Message posted by Vahe Demirjian (Member since 04/28/2022) on March 04, 2023 at 19:07:48 PST:
Although it has been obvious for a long time that all rumors of the US Air Force having deployed a hypersonic successor to the SR-71 in the early 1990s proved false, I should mention that according to a news item in the March 1998 issue of the Popular Mechanics magazine, photos of an SR-71 in flight releasing streams of spherical puffs from its jet engines confirmed that the "donuts-on-a-rope" contrails which were thought by many to have been produced by the alleged Aurora spyplane were in no way generated by a pulse detonation wave engine. It's arguable if the SR-71's return to service in 1995 forced some people who believed in Aurora's existence in the first place to change their mind about these contrails being produced by a pulse detonation wave engine.
Attached link: https://books.google.com/books?id=UGYEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA26&dq=photos+sr-71+contrails+aurora&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjW1r6rlcP9AhXkPUQIHSIhDzgQ6AF6BAgDEAI#v=onepage&q=photos%20sr-71%20contrails%20aurora&f=false
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