SR-71 Blackbird

[Michael Weber]

Always thought the SR-71 was the coolest most badazz plane ever built. Ran across this YouTube video taken at the National Air and Space Museum with pilot Buz Carpenter showing and talking about this plane, it history, phenomenal capabilities and his personal experience of how it was to fly it. A couple years old but just crammed with interesting info. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F4KD5u-xkik&t=1s

[Peter Kelly]

Great video! Interestingly, the SR-71's predecessor the U-2 is still flying.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iweRSQC70kQ

[Thomas McCurnin]

One is on display in Los Angeles

[Warren Lake]

in the past I watched you tubes on the SR and it was stunning plane considering when it was made. Russian scientist made some comment like he could not believe some capitalist country could make such a plane. Dont have time to look now at that you tube, from memory that that is not the SR71 blackbird I saw in the you tube looks more like a U2 or some other plane, pretty sure its not a Cessna.

My antique memory on the SR was about unique aspects of landing and take off and more maybe it was even designed and built in the 50' 60's Staggering really.

[Curt Harms]

It was a very expensive machine to operate though. I've heard from a couple sources, one credible one not so much that either the SR-71 is a lot faster than advertised or there is a successor. Perhaps the SR's job has been taken over by drones? Satellites as a replacement don't really make sense to me, their orbits/coverage seem too predictable. But then I'm no expert in such things.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

This is the best account from an SR-71 pilot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AyHH9G9et0


The science museum at Richmond, VA has one, and it is amazing to see up close. The cones on the jet engines are sharpened to a point like a pencil.

459196 459197

[Frederick Skelly]

This is the best account from an SR-71 pilot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AyHH9G9et0

Yeah, Brian Shul - that's the vid I was thinking of too. I love that story! He's the guy who wrote Sled Driver, which is supposed to be great.

[Warren Lake]

Curt,

Under rate the speed for insurance like some muscle cars in the 60's :)

Hi id like to insure my black bird. Okay have you had any speeding tickets?

[Jerome Stanek]

Curt,

Under rate the speed for insurance like some muscle cars in the 60's :)

Hi id like to insure my black bird. Okay have you had any speeding tickets?

Nope the cops can't catch me

[Erik Loza]

Blackbirds are awesome. I grew up in Sacramento and some of them were either stationed at or traveled through McLellan AFB (now decommissioned). Saw them fly over on multiple occasions for airshows and such.

Erik

[Keith Outten]

I think the SR-71 still has the fastest time traveling from the west to the east coast. It set the record on its last flight.

[Erik Loza]

Just remembering some documentary I saw about the SR-71. The skin is made of titaniumm, which was a first. At the time, the US was unable to mine enough Ti, ourselves, so we apparently sourced it from RUSSIA through some elaborate shell game of offshore companies. Right in the middle of the Cold War! Can you imagine that?

Erik

[Frederick Skelly]

Just remembering some documentary I saw about the SR-71. The skin is made of titaniumm, which was a first. At the time, the US was unable to mine enough Ti, ourselves, so we apparently sourced it from RUSSIA through some elaborate shell game of offshore companies. Right in the middle of the Cold War! Can you imagine that?

Erik

Makes me wonder what THEY sourced from US... :)

[Peter Kelly]

Critical design elements of the atomic bomb for starters..

[ChrisA Edwards]

This thread lead me to this, I watched it all


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFJMs15sVSY

[Andrew Joiner]

Amazing. The pilot Buz Carpenter says in the video" the plane was designed with a slide rule. The engine and the plane expand and contract up to 6" with heat and cooling" Wow

[Paul Brinkmeyer]

I actually got to do some engraving for one of the pilots.
He brought in a scrap book and had me do some work off of some of his patches he had worn.
WOW was that a good day. He spent a bit of time just telling me about some of his flights.
The ones he could talk about anyway.

[Frederick Skelly]

That was great Chris. Thanks!

[Malcolm McLeod]

Always thought the SR-71 was the coolest most badazz plane ever built. ...

Reportedly, the following was an exchange between Los Angeles ATC and unidentified aircraft.

Aircraft: "LA Center, this is Aspen 3. Requesting angels 80." (80,000ft above sea level).
LA Ctr: "Aspen 3, LA Center. Right! And just how do you propose to get up there?"
Aircraft: "LA Center, Aspen 3. Requesting permission to descend."

.... insert long moments of radio silence ....

LA Ctr: "Aspen 3, LA Center. Clear to descend."

(Wouldn't you love to see expression on the controller's face.)

*********************
The SR was prone to engine issues. One was over Hanoi when they lost both engines at their normal altitude, and 'glided' down to about 8000ft before they got a re-light on an engine. Went immediately to full-mil and into the burner range. They went through Mach 1, before starting to climb. Would love to have seen the replacement glass bill for that.

Read a story about SR mission from England to Middle East (N.Africa?). France wouldn't approve overflight, so they hit tankers all the way down thru Gibraltar. Engine outage forced them to cut across France at lower altitudes. French sent Mirages to intercept and they demanded the SR's flight clearance number on radio. Pilot finally got the engine running and the back seater flashed a single finger salute out his window as they disappeared into the stratosphere.

_____________
Adder- Went back and watched Mr. Edward's linked video. I believe Brian Shul's book is the source for my citation of engine issues. And pleased to realize my recollection of "Aspen" as the SR's call sign was correct (I made up the "3").

[Warren Lake]

excellent you tube. Tired from too many long days but once started had to watch that whole thing. Great in a number of ways plus jogged my memory of past stuff size change leaking fuel etc. His story amazing, plane amazing.

[Greg Cuetara]

I read a book about it a while back and there were a lot of interesting things that happened. I guess it was supposed to be the RS-71 but the president called it the SR-71 so they couldn’t tell the president he was wrong so it became the SR-71. Another interesting happening is that it was so secret no one knew the design but they found out the Russians had the profile and finally figured out that they had a mock-up they would put outside to test the radar signature but would wheel it in when the satellites went overhead and the satellites were seeing the latent heat signature from where mock-up was placed. There are some great books out there about the program

[Jeff Bartley]

I just looked up books on the SR-71 and saw a couple used copies of Sled Driver…..both were over $600!

I love reading about these things, it’s just awesome that they were built with slide rules!

[Frederick Skelly]

I just looked up books on the SR-71 and saw a couple used copies of Sled Driver…..both were over $600!

Yeah, I've looked periodically for years and they are always priced in the multiple-hundreds when I've checked.

[Mike Soaper]

I've heard that because of the heat expansion issues a "cold" SR-71 would leak a bit of fuel when on the ground, but the leaks would stop once the aircraft heated up

There's a SR-71 on display at the Air and Space museum near DC, I think I spent about an hour just looking at it

check out photo #23 where they're moving it on a road, gotta wonder what it would be like if you saw that in your rear view mirror

Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird | National Air and Space Museum (si.edu) (https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/lockheed-sr-71-blackbird/nasm_A19920072000)

[Wes Grass]

There's an A-12 on display in Huntsville. Allegedly a bit faster than a 71. Smaller than I thought it would be. Never got to see a 71 fly, skipped Reno the last year they sent one out. Never made it to one on display yet either. But the XB-70, my fave, is on my list. I think it's intake ducts are longer than a 71.

Saw an X-15 on a pole at the State Fair in Sacramento when I was a kid. Had the external tanks on it. Never have figured out if it was real or a mockup.

[Mike Soaper]

Seems there was a X-15 with external tanks.

Without external tanks the x-15's would reach about mach 4 in 90sec.

With external tanks and a longer burn time it reached mach 6.75 ,about 4500 mph, enough to start melting some of the plane

[Wes Grass]

Yeah, I think only the 1 they extended the fuselage on for more fuel capacity. And had to coat it with an ablative material to survive. IIRC, the damage was from shock waves coming off a dummy Scramjet they had in front of the bottom fin. And still haven't really made that work even what, 50 years later? I've got boxes of books ...

Late 20's I looked into AF flight school. No college degree, age limit to get in ... and eyesight not good enough. Disappointing, but in reality I've always been too big a coward anyway ;-)

Had a project manager that had 2 rides on the shuttle, and 1 on a Soyuz. Fun to talk to, wild stuff. He had one of the (split) hold down nuts from the boosters on his desk. Probably the most beautiful piece of machining I've ever seen.