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Here's Everything We Know About Skunk Works' Secretive 'Speed Racer' Program

JOSEPH TREVITHICK View Joseph Trevithick's Articles

@FranticGoat

Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works advanced projects bureau has officially revealed the design of its secretive Speed Racer air vehicle. The missile-shaped unmanned system is ostensibly intended to serve as an experiment in digital engineering techniques, but has the potential to be the basis for future swarming drones and low-cost cruise missiles. 

Steve Trimble, Aviation Week's defense editor and friend of The War Zone, was first to report on the new information about Speed Racer. He was also able to confirm that a computer-generated segment in a video Lockheed Martin had released ahead of the Air Force Associations' 2021 Virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium, which wrapped up yesterday, did indeed depict this air vehicle. The company similarly acknowledged that a rendering it released last year was also of Speed Racer. 

The video, seen below, shows that Speed Racer is a relatively small design that is air-launched. After release, the vehicle deploys a pair of pop-out wings, as are seen on many cruise missiles. There is a fairing with grid-style fins at the rear of the system, which looks to be a plug that fits into the engine exhaust to keep the vehicle as aerodynamic as possible prior to launch and during separation from the launch platform, which is also seen falling away.

The speed racer segment of the video below begins at around 0:48 in the runtime.

Sjekk video her: https://tinyurl.com/yr9hkdyb

Trimble noted that the launch aircraft in the stills from the Speed Racer video appears to be a twin-engine Beechcraft 1900 turboprop, but it's not clear if this reflects an actual planned future test. It is worth noting that the U.S. Air Force's 586th Flight Test Squadron at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico does have a single C-12J, the U.S. military designation for the Beechcraft 1900, that has two hardpoints under its fuselage for the carriage of various stories and test articles.

The 586th Flight Test Squadron's C-12J with a Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod (ATP) on one of the two hardpoints under its fuselage.

Beyond what we can see in the video, information about Speed Racer remains limited. Aviation Week had also been the first to report earlier this month that unspecified tests of this system on the ground were expected to begin very soon and that it would be powered by an engine from Technical Directions Inc. (TDI). Since 2019, TDI has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of drone-maker Kratos.