SR-71--Now my Cobra feels Flaccid!

[olddog]

Originally Posted by thudmaster

I live just outside Beale AFB in Yuba City. I have been on and off with the SR since 1969. No I did not fly this aircraft. We never thought it was really that classified. Flew in and out of the base day in and day out. During the base air shows people were allowed to get up close and personal looks into the cockpit. It is probally one of the finest aircraft ever to grace our skys.

Sorry to hear about your model............

In 1969 the SR71 was such a closely guarded secret that it only flew at night. It came out of the hanger with the power on and rolling. When landing it rolled into the hanger without stopping. These plane were never outside a hanger in daylight hours.

I worked with a guy who fueled the SR71 (ground crew) when it was flying over Vietnam. He never uttered a word about this plane until after it was declasified.

[thudmaster]

I watched it fly out in the day time also.........I know I was on the flightline with it.........your friend was fueling it with jp-7.......I watched that also. I am not here to argue about the plane. I am also a member of the Blackbird Association. People who disigned, built, maintained, and flew it.

[David Kirkham]

So Thudmaster...

What is your take???

BS?
True Story?
Not yet sure?

The part about the model does seem quite fishy.

David

[thudmaster]

The model part does not bother me because it is probally true. It just wasn't called the SR then. He never said it was.
I will have to refrain from comment on the book until I check it out with some of the retired SR pilots I play golf with at Beale.
The offer I made you today David is an open invitation so clear your books and take me up on it.

[David Kirkham]

Thanks! I'll wait for the verdict.

David

[Sharroll Celby]

We were on a B-52 mission in 1982, and overheard a radio call about an SR71 that was having some sort of problems, and they requested permission from Ground Control to DESCEND to 60,000 feet!!!

[vector1]

i think there is some fact interspersed with a lot of bs. looks like a professional lit. writer came up with this one, i.e. liberties were taken with what he said/she said.

i talk with b2 pilots and other pilots of military hiperformance a/c and they are usually pretty tight lipped and very professional while in the air. i can't imagine a pilot in any military a/c coming on freq. to check ground speed like was claimed, they don't give a s*** and they're really not interested in mundane conversation. if asked they will answer to their ability but to profer a speed that might have been classified at that time?

anyway, i liked the read and appreciate it. it is a pleasure to serve our military while in the sky and i afford them every possible concession. thanks david.

[Scott S]

I was up close to one Saturday at http://www.sprucegoose.org/.

Pretty amazing seeing one under the wing of the "Spruce Goose".

[sidewaysinthird]

Its a great read bs or no bs. I saw one in person at the age of 10 here in TX. I had no idea what I was looking out at. I say in person, but a few hundred yards away inside a hanger. My dad was still is friends with a couple of pilots and we spent an afternoon having lunch, which was pretty boring for me at that age. I just recall the one man my dad didn't know whose answer to my 10 old's question of "how fast is your plane" telling me " its pretty fast". He gave me a little model of the plane which is here somewhere, and a three page pamplet with some pictures. Years later when I saw my dad's friends again they were still talking about that plane and its speed. Nobody could answer my question then either.

No matter if the story is bs or not you have to admit its pretty impressive that on the way to be mothballed this 30 year old design set several records. Someone here might can tell me if the top speed is still classified or not????

Oh what we can do when we don't care what it costs and don't have to ask more than a couple people for permission....! Sometimes its the best way ...

[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!

[lovehamr]

Originally Posted by olddog

I do not think the SR71 dodged many missiles.

Well the author called it a gentle turn and increased speed, not jinking with the fighters. Speed and altitude were its primary defensive weapons. You have to remember as well that during Operation El Dorado Canyon they were able to shoot down one of our F111s in the Gulf of Sidra and that puppy is no slouch in the speed department.

Originally Posted by olddog

At over 1 miles per second a SR71 was likely gone before anyone new it was there. At more than 15 miles up you need a fricking ICBM to reach it. By the time you can launch such a missile, the SR71 will be in another hemisphere.

Just because it was high and fast doesn't mean that it was invisible.

Originally Posted by olddog

Libia did not have a SAM that could climb to near outer space. No way did Libia fire on a SR71.

What do you call the SA2 Volchovs that also shot down a U2? Granted not as effective against the SR71 but you wouldn't want to hang around and put it to the test either. Then there was the SA5 Vega, a Mach 8 high altitude AA missile with more than enough capability to get to an SR71 if the crew wasn't alert.

Originally Posted by olddog

I don't think a SR71 would have needed a second pass to get the needed pictures.

The whole reason de'tere for an aircraft with those capabilities is so you don't have to try and get your intelligence from a satellite with its fixed flight path. If they needed shots that they didn't get and they thought they could on another pass with reasonable safety I'm sure that they would. I definitely wouldn't Monday morning QB those guys.

Originally Posted by olddog

I question that the SR71 had afterburners.

Two Pratt and Whitney J-58 axial-flow turbojets with afterburners, each producing 32,500 pounds of thrust. Shown below in action.

Originally Posted by olddog

I boubt military air craft ever ask civilian radar to give them a ground speed reading, and I damn sure do not think a SR71 would have. If they did, I think thier flying days would have been over. Well maybe they could have gotten a job flying rubber dog $hit out of some third world $hit hole in a prop plane.

I found a long time ago that, even though I consider our pilots the most professional in the world, one should never underestimate a pilot's ego.......especially a fighter pilot.

Originally Posted by olddog

I do not think a SR71 at altitude makes a sonic boom. Did you ever hear a space shuttle go over head?

Of course it makes a sonic boom! And yes so does the space shuttle when it's in the atmosphere and going faster that the speed of sound.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_boom

Mr. Wizard out

[SLHetal]

I guess I ought to chime in here just a little bit. From what I have read "The SR-71 remains to this day the only aircraft rated to run in full continuous afterburner." My wife's uncle is Harlon Hain, is one of the 93 trained SR-71 pilots and I believe there were a total of 32 SR-71's built for USAF operations, so it's a pretty small group of pilots and their birds. Uncle Harlon has plenty of stories and we probably talked to each other over the air waves on various occasions during the Viet Nam years, long before we knew each other or I had met my wife. I have seen a few SR-71's during operations in Korea, Japan, and Florida (testing at Eglin), whether on the ground coming out of their hangar (dripping fuel profusely) heading for departure, kicking ass with their afterburners while on takeoff for a mission, or returning to base and popping their chutes. I have also spoken to more than a few SR-71 pilots while an air traffic controller in the USAF and in the FAA at Houston Center. If an SR-71 pilot made a request we honored it with a factual response. Of course all of this was many years ago but my memory is still pretty good.
Sam

[Buzz]

I had a plastic model of this awesome jet when I was a kid only it wasn't referred to as an SR 71 Blackbird. It was equipped with air to air missiles and was called a "Lockheed YF-12A A11 Interceptor" if i recall correctly. I can't remember exactly how old I was at the time but it could have been late sixties/early seventies. I had the same problem with the long fuselage seam that the author described. The bio with the model described it as "...the fastest, highest flying jet aircraft in the world" and listed a max speed but I can't recall what it was. That model sparked a love affair with with the SR-71 that lasts to this day. I remember the feeling of disappointment when they were decommissioned.

[warhawk]

does anyone know what the landing and takeoff distance and speed for an sr-71 are?

[PatBuckley]

I attended the Beale "open house" in 1989 and was lucky enough to be slowly driving to the parking area (driving down a parallel taxiway) when the SR71 took off.....it rotated just as it got to my car and I could clearly see the flame rings coming from the engines as it went up....I was literally speechless as I have always adored this plane.

The plane then made a few low level passes - maybe a couple of hundred feet up -one was done "dirty" and one "clean" - aerodynamically speaking. I remember the difference in noise was amazing - when it flew by clean it was almost quiet.

When it landed they did not allow it to come anywhere near the spectators...the crew disembarked at the end of the runway area.

A few months later they had a decomissioning ceremony for the plane and I was again lucky enough to be able to attend - this time the plane was allowed to taxi up to the waiting crowd - who all applauded it.

[petek]

"A few months later they had a decomissioning ceremony for the plane and I was again lucky enough to be able to attend - this time the plane was allowed to taxi up to the waiting crowd - who all applauded it."

Me too!

A friend's cousin worked on the U2's and got us permission to go into a hanger housing one of the SR-71s. We got to walk all around and under the plane but couldn't get anywhere near the cockpit.

I remember they had one SR-71 do a high altitude, high speed pass over the airbase during the decomissioning. So that folks could see the flight path of the aircraft, the pilot had to change alitude time and again. The change in altitude over presurized the fuel bladders which then caused fuel to come out the back of the aircraft. The result was a dotted line in the air, something like a contrail but made with unburnt fuel.

Truly an amazing aircraft!

[PatBuckley]

You should have said hi!

[Powershift1038]

Not too long ago I took these shots of the one at Dulles. AMAZING, to say the least.

[thudmaster]

OK you guys win.......this is the ultimate picture of a SR

[olddog]

Originally Posted by lovehamr

Of course it makes a sonic boom! And yes so does the space shuttle when it's in the atmosphere and going faster that the speed of sound.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_boom

Mr. Wizard out

From the link you provided:
"At very high speeds and altitudes the cone does not intersect the ground and no boom is heard. "

Yes I am sure there is a sonic boom made, but I do not believe there was a sonic boom heard on the ground.