SR-71 Blackbird - I never knew

[Spin City]

When I was a kid I went to Tamarisk Elementary School, about 2.5 miles from the old Lockheed LT-11 plant in Palmdale, CA (the current home of Skunk Works). This was in the mid 70s and Blackbirds were cruising around the skies overhead on a regular basis.

We saw them circling over the Lockheed runways rather frequently, but they never failed to command our full attention at recess.

They are a mesmerizing bird even 30 years later.

[2.7RACER]

+1 on Kirk's review of "Skunk Works".
In a big non-descript building next to Hollywood-Burbank airport, a few men, great men, built exceedingly spectacular aircraft.
The building was razed a few years ago, but the story's of their work will live forever in the history of great aircraft.
And yes, even over forty years later the performance of the SR-71 will remain a subject about which those in the know will not discuss.

[Thunderbolt]

Was at the airshow at Edwards about 7 years ago. They had Blackbird flybys after high alt. supersonic pass. I have been to many show but there is nothing that I can remember as cool as a low alt burner pass in the SR-71....the gound shook.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Been to both the McMinnville and Tillamook museums - cool stuff at both. The SR-71 wasn't open to the public yet when I was at McMinnville though (few years ago). Actually I used to fly into Thrill-a-Mook every day back in my Ameriflight days. If you go up there, you'll see one PA-31 parked on the ramp during the day - that was my route for about 6 months. Fun times.

Yes, there's an SR-71 in front of the San Diego air museum also, and I believe either one or two (can't remember) at the entrance to Palmdale. And one in the Smithsonian. Sure there are a few others around also.

Extremely cool aircraft.

[daepp]

Last time I was at the Edwards show was on the 50th anniversary of Yeager breaking Mach 1. There were a few memorable flights that day; Yeager doing it again in a f-16 (I think), a flyby of the B1 at speed about 100 feet off the deck, and a flyby of the B2, the B1, a B52 and B-17. What a sight.

IIRC, the B-2 neither took off or landed for the show. It just arrived and departed without landing. They did have one backed in to the corner of a hanger, but at that time the rear was still highly classified. You could walk up to the front, but two MP's with M-16's were stationed aft.

[rouxroux]

MFAFF, after touring Duxford and Shuttleworth last summer, I was very impressed with the great historical planes we got to see. Habu 61-6976 is on diplay at the 8th AF museum at Barksdale AFB here in Shreveport/Bossier.

[Steve Carlton]

SR-72 in the works for 2020?

[911nut]

When I worked at Pratt & Whitney in the mid '80's our facility in West Palm Beach rebuilt SR-71 engines for the Air Force. There was always 2 being rebuilt at any time and all were rebuilt after 100 hours of flight ops so they were busy boys then.
I had heard that the SR could achieve an altitude of 250k feet (essentially the edge of the atmosphere) and had a top speed of well over mach 3, more like mach 5 but that very well be misinformation.
The jet fuel used has such a high ignition temperature that it will put out a match. This was necessary because of the fuel tank leak issue the plane has.
The plane is painted with "ironball paint" that has iron flakes in it to absorb radar energy. Also, the tails that are angled toward each other deflect radar energy away from the reciever.

[MFAFF]

Paul,

Interesting stuff...

The speed and height information may however be a bit optimistic..

For know flight to that regime (speed and height) something more like this is needed...


And if we look closely at the nose there are a couple of tell-tales...
1) Blunt nose cone. The frictional heat generated is such that a pointed nose like the SR, with a pitot tube, would melt quite quickly at those speeds (as the found out with the X-15)...

2) The aircraft would need a totally separate flight control system for flight to those sort of heights... If you look closely at the nose you can see the paired ports just behind the nose cone. As on the Shuttle and the space capsules this flight control uses direct thrust to alter the fligth path.. the air that these heights is too thin to act properly on the conventional flight control surfaces. (Note the Harrier uses a thrust control system when in hovering flight... so its not limited to high speed and high alts...but its bleed air system.


If you look at the NF104s that were used to train pilots in high spped high alt flights they were also adapted to have a thrust control system....

[brittbolen]

I saw a 1:12 scale scratch built SR-71 RC plane last week. It had 2 micro jet engines, a 200 mph cruise speed, and took 3 years to build, i'll post pictures soon

B

[t6dpilot]

Yeah, I was at Edwards for the 50th anniversary of Yeager's sound barrier flight. We were actually out there to "teach" the test pilot school students how to fly and evaluate something with propellors and rudders. We came in early for the airshow and essentially were treated like "one of the gang" - back stage passes as it were - BOQ and O Club. We were air force pilots for the weekend.

During the airshow, we stood right next to the SR-71 and watched them fire it up with the twin 454 ci V8's (man are those loud!) and it leaked fuel everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE. I got this whole thing on video! We stood at the departure end of the runway when she took off spewing fuel out the tail and then did a burner low pass. UNBELIEVABLE!! When the -71 starts her take off roll, an F-16 does a low pass 100' over our heads. Oh yeah, gets the blood pumping.

We also got to hang out with one of the Blackbird pilots and flew the simulator. You would not believe how long it takes to change course at Mach 3. Minutes. Unbelievable bird even if it was designed now - and it was designed 50 years ago. Those published numbers have been public knowledge for sometime now and I am positive that they are not all that accurate.

+1 on Skunkworks. Great book.