The movie Top Gun: Maverick, starring Tom Cruise, introduced us to a hypersonic jet named Lockheed Martin Darkstar. The plane caught a lot of attention from enthusiasts and now will be on display at Edwards Air Force Base during the 2022 Aerospace Valley Open House Air Show and STEM Expo (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). The news was confirmed via an official post from Edwards AFB's social media handle with the post saying. "Yes, the rumours were TRUE!" The post added, "The Lockheed Martin Darkstar IS at Edwards and will have its world debut at the 2022 Aerospace Valley Open House, Air Show, & STEM Expo this weekend!"


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To jog your memory, Lockheed Martin Darkstar is the hypersonic jet featured in the opening scene of the movie Top Gun: Maverick. It's the plane that the character, played by Tom Cruise, takes on an authorized test flight to achieve Mach 10 speed and ends up going the limit against his superiors' orders. The scene became a crucial moment to set the movie's plot as, after this, Maverick is assigned as a teacher in the Top Gun institute.


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According to The Aviation Geek Club contributor and SR-71 Blackbird expert Linda Sheffield Miller's Facebook page Habubrats, the Darkstar will be on display alongside the legendary SR-71 Blackbird Mach 3 spy plane at the Aerospace Valley Open House, Air Show, and STEM Expo.



The plane also garnered a lot of attention because, as per the experts, the Lockheed Martin Darkstar bears a lot of resemblance to the renderings of the successor of the SR-71 Blackbird's successor, the hypersonic SR-72. It is to be noted that the SR-71 Blackbird is credited to be the world's fastest military aircraft. Moreover, the directors of the film Top Gun, Jerry Bruckheimer and Joseph Kosinski, claimed that they actually worked with the engineers of Lockheed Martin Skunk Works to create the design of Darkstar.


According to the Lockheed Martin website, in fact, ‘When the Top Gun: Maverick team was looking to push the envelope and stand true to Maverick’s Need for Speed, Skunk Works was their first call. With the Skunk Works expertise in developing the fastest known aircraft combined with a passion and energy for defining the future of aerospace, Darkstar’s capabilities could be more than mere fiction. They could be reality…’