That is one of the freaking baddest ass birds ever to grace the skies. Leak fuel? Hell yeah it leaks fuel. Like a lot of fuel. Had "backstage passes" during the Edwards AFB airshow weekend the 50th anniversary of Yeager breaking the sound barrier. Hanging out at the end of the runway while they prepped it and the damn thing leaked like a sieve. Then during takeoff, it flows off the tail faster than a gas pump at full bore. Unbelievable sight that thing is...

And yes, the real estate required to make a 180 degree turn at standard rate is a lot due to the speed. Flew the sim and it took some getting used to.

Tis a day of different priorities.

and on a completely unrelated topic http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/837205-pot-now-legal-oregon.html

uh...huh huh. . .uh....

You can't do with satellites what you can do with a manned or unmanned aircraft. The sats are trackable and predictable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXQf4R5ErZo
0:33
SR-71 flyover at an airport

Some amazing stuff in that video!:cool:

prrrrrrreeeeettycool!

With other people's money! :mad:

Leave it to Sammy to turn a cool thread about cool tech into a downer. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/1ytCEuuW2_A" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Just about every time I see new images and angles of that craft, I see a new detail which had not caught my eye before.

Cool video.

The host of the video is in a VHS tape I have on the SR-71, been a while sense I viewed that tape.

what an awesome airplane, and some fantastic stories here.

I saw/heard/felt an SR71 night time full afterburner takeoff at Misawa AB in Japan when we were detached there in the late '80's -- one of those things that's permanently burned into my memory :).

And yowsah, there is some scary a$$ $hit in that low pass video. I bet some of the pilots had to change flight suits after landing. . . .the Yak (or MiG?) doing the wave off at 0:30 looks like he came really close to stalling, and the loop at 1:45. . . .

I talked to a customer of ours that was a SR-71 pilot. He said the only time you really had a sensation of speed was going over the tops of a thunderstorm. Thunderstorms often were 60 to 70 thousand feet high and of course they just flew over them. Passing the clouds and mach 3 he said you felt like you were moving.

He said he had several missions where missiles were fired at him. He said it was a strange sight to see a streak coming his way from the ground. It was comforting to just pour on the power and outrun the missile.

Just came across this: https://youtu.be/F4KD5u-xkik

Here's the story of the Groundspeed Check in pilot Brian Shul's own voice:

(I chuckle every time I hear this :D...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILop3Kn3JO8

Nice video, thank you for posting it.

That's one of my favorite aviation related stories.

One of his stories he told of flying the northern route and they could see the ice contrails of the MiGs coming up to "greet them" and then saying he wasn't worried, he had 4" of throttle left.

Also of missing a waypoint by 30 seconds and in turning around flying 150 miles into not so friendly East Germany at the time.

yes pretty awesome plane.

I work for the FAA and work on radar. I was sitting in front of a display one day and I saw a target pop up (no ID code) that made a large sweeping turn. for a 60 mile radar and a sweep of about 5 seconds I was seeing the target jump several INCHES each sweep. mind you a plane going 500 MPH might jump 1/4 inch. so this thing was really moving.
I always figured it was an SR71.

One of my FAA friends was talking about a call he got in the tower in Hawaii. It has been many years since I heard it, but the gist of the story was several aircraft were asking for approval to fly at different altitudes and the airlines were guys were requesting to descend to land, or level out to head back to the mainland. Most were asking for 35 (35,000 feet) or other various altitudes. He said a request came out from what was likely a smiling pilot requesting 60 (60,000 feet) and my friend said sure, you can have 60, if you can get up there. The reply was roger, descending to 60. He said the radar picked him up coming from Japan to California way faster than anything he had ever seen.

At about 13:00 he talked about using air in the tires initially and needing to switch to nitrogen because the air could diffuse into the rubber and the tires would be flat at landing.

This is the opposite of my experience. Nitrogen causes explosive decompression, especially with Viton (FKM) at temperature and pressure. I'm not away of air doing this.

Very interesting video anyway. Thanks for sharing.