Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Interesting SR-71 story

Now that they’re long retired it’s safe to let out that the published ceiling was much lower than actual ceiling. My friend is a retired air traffic controller out of Hilliard Florida. He could see them come up and do a lap to warm the aircraft up to seal the fuel tanks. Then they would drop back down to meet a tanker to fill up. He said he saw them at the edge of space. Well past 100k. An amazing plane and the pinnacle of actual human engineering. It was the last major engineering achievement done without computers. All done with slide rules.