Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Aviation fans--SR-71

Interesting stuff, thanks for posting! The Blackbird was truly, ahead of its time.

Very good.

The Strategic Air Command and Aerospace Museum in Ashland Nebraska has one in their lobby. Cool as hell. Museum is worth a visit. I'd go back in a heartbeat.

There is one at the AFB in Roy, Utah also. Big jets, very cool. There was a clip on here a year or so ago where some fighter jet guys were messing with a Cessna and the pilot of a SR-71 let him know what was up.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AyHH9G9et0

I think the first one I saw was at Kadena AFB, Okinawa in the summer of 72

Excellent ! Many thanks, ROR. E

The SR-71 with the raised rear cockpit was a trainer version built from a crashed regular version. I went through fixed wing performance with a former SR-71 crew chief.

I was with the 376'th. Bomb Wing at Kadena from January 70 to November 72. We could guess where the blackbirds were going by how many Q-model tankers we launched to support the missions. If we only launched 3 tankers, he was headed on a long distance flight, with a landing in Turkey. If he was taking pictures over Viet Nam, it took 7 tankers to support his short hops, and back out over the ocean to refuel. The Q models had special fuel manifolds to keep the JP-4 for the tanker engines and the JP-7 for the Blackbird from getting mixed and forming a gel that would crash both planes.

I’ve heard said the SR71 is the pinnacle of human engineering. Last aircraft designed using slide rules. After the SR71 computers did at least some of the work. I know a retired air traffic controller who said the actual ceiling was a good bit higher than publicly admitted. I would bet the top speed is higher also. An amazing airplane and brave pilots.

The place is worth a day at the least !

Since we have to deal with the limits of physics vs aerodynamics, and the limitations of speed vs drag vs fuel consumption. I really suspect that the Blackbird is the culmination of possibility in aerodynamics.

We may well develop Ramjets that are faster, but what range will they have with their required fuel consumptio, and what would the cargo capacity be?

I live close to Beale afb

Every summer in the 80s and early 90s the blackbird would bust the sound barrier over
my town. It was impressive. BOOM!

The sr and u2:..... always floating up there

Pretty cool imo.

When I was stationed at Naha Okinawa (67-69) on C-130's we had planes out looking for a SR-71 that had crashed nearby. I am not sure of the details, but the guys on the C-130's were told to look for survivors in blue flight suits that looked like space suits! I may have some of it wrong due to CRS and possibly heresay!

When I was stationed at CCK Taiwan (69-70) I went out to my airplane in the fog and when the fog lifted, there was a tow crew moving a SR-71 out of a hanger where it had spent the night. I have pictures of it taxiing by the flightline . I can't find them right now.

Also, on the subject of Blackbirds, I watched a U2 take off from a base in Viet Nam. Very impressive and I didn't have my camera with me.

I found one of my pictures of the SR71

Another excellent program is “Blackbird: Legacy of Innovation.

Several years ago a Blackbird was at the airport for a show at the Flying Cloud airfield IIRC... Took my son there to see it.. I was surprised at how actually BIG it was!! Not long after that, it was moved to somewhere else - not sure where.. But it was really cool to see that aircraft..

My dad was manning a tower at England AFB as the meteorologist on duty in the early morning hours one night in about 1958 or 59. They got a call from an Air Force plane that said he was having trouble and needed to land. The pilot said that he altitude was over 70k feet. None of their equipment even registered that high. The pilot gave them a code word and told them to give it to the base commander. The officer on duty called him, woke him up, and gave him the code. Within minutes they had fire trucks and a chase car out in the runway. As soon as the plane stopped moving, they had it under a big tarp without my dad or any of the other guys on duty ever really getting a look at it. They threatened all the guys on duty with all kinds of dire consequences if they mentioned what they had seen. It wasn’t u til a year or two later when Gary Powers was shot down that my dad put two and two together and figured out that it had been a U-2 in trouble that night over central Louisiana.

The only trainer SR-71 is at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo in Kalamazoo MI. My sons loves going to see it. Hes got a model of it on his desk in front of him right now as i look at him.