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

I was stationed at Kadena AB from 78-81 and watched launches on many occasions. The most impressive was when I was on the 10th tee at around 0645. The SR taxied to the run-up area which was about 200 yds from the tee box. The air was a bit foggy but we could clearly see the fuselage. As the pilot applied power, the flame from the ramjet extended about 100 feet behind the engine. At the engine it was about four feet in diameter and at the end was a pinpoint. The flame was orange, but at regular intervals there were blue shock rings ... and the sound ... freakin' fantastic. Most impressive thing I've ever seen.

Fast forward 8 years ... I was stationed at Beale AFB from 88-90 and was there when we retired the SR-71 from active service ... a sad day. As I type I looked over my shoulder at the photo of my Squadron in front of the last SR-71 on the taxiway. Very fond memories.

Hey my dad was stationed there from 1965 to 1970 and I was a AF brat, I saw so many cool airplanes including the SR71. Dad even took me out on the flight line many times. He really didn't care for the SR71 said it was a mess wherever they parked it and a fire hazard. The no smoking in the hanger thing also irritated him.

👍🏻

I have been to Kadena afb........

i lived and worked close to the skunk works in Palmdale CA. would eat my lunch at the end of the runway and watch the birds fly. creamed my jeans many times when the SR-71 flew right at and over me at low pass.
when they retired them they put one at the Blackbird Airpark. was there one 4th of July and as usual was rubbing on the blackbird , getting my fix for a while and a couple gentlemen approached and commented that i must love that bird. turned out to be General Chuck Yeager and the former pilot of that SR-71. we talked for about 45 minutes ( they talked and i stood there saying something like aaaagggghhhh. ) glad no one took a picture of us. for years after i would bump into the General at the flight deck at Fox field and he always recognized me and invited me to join him at his table. yeah i love the SR-71 and have a slight case of hero worship.

I saw the one at the Air Force Museum near Eglin great looking aircraft.

Mike

That’s bad ass.

Have been privileged to spend quite a bit of one-on-one time with a former SR-71 plot who flew it for a long time - very nice man, smart and insightful - and have been wowed by the info and experiences. Fascinating and sometimes exciting. He was kind to arrange a special guided visit to that airplane at Nagy for members of our family.

Up in the PNW in early 80s, our Rotary Club sponsored an air show at Paine Filed a few times. One year, a Blackbird visit was set up and Boeing seemed not happy to agree with a Lockheed being flown over their space there. The pilot sneaked in, took it out over the Sound at a low level and brought the airplane into sight of the crowd by rising up over the cliff at shoreline. Great moment.

Cool pic kenny.

Very.

My wife’s parents are pals with Chuck Yeager and rub elbows with him often.

Kinda cool.......

He has a road named after him on the way to Beale.

The sled was awesome. Many years back I was attending an advanced training course with other service members and in the course of affairs we received an informal presentation about the development of the aircraft in terms even a chopper pilot could grasp. High points: Washington wanted a platform that could renew what the U2 had been doing w/o getting shot down. Kelly Johnson responded with something to the effect of "Give me the fuel and I'll make the plane." Point being the sled's fuel is not a splashy liquid as most assume. It's gooey. Reason? The aiirframe is hot when it's cruising M2+. They made the skin out of titanium for the same reason, and it is a metal not easy to form due to physical properties. Thus was the concept of bead hammering invented. That's my term and may be incorrect, remember, I'm a rotor head not a space cadet. Short version? They used a stream of glass beads from a nozzle not unlike a sand blaster, a form, and quite literally hammered the metal into submission.

We had the conversation because at that point the class was studying structural issues related to design and failure.

20 years later I routinely conversed with Blackbird pilots as they flitted around on missions in and around the Caribbean. Dayum, them things are faster than Wild Bill....

Both are leaky? Fittings are made for expansion etc? I may be wrong.
But my understanding is at altitude the fittings “lock” up.
I’m not a pilot just a squid.......
Still fascinates me how that bird goes fast.

Digital Dan: I got to inspect (up close!) an SR-71 at an air show long ago north of Seattle (supposedly this was the first airshow the SR-71 attended and it was "standing room only" because of that!).
Anyway I used to be a mechanic on the wonderful Boeing 727 airplane and installed MANY a countersunk rivet.
I am taller than the average Joe and I went to the nearest point to the roped off plane that was allowed - I inspected the wing leading edge and nearly fainted - the countersinks were uneven, sloppy, chattered and many were way to deep - only a few were NOT deep enough.
My curiosity was so piqued that after a while I stretched out and reached up with my index finger and felt the overly deep and chattered countersinks to verify what my eyes were seeing.
I did so and immediately the armed military guards confronted me and ran me off. Apparently it was "verbotten" to touch said secret airplane at the time.
It took me hours to figger out why and how the production crews/inspectors would allow such un-aerodynamic work to exist on a plane that flew so fast - it came to me that I had installed parts on the 727 that were made of Titanium and indeed the countersinks ALL chattered (due to the extreme hardness of that metal) and it was VERY difficult to get a good countersink - whereas on aluminum my countersinks were of perfect depth and smoothness.
The bottom line was that Titanium is so strong and heat resistant that the imperfect countersinks were of a no-nevermind.
I even went back and paid to get back in the day after the air show to watch the SR-71 "take-off"! It was a sight and sound to behold - well worth the money and effort to see.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

My Blackbird story: Many years ago I was a hauling a load of concrete to Beale AFB. The contractor was building a hangar extension and we were pouring concrete into the above grade Sono tubes for the structural foundation. At one of the sono tubes to fill there was an SR-71 parked right next to it.

I told the contractor that if we pour that tube full it's going to splash concrete all over that Blackbird. Contractor said, "IDGAF pour it" so we filled that tube and splashed concrete all over the nose of that flat black jet.

After dumping my load of concrete I drove back to that jet and did my best to wash off the already hardening splashed concrete.

I too had watched them many times flying over the Beale AFB area and occasionally breaking the sound barrier and I couldn't stand to leave specks of concrete all over that beautiful bird. I was surprised at the crappy paint job. Flat black like a primer coat.

The End.

They have an A-12, a precursor to the SR-71, on display in Huntsville at The U.S. Space & Rocket Center. The SR-71 was longer, carried more fuel, and more room for camera payload.

I found this several years ago somewhere on the Interwebs regarding the SR-71:

*****

SR-71

This may be the single greatest aviation story ever told, it’s about the iconic SR-71 Blackbird whose full operating specs are still classified to this day. The story, from the now out-of-print book Sled Driver by former SR-71 jockey Brian Shul (available used on Amazon for just $700). Here’s the ultimate aviation troll:

There were a lot of things we couldn’t do in an SR-71, but we were the fastest guys on the block and loved reminding our fellow aviators of this fact. People often asked us if, because of this fact, it was fun to fly the jet. Fun would not be the first word I would use to describe flying this plane. Intense, maybe. Even cerebral. But there was one day in our Sled experience when we would have to say that it was pure fun to be the fastest guys out there, at least for a moment.

It occurred when Walt and I were flying our final training sortie. We needed 100 hours in the jet to complete our training and attain Mission Ready status. Somewhere over Colorado we had passed the century mark. We had made the turn in Arizona and the jet was performing flawlessly. My gauges were wired in the front seat and we were starting to feel pretty good about ourselves, not only because we would soon be flying real missions but because we had gained a great deal of confidence in the plane in the past ten months. Ripping across the barren deserts 80,000 feet below us, I could already see the coast of California from the Arizona border. I was, finally, after many humbling months of simulators and study, ahead of the jet.

I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for Walter in the back seat. There he was, with no really good view of the incredible sights before us, tasked with monitoring four different radios. This was good practice for him for when we began flying real missions, when a priority transmission from headquarters could be vital. It had been difficult, too, for me to relinquish control of the radios, as during my entire flying career I had controlled my own transmissions. But it was part of the division of duties in this plane and I had adjusted to it. I still insisted on talking on the radio while we were on the ground, however. Walt was so good at many things, but he couldn’t match my expertise at sounding smooth on the radios, a skill that had been honed sharply with years in fighter squadrons where the slightest radio miscue was grounds for beheading. He understood that and allowed me that luxury.

Just to get a sense of what Walt had to contend with, I pulled the radio toggle switches and monitored the frequencies along with him. The predominant radio chatter was from Los Angeles Center, far below us, controlling daily traffic in their sector. While they had us on their scope (albeit briefly), we were in uncontrolled airspace and normally would not talk to them unless we needed to descend into their airspace.

We listened as the shaky voice of a lone Cessna pilot asked Center for a readout of his ground speed. Center replied: “November Charlie 175, I’m showing you at ninety knots on the ground.”


Now the thing to understand about Center controllers, was that whether they were talking to a rookie pilot in a Cessna, or to Air Force One, they always spoke in the exact same, calm, deep, professional, tone that made one feel important. I referred to it as the ” Houston Center voice.” I have always felt that after years of seeing documentaries on this country’s space program and listening to the calm and distinct voice of the Houston controllers, that all other controllers since then wanted to sound like that, and that they basically did. And it didn’t matter what sector of the country we would be flying in, it always seemed like the same guy was talking. Over the years that tone of voice had become somewhat of a comforting sound to pilots everywhere. Conversely, over the years, pilots always wanted to ensure that, when transmitting, they sounded like Chuck Yeager, or at least like John Wayne. Better to die than sound bad on the radios.

Just moments after the Cessna’s inquiry, a Twin Beech piped up on frequency, in a rather superior tone, asking for his ground speed. “I have you at one hundred and twenty-five knots of ground speed.” Boy, I thought, the Beechcraft really must think he is dazzling his Cessna brethren. Then out of the blue, a navy F-18 pilot out of NAS Lemoore came up on frequency. You knew right away it was a Navy jock because he sounded very cool on the radios. “Center, Dusty 52 ground speed check”. Before Center could reply, I’m thinking to myself, hey, Dusty 52 has a ground speed indicator in that million-dollar cockpit, so why is he asking Center for a readout? Then I got it, ol’ Dusty here is making sure that every bug smasher from Mount Whitney to the Mojave knows what true speed is. He’s the fastest dude in the valley today, and he just wants everyone to know how much fun he is having in his new Hornet. And the reply, always with that same, calm, voice, with more distinct alliteration than emotion: “Dusty 52, Center, we have you at 620 on the ground.”

And I thought to myself, is this a ripe situation, or what? As my hand instinctively reached for the mic button, I had to remind myself that Walt was in control of the radios. Still, I thought, it must be done – in mere seconds we’ll be out of the sector and the opportunity will be lost. That Hornet must die, and die now. I thought about all of our Sim training and how important it was that we developed well as a crew and knew that to jump in on the radios now would destroy the integrity of all that we had worked toward becoming. I was torn.

Somewhere, 13 miles above Arizona, there was a pilot screaming inside his space helmet. Then, I heard it. The click of the mic button from the back seat. That was the very moment that I knew Walter and I had become a crew. Very professionally, and with no emotion, Walter spoke: “Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check?” There was no hesitation, and the replay came as if was an everyday request. “Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground.”

I think it was the forty-two knots that I liked the best, so accurate and proud was Center to deliver that information without hesitation, and you just knew he was smiling. But the precise point at which I knew that Walt and I were going to be really good friends for a long time was when he keyed the mic once again to say, in his most fighter-pilot-like voice: “Ah, Center, much thanks, we’re showing closer to nineteen hundred on the money.”

For a moment Walter was a god. And we finally heard a little crack in the armor of the Houston Center voice, when L.A.came back with, “Roger that Aspen, Your equipment is probably more accurate than ours. You boys have a good one.”

It all had lasted for just moments, but in that short, memorable sprint across the southwest, the Navy had been flamed, all mortal airplanes on freq were forced to bow before the King of Speed, and more importantly, Walter and I had crossed the threshold of being a crew. A fine day’s work. We never heard another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast.

For just one day, it truly was fun being the fastest guys out there.

Great story

They are supposedly retired...... I wouldn’t doubt if they still use them.

I haven’t seen one in the air for years.

I see U2s all the time

No way that black bird isn’t still being used.