The first thing that strikes you is the 's enormous!!.almost as big as the B-70 Valkyrie that I built earlier and dwarfs the YF-12/SR-71 that it so resembles. This then is Italeri's rendition of the Aurora programme.

Whether or not it really exists is wide open to debate, there is an awful lot of 'information' about the project on the net so it's interesting to speculate. The other option would be the use of a methane-burning combined cycle ramjet engine (uniting rocket and ramjet designs).

The most probable fuel for PDWEs would be cryogenic liquid methane, which could also act as a structural coolant. This generates a regular pulse which may be responsible for producing the unusual 'doughnuts-on-a-rope' contrails. The SR-75 was supposedly powered by 4 massive boron powered 55.000 lbs thrust class high by pass afterburning turbofans, (possibly developed GE-4's from the failed Boeing 2707 SST project) and the Thunderdart by a revolutionary new power source namely PDWE propulsion or Pulse Detonation Wave Engines which operate on a different principle then conventional ramjets, PDWEs dont't continuously burn kerosene, but detonate fuel as it starts to leave the combustion chamber. The C-5 was bound for Boeing Field in Seattle. It was about 65 to 75 feet long and 10 feet high. '' An indication as to the aircraft's manufacturer came on January 6, 1992, when there was a sighting of an SR-71 shaped forward fuselage section being loaded onto a C-5 transport plane at the Lockheed Skunk Works facility in Burbank, California. This extract came from US sources dated 1992. Several names have been given to the SR-75 component including Brilliant Buzzard and Snowbird, (as the prototypes were allegedly painted high gloss white), and Penetrator.

The project was given the code name Aurora and though there is no hard and fast proof of its existence many people both inside and out of the aviation industry claim to have knowledge or have seen evidence of such a program including many alleged sightings. The 'mothership' was basically touted as being a development of the SR-71 Blackbird only considerably larger and capable of carrying the XR-7 Thunderdart hypersonic sub orbital aircraft to be used in a variety of roles including high altitude recon and the destruction of low orbit satellites. I've been a bit quiet on the posting builds side of late as I've been busy concentrating on doing several big 'Black' projects ready in time for SMW 10, (the R and D SiGs theme this year will be stealth/Black Projects,that is if we can find a table big enough! ) starting with this beast.Italeri's Lockheed/Boeing SR-75 Penetrator/ XR-7 Thunderdart combo known more famously as Project Aurora.

Project aurora plane