breakthrough, as it would require unprecedented technology to enable a human to travel at hypersonic speeds of up to Mach 6.

To the extent that DarkStar's images in the movie resemble or replicate a real airplane, they look quite sleek and stealthy, with a rounded fuselage and a hybrid wing-fuselage structure (see Ref.-4 on hybrid wing-fuselage airplanes). However, aside from being stealthy, it also looks like a manned jet that can fly at hypersonic speeds. More precisely, it gives the confidence that human beings can fly at these speeds.

In fact, our crazy colonel Maverick flew DarkStar without authorization, pushed the Mach 10 limit, slightly exceeded Mach 10, then "wrecked" the poor DarkStar, threw it over the Mojave Desert, jettisoned himself, parachuted to the ground, entered a bar near Area 51, grabbed the water pitcher from the waitress's hand and swallowed a pitcher of water in one gulp... If we consider that a pilot flying a sortie in Mach 3, SR-71, lost a total of three kg. on landing due to dehydration, imagine the situation of a pilot flying in Mach 10, DarkStar (maybe SR-72)!

A stealth aircraft at Mach 6 will probably be able to evade enemy air defenses simply by virtue of its speed, but stealth will of course always be an advantage. Flying at hypersonic speeds, an aircraft will probably move quickly from one radar clearance or "zone of influence" to another, and ground-based radar will have almost no chance of following a continuous "trail" to intercept and lock onto the target. This will give hypersonic aircraft tremendous combat capability.

When Will Colonel Pete "Maverick" Mitchell Become a General?

In 2030, Top Gun 3 will be filmed and we will see Maverick in the cockpit of the SR-72, but I wonder what the rank of this colonel will be at that time? Iceman, a classmate of the man, has reached the rank of Vice Admiral and has become the commander of the US Pacific Fleet, while our Maverick is still a Colonel!... What kind of a ruthless, "no loyalty" promotion system is this? US Navy, I ask you; "is there any other air force in the world that still keeps colonels like you, who have been promoted to lieutenant general/admiral, at the rank of colonel"?