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Magnificent aircraft. I had the opportunity to tour the Dryden research facility at Edwards AFB in the 90’s and they had one in a hangar that was still in service. One of the things that I remember to this day were the drain pans that were underneath it to contain the leaking fuel. We were told that the fuel tanks (titanium?) were designed so that they would seal only at altitude. As a youngish machinist/engineer with a decent grasp of manufacturing tolerances, this made sense at the time. Another thing they mentioned was that the aircraft took off from California with a minimal amount of fuel and refueled somewhere over Colorado (IIRC) 20-30 minutes later.
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