with interview link:

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/b...et-airborne-141637?utm_source=whatfinger

ya neat aircraft. lockheed had some interesting stuff. i went to a factory school at lockheed when i was in the AF. i worked on the ground link for one of the sensors on the U2, which is older and still doing the mission.

Interesting article, I used to see them flying around an area I turkey hunted in, very cool to see inflight!

Cool azz plane!! I had 3 favorite planes growing up - one was the U2, because the did touch-n-go's at our little community airport for some reason, and I'd ride my bike down there and watch them go damn near vertical at take off. Also, the Voodo F-101, because I built a model of one when I was young and thought the looked cool. My favorite though was the B-25 MItchell. What a work hose of a plane. A while back, my wife got me in the cockpit of one for a ride, for my birthday!

My BIL is a retired AF Colonel. his favorite plane is the A-10. But only because it saved his life about 10 times over in both gulf wars, and Bosnia. I've seen some pics.... of A-10's with about 1/4 of the plane missing, minus one engine. Landed without incident.

He also loves to tell me about how the USA cheats in the air and is essentially unbeatable, but he cannot go into detail, as it is classified. But the overall synopses of the conversations are, "we are 6 moves ahead of the enemy, have already dropped munitions, or have already killed the enemy, before the even know we are in their airspace"

When he started flying A-10's a long time ago, live fire training was performed on a live aircraft, pulled behind a pilot plane. They'd count the bullet holes to score effectiveness. He told me there was a short series of software upgrades (HUD, digital targeting, etc) that made the practice obsolete in less than 12 months. The rate of fire of the A-10 and resulting accuracy from the technology was cutting towed-planes in HALF the second pilots were pulling the trigger!

Cool post, thanks for sharing!

No such thing as “cheating” in combat!

I agree! As I am sure you know, his point was, we don't play fair (superior technology, training, equipment, support, etc). God Bless the USA.

He has only slightly opened up (over 15 years I've known him) about some of his gulf war flights. But I have come to understand from many unsaid moments and awkward pauses, that the 30mm cannon on the nose of that Warthog, was highly, HIGHLY, effective.

Thats right. Theres losers, and there's "cheaters"

Some years ago a company I had interest in hired a financial officer who was a pilot of the 71 during his service. Great talks and stories we had tho he never would tell all.

Osky

SR71 speed check story

I went through fixed wing performance with a former SR-71 crew chief. He told me how long the preflight took and that was many hours.

Late 90's is always stated as to when they were retired... technically I guess, but most were retired in the mid to late 80's. A few were for lack of a better word "modernized" and put under the control of I believe a retired general there at Edwards until '93 or '94 two were given to NASA and the rest were parked outside along a side fence just off the runway. It was a sad site to see. We moved what was left of Rockwell International to a building there just up the way there at Ewards from their old Downey, CA plant during the retrofit of I think 4 of the space shuttles. believe that was in '94 or so.

Phil

Pretty good writeup on Wiki too:

Blackbird

They have one at the Smithsonian Air and Space museum Dulles. It is about the first thing you see as you walk in. Awesome looking plane. Essentially a fuel tank with wings and engines.


Jerry

I wonder how high they had to take it before they could open it up?

I'd guess that the air had to be pretty thin at top speed to keep it from burning itself up.

I recall reading about how the X-15 cooked the leading edge of its vertical stabilizer off during a high speed test.

"Skunkworks"...I'm not big on aviation, but a friend recommended it. One of the best non fiction books I've ever read. Couldn't put it down, fascinating.

Excellent....

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.

I've told this before, but at the reunion of Forward Air Controllers held at the USAF Museum in Dayton, a former SR-71 pilot got into the Guinness Book by flying the museum's Wright Flyer, the only person ever to fly both.

That’s really cool !

The Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon has one. It is a great museum, if you ever get over there.


Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum

It's still pretty warm. At 9:30 in this video, Col. Gerry Williamson talks about what supersonic speeds will do to a Hershey bar in a B-58. (Not a SR-71, but still Mach 2.0+.)


FC

I've always had the opinion that we have aircraft that are at least one generation ahead of what is publicly admitted. I could never understand all of the information (and model kits) available on the F-117 without there being something beyond it in capability, with the information on it acting as a smokescreen.

Used to enjoy watching them along with the U-2 operate out of RAF Mildenhall. Some of our aircraft parking spots were fairly closed to the runway. I could go out of the overwing hatch, sit on a wing tip and have a ring side seat for their takeoff.

I had the honor of knowing General Chuck Yeager. was at the air museum in Palmdale one day looking at the just retired SR71 when he walked up with another gentleman who turned out to have been the pilot of said Sr71. I spent about as fascinating an hour as a guy can have listening to a couple true American Hero's. will never forget it.

I grew up not far from the Glenview Naval Air Station back in the 60's. As a kid, I didn't have a clue as to what some of the aircraft I saw was. But I remember seeing some stuff that was out of the norm. And when they could finally break the sound barrier, sonic booms were quite common. I sometimes think of my grandparents who went from Kitty Hawk to moon landings!

The fact of when the SR-71 was built still amazes me. The engines are a modified J75 turbo jet that at speed turns the engines into air pumps. This simplified description was related to me by me friend that was a SR-71 crew chief.

I'm not a pilot but I do have a SR-71 story.

Back in the early 80's I was driving cement mixers and was sent out to Beall AFB to deliver a full load of concrete. After many delays at the guard shack I was finally led out to the flight line area. The contractor had several rebar reinforced sono-tube upright pillars set up for the foundation of a future aircraft hanger. So we're pouring and vibrating concrete and filling sono tubes and then we pull up right next to a parked SR 71 Blackbird.

I told the contractor that we'll splatter concrete all over that blackbird if you don't cover it up or something. He said something to the affect of "I don't give a chit. Pour it." So we did and I splattered concrete all over that jet. I felt bad and when washing up my truck to leave I stopped and hosed off the Blackbird as best I could.

I remember thinking what a crappy paint job on these multi million dollar jets. Looks like somebody painted it with a rattle can of Rustoleum in flat black. So if you see a SR 71 on display with concrete specks on it that was me.

The End

A friend and fellow photography hobbyist at Kadena Okinawa used to supply me with 100-foot rolls of 35MM black and white film that had "aged out" and couldn't be used in the cameras that the SR-71's that "weren't there" used. We shared a bulk film loader and cranked out our own 36-frame canisters of free film. We could make a pretty good guess about where the daily SR flights were headed by the number of KC-135Q tankers we launched to refuel the blackbird. 3 or 4 tankers meant that it was headed for a base in Turkey after flying over Russia and wouldn't be returning to Okinawa that day. Launching 9 tankers meant that it was making repeated short runs over Viet Nam and Cambodia, and returning frequently to gas up.
Jerry

SR71 and all of the military flight stories and videos are great stuff, and close to the heart of what makes America different.

but...

Some of the rigging crews from Evergreen have to be some of the coolest guys in the air...

Pugs has a good one. (at least one) I think it was SR71, anyway. He posted it here before, about one-upping ground speed.

Run it by again? Funny

LazyV post above ^^^?

You talking about this one posted earlier? It is funny as hell.



ETA AJ300 beat me to the draw.