The SR-72 Darkstar - Lockheed Martin's not-so-secret "Skunk Works" may actually be working on the long-rumored successor to the Mach 3+ SR-71.

The aircraft would reportedly be more capable than the Northrop Grumman RQ-180 – an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surveillance aircraft intended for contested airspace.

This has led to speculation that it could be the infamous SR-72 – aka the "Son of the Blackbird."

Little is currently known about the SR-72, and the closest look at the aircraft may have been in last year's "Top Gun: Maverick," in which United States Navy Captain Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (played by Tom Cruise) could be seen piloting a hypersonic "Darkstar" aircraft.

As TheAviationist.com's David Cenciotti and Stefano D'Urso reported earlier this month, there have been rumors of an unmanned subscale aircraft flying into the U.S. Air Force's Plant 42 at Palmdale (aka the Skunk Works) since at least 2017. The aircraft is reported to be very low observable, was able to reach Mach 6+, and was difficult to intercept if detected.

The SR-72 "Darkstar" – Is It Real?

There have been unconfirmed reports about the SR-72 dating back to 2007, and various sources have disclosed that Lockheed Martin was developing an airplane able to fly six times the speed of sound or Mach 6 (4,000 mph; 6,400 km/h; 3,500 kn) for the United States Air Force.

The company has been on near-complete radio silence.

However, it is known that the aerospace and defense giant collaborated with Aerojet Rocketdyne in 2006 – a company that has been developing a scramjet-powered engine. Unconfirmed reports suggest that the SR-72 is envisioned with an air-breathing hypersonic propulsion system, which could offer the ability to accelerate from a standstill to Mach 6 using the same engine, making it about twice as fast as the SR-71.

The company also is believed to have conducted an engine test in 2017. Few other details had been officially released, and there were rumors the project may have been canceled.

China Paid Close Attention to Top Gun: Maverick

While little remains known about the SR-72 – including whether it is real – what we do know is that Lockheed Martin had helped create the mockup seen in "Top Gun: Maverick." It certainly impressed audiences around the world.

It also caught the attention of Beijing, which wanted a closer look even as the movie was being made.

Some Chinese aviation experts went to great lengths to get a glimpse of the film prop. Rumors circulated long before the film was released that the spy plane would get its close-up. Legendary filmmaker Jerry Bruckheimer even told Sandboxx News in 2022 that the Chinese pulled out all the stops to get a sneak peek at the full-size mock-up of the Darkstar that was custom-built for the film.

"The Navy told us that a Chinese satellite turned and headed on a different route to photograph that plane," Bruckheimer explained. "They thought it was real. That's how real it looks."

Bruckheimer added that Joseph Kosinski, the film's director, had worked with engineers out of Lockheed Martin's famed Skunk Works on the design of the aircraft seen in "Top Gun: Maverick," and suggested they had a lot of fun building the prop.

"The reason we approached Skunk Works is because I wanted to make the most realistic hypersonic aircraft we possibly could. In fact, as you saw, we built it full-scale in cooperation with them," Kosinski also told Sandboxx News. "But the reason it looks so real is because it was the engineers from Skunk Works who helped us design it. So those are the same people who are working on real aircraft who helped us design Darkstar for this film."

Of course, there is some irony that even as Beijing wanted a "sneak peek" as the film was being made, due to controversy over Maverick's Taiwan flag patch on his flight jacket, the film was banned in China. It did become a smash hit in Taiwan however.

SR-72: If It's Real, Maverick Won't be Piloting It

Some aviation experts have suggested that the SR-72 could be more than a spy plane and that it could be a hypersonic bomber. However, transforming the high-speed aircraft into a bomber would present more than a few challenges.

Taking spy photos or dropping bombs at Mach 6 would require some extraordinary engineering – perhaps even beyond what the best at Skunk Works can accomplish. 

More importantly, it would require hundreds of miles to make a turn, and it would need powerful guidance computers to line up targets, 80,000 feet below. Opening a bomb bay at 4,000 miles per hour isn't easy, so that would need to be addressed as well.

Finally, whether a spy plane, bomber, or just a test platform, the Darkstar, or whatever it is eventually called, likely won't need a Top Gun pilot like Maverick at the control. The latest rumors swirling suggest it would be an unmanned autonomous aircraft.

Author Experience and Expertise

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.

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