Secret New Spy Plane Reportedly Operating
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NEW YORK — For years, the United States may have been operating secret new spy planes that fly as fast as eight times the speed of sound, according to published reports.
The $1-billion jet would be superior to the record-holding SR-71 spy plane, according to an article for Jane’s Defense Weekly and cited in the Wall Street Journal.
But an Air Force spokesman denied Saturday night that the service is working on a replacement for the SR-71.
The speculation on the alleged new plane is based partly on a trained observer’s reported sighting of a wedge-shaped aircraft flying over the North Sea, the Journal quotes Jane’s as saying.
Bill Sweetman, the Stealth technology expert who wrote the Jane’s story, says Lockheed Corp. may have developed the faster reconnaissance plane to replace its SR-71 Blackbird after the United States took the Blackbird out of service in early 1990.
The Jane’s report also suggests that the high-tech spy plane may have been responsible for a series of earthquake-like rumbles detected in Southern California and other parts of the world.
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