t should be possible to build an unmanned follow on to the SR-71. The drone would be carried aloft by a carrier aircraft and released from a boom, see F-35 posts. It could be built with ramjet engines.
Ramjet engines are as efficient in thrust for airflow as turbine engines at about Mach 3.
At a little under Mach 4 they are as efficient as turbines by fuel flow. The airflow is the air swept into the engine inlet by forward movement. It allows fro the minimum inlet size and the minimum drag for a given thrust. Fuel flow is the rate a t which fuel is burned.
The drone could be used in the event of satellites being destroyed. It would be flown to a speed of over 600 mph and released . Its engines would initially be horribly inefficient but there relative efficiency would rise with increasing speed.
At the end of its surveillance run it would be captured by another manned aircraft and flown to the ground for reuse. Its advantage is high speed, high altitude flight in a package of minimum radr return. It could probably be built without vertical stabilizers, tails, as the high speed flight should allow for good rates of control.
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