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Darkstar, the secretive, ultrafast jet supposedly being developed for the U.S. military, may have gotten another shred of confirmation that it actually exists. Aircraft manufacturer Lockheed Martin recently tweeted about the famed SR-71 Blackbird “being the fastest acknowledged crewed air-breathing jet aircraft.” (Italic emphasis our own.) As first noted by The War Zone, the tweet could be a subtle reference to the SR-72, the long-rumored hypersonic successor to the Blackbird.
The Lockheed tweet was in celebration of Tom Cruise’s movie Top Gun: Maverick, the second highest-grossing film of 2022, which picked up six Academy Awards nominations, including for Best Picture, Film Editing and Visual Effects. At Sunday’s ceremony, the film’s sound crew won the Oscar for Best Sound.
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Maverick famously featured an SR-72 “Darkstar.” While no such jet is known to exist, there have been hints that a follow-up aircraft to the SR-71 might be flying—or at least in the planning stages.
