[Historybuff]

I went to one at Riverside's March AFB just this year. Anybody can go, I had to pay a $10 entrance fee, but check for a website on SR71s and it will tell you when the next one is happening. At the one I went to, there were at least 4 to 5 former pilots, one of whom flew them so early he flew the two seater versions when they were still CIA planes. They also had an engine on display but not knowing engines, I couldn't tell how special it was from its first incarnation (for another plane) . One pilot told of aborting a take off, and plowing through a cornfield only to find his back seat man had ejected in panic. Another said he bailed out at 1600 mph but didn't get hurt, something about the rotation of the earth not making it as fast as it sounds.


The funniest comment was from one little old man (60's anyway) who said when he would go to parties after the plane was no longer secret and people would ask him "What'd you fly in the Air Force?" he would say "Blackbird" and they would say "Com'on, you're not tall enough and handsome enough to have flown that." Now he is a teacher at a Colorado branch of that famous Aeronautical school based in Florida.

There's a lot of parallels between Shelby American and the SR-71 program--a mere handful of men determined to succeed, against all odds, etc. etc. I like ithe SR a lot better than the Stealth fighter which to me relies way too much on computers to fly. The cockpit of the SR71 looks downright primitive! I always thought they missed their chance to rattle the Russkies--and would have liked to see one of those Blue Angelstyle flybys over Hanoi with six or so Blackbirds, each at a different altitutude and coming from a different direction, converging at Mach 2 over a set point over red square. It would have got their attention!