this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2024
191 points (94.0% liked)
Technology
59135 readers
3771 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Everyone knows exactly where the satellites are and certain (potential) enemies have the capability to disrupt/destroy them.
A stealth jet is, well, stealthy, which has a lot of value.
Some artists impressions of the jet don't have any windows and it's believed to be unmanned or at least capable of unmanned flight.
Also I wouldn't discount the cool factor... the airforce does fighter jet flyovers all the time and occasionally stealth jets too. It helps with recruiting for one thing.
Plus at Mach 10, there's little time between target acquisition, firing solution, launch, even with Mach-teen missiles.
It's not like missiles have unlimited range.
Plus being unmanned it likely could manuever much faster, since it doesn't have to consider sacks of jelly, just airframe capability.
Of course, I'm just speculating. Though range and relative speeds are what the 71 relied on to not be shot down too.
I seriously doubt this thing can maneuver when traveling at its operational speed. Air resistance would be like hitting a brick wall, it would rip apart. Of course it can probably just fly past everything so fast that it doesn't matter, including air intercept missiles.
It must just eat fuel. I wonder what its expected operating range is. I bet it has to refuel inflight as soon as it gets off the ground and up to cruising altitude, before it can go do anything useful.