Indeed, Mach 3.5 is the declared top speed in this story, but higher speeds are implied.
The Mach eases to 3.5 as we crest 80,000 feet... Screaming past Tripoli, our phenomenal speed continues to rise... I realize that I still have my left hand full-forward and we're continuing to rocket along in maximum afterburner... The TDI now shows us Mach numbers, not only new to our experience but flat out scary.
He mentions unusually cool temperatures allowing higher speeds than usual, and the aircraft is performing better than ever. So who knows. 3.6? Did a perfect set of circumstances, mixed with a rather urgent need to depart, take them closer to 3.7?
It's truly incredible that the A12/SR-71 aircraft was designed without the benefit of modern computing. In Ben Rich's book "Skunk Works" I recall there a bit about a comment that somebody once made regarding Kelly Johnson, something like "That Swede can see air". Truly a compliment to Johnson's almost uncanny ability to design aircraft for a specification. The U2 was another example of such ability.
> It's truly incredible that the A12/SR-71 aircraft was designed without the benefit of modern computing.
One of the huge things that computers give us is the ability to simulate where the design limits actually are - you can "relatively" easily design a device that needs to do "at least X" but once you're done, you don't really know how far past X you can go - computer simulations can help discover where and what exactly fails.
(Some limits like boat "hull speed" are easier to find than others).
The computer allows you to cut down your design so that it will do "at least X and no more" so you can save a few cents and then the plane falls apart when the pilot asks it to do Mach 3.6 but that's OK because the manual said it will top out at 3.5
Temperature is the limiting factor for speed, I remember SR71 pilots on a panel saying the aircraft flew faster in winter than in the summer for that reason.
It's also cool that the whole thing was machined 'loose' so that it would expand as it heated up. Apparently the plane would leak fuel and oil when it was on the ground ...
I'm fuzzy on details but I remember reading it had some pretty crazy thermal expansion. I think the pilot had to wait quite a while (hours?) before opening the cockpit to give the plane time to cool enough.
Such a great book that is becoming harder to find a decent copy of these days.
There's a great sketch that Kelly Johnson did of the A12. This was in September of 1958(!) and he had a rough top speed of Mach 3.0, with a possibility of Mach 3.2. And it existed on nothing but a sheet of paper and in his mind. No computers with advanced software and super computers with petaflops of power.
First time I've seen that sketch, but it looks like Popular Science lifted it directly for an article from the 80's that I remember distinctly about Project Aurora.
Adrian Newley is aerodynamist and the current chief designer of Red Bull (current champions and top of the season). He has won more F1 champions than any other designer.
He draws his cars on paper.
Granted, I'm sure someone digitizes his designs and runs them through a CFD suite, if for no other reason that wind tunnel time rule limited.
It’s a nice story to read about rock star engineers but F1 race car aerodynamics is not done on paper.
Sure concepts to try can be sketched out on paper. Things like wing arrangements, rough intuitive ideas about where the clean and dirty air is. But everything in F1 is an iterative loop between a lap time simulation, vehicle dynamics, and aerodynamics.
Vehicle performance is largely a trade off between Cornering dynamics (typically demanding more downforce) and straight light speed (typically demanding less drag) which is why different tracks have different setups.
Basically balanced between cornering sections and straight line sections to figure out the optimal balance of lift/drag and the dynamic behaviour of the rest of the car in response to those aero set up effects.
Every time the SR-71 pops up, it's brings back a memory of seeing it do a flyby at Dulles Airport. IIRC it was supposed to be the last flight as the program was ending. This is probably 1989. I didn't know about it until the day of the event so I didn't have my camera with me.
I think my entire engineering department and a bunch from the production floor (about 15-20 of us) went over to the airport to see the bird. Back then you could drive up to and park at the upper departure level. So there we are, waiting... Someone brought a portable scanner along and was listening to air traffic control, so we knew when it would pass over.
First thing we heard was the sonic boom as it passed over (I believe this flight set the west coast to east coast speed record.) After some interval of minutes we heard which direction it would be coming from. All other landing and take off traffic was suspended while the bird circled the airport. Then turned a made a low level (like about the height of the tower) really slow. We got a really good look at it. He hit the afterburners, and took off. I've never seen anything move that fast. It practically disappeared, like something out of a movie jumping into hyperspace. Absolutely incredible, no matter how much I read about the SR-71 and the program, I'm just in awe of the designers and engineers that made it happen.
Amazing aircraft. Never had the pleasure of seeing it in motion but I paid a special visit to see the one at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford outside London. Bloody brilliant, and I even broke the rules to touch it briefly with my hand to feel what it was like.
It kinda looks, to my eyes at least, like it has a matte finish in photos, so my thinking would be that it would have perhaps an almost shark skin roughness or something? Though you'd imagine surely not given the bit of extra drag when factored over the whole airframe...maybe?
But then again, at those speeds I wonder if there would be a difference or if boundary layer effects take over or something of that nature.
Disclaimer: am obviously not an aerospace engineer :)
Once you've finished re-reading, here's the reverse version:
> There were a lot of things we couldn't do in a Cessna 172, but we were some of the slowest 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 172. Fun would not be the first word I would use to describe flying this plane. Mundane, maybe. Even boring at times. But there was one day in our Cessna experience when we would have to say that it was pure fun to be some of the slowest guys out there, at least for a moment.
> It occurred when my CFI and I were flying a training flight. We needed 40 hours in the plane to complete my training and attain PPL status. Somewhere over Colorado we had passed the 40 hour mark. We had made the turn back towards our home airport in a radius of a mile or two and the plane was performing flawlessly. My gauges were wired in the left seat and we were starting to feel pretty good about ourselves, not only because I would soon be flying as a true pilot, but because we had gained a great deal of confidence in the plane in the past ten months. Bumbling across the mountains 3,500 feet below us, I could only see about 8 miles across the ground. I was, finally, after many humbling months of training and study, ahead of the plane.
> I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for my CFI in the right seat. There he was, with nothing to do except watch me and monitor two different radios. This wasn't really good practice for him at all. He'd been doing it for years. It had been difficult for me to relinquish control of the radios, as during my this part of my flying career, I could handle it on my own. But it was part of the division of duties on this flight and I had adjusted to it. I still insisted on talking on the radio while we were on the ground, however. My CFI was so good at many things, but he couldn't match my expertise at sounding awkward on the radios, a skill that had been roughly sharpened with years of listening to LiveATC.com where the slightest radio miscue was a daily occurrence. He understood that and allowed me that luxury.
> Just to get a sense of what my CFI had to contend with, I pulled the radio toggle switches and monitored the frequencies along with him. The predominant radio chatter was from Denver Center, not far below us, controlling daily traffic in our sector. While they had us on their scope (for a good while, I might add), we were in uncontrolled airspace and normally would not talk to them unless we needed to climb into their airspace. We listened as the shaky voice of a lone SR-71 pilot asked Center for a readout of his ground speed. Center replied: "Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across 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 SR-71's inquiry, an F-18 piped up on frequency, in a rather superior tone, asking for his ground speed. "Dusty 52, Center, we have you at 620 on the ground." Boy, I thought, the F-18 really must think he is dazzling his SR-71 brethren. Then out of the blue, a Twin Beech pilot out of an airport outside of Denver came up on frequency. You knew right away it was a Twin Beech driver because he sounded very cool on the radios. "Center, Beechcraft 173-Delta-Charlie ground speed check". Before Center could reply, I'm thinking to myself, hey, that Beech probably has a ground speed indicator in that multi-thousand-dollar cockpit, so why is he asking Center for a readout? Then I got it, ol' Delta-Charlie here is making sure that every military jock from Mount Whitney to the Mojave knows what true speed is. He's the slowest dude in the valley today, and he just wants everyone to know how much fun he is having in his new bug-smasher. And the reply, always with that same, calm, voice, with more distinct alliteration than emotion: "173-Delta-Charlie, Center, we have you at 90 knots 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 my CFI was in control of the radios. Still, I thought, it must be done - in mere hours we'll be out of the sector and the opportunity will be lost. That Beechcraft must die, and die now. I thought about all of my 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, half a mile above Colorado, there was a pilot screaming inside his head. Then, I heard it. The click of the mic button from the right seat. That was the very moment that I knew my CFI and I had become lifelong friends. Very professionally, and with no emotion, my CFI spoke: "Denver Center, Cessna 56-November-Sierra, can you give us a ground speed check?" There was no hesitation, and the replay came as if was an everyday request. "Cessna 56-November-Sierra, I show you at 56 knots, across the ground."
> I think it was the six 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 my CFI 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 CFI-like voice: "Ah, Center, much thanks, we're showing closer to 52 on the money."
> For a moment my CFI was a god. And we finally heard a little crack in the armor of the Houston Center voice, when Denver came back with, "Roger that November-Sierra, your E6B is probably more accurate than our state-of-the-art radar. You boys have a good one." It all had lasted for just moments, but in that short, memorable stroll across the west, the Navy had been owned, all mortal airplanes on freq were forced to bow before the King of Slow, and more importantly, my CFI and I had crossed the threshold of being BFFs. A fine day's work. We never heard another transmission on that frequency all the way to our home airport.
> For just one day, it truly was fun being the slowest guys out there.
Heh there's a speed check story in this article too with different numbers: For the F-18 Dusty 52 it's 525 vs 620 knots and for the blackbird it's 1742 vs 1842.
He sells his books anytime he gives a talk. I got an autographed copy ~5 years ago when he was a speaker at the museum of flight in Seattle during the seafair airshow.
What a ridiculous thing to say. Do you think the Libyan intelligence service gets to bomb dance clubs and then cry sovereignty when someone bombs some military targets in Libya? I don't know if you are ignorant of the situation or if you truly believe a country cannot retaliate against an attack against their citizens and allies. (This story and the bombing campaigned being photographed by the SR71 was a direct response to the West Berlin discotheque bombing in 1986).
>The entire world is truly their own backyard!
Yes..? If you are a state actor like Libya and you attack other nations civilians to cause terror then they have the right to attack you back. The US bombing Gaddafi's compounds and some other military targets in Libya was 100% justified. To act like a country can't retaliate in such a situation is honestly childish.
So there would be absolutely no problem if afghans or cubans bombed the US, right? Is it just the US that is allowed to basically do whatever it wants to a country based on whatever conclusion their spook agencies come up with?
Plus, as the other comment says there has been no proof that libya was involved. Going by a "hunch" or "secret info from our intelligence agencies" isn't evidence either. You should probably read up on the events, it was super controversial at the time so claiming it was just a cut and dry self-defense move from the US is laughable.
Well, nobody presented evidence that Libya was behind the La Belle bombing.
If you think that some shady arm of US intelligence isn't capable of such a heinous false flag operation, I urge you to read more history. Now I'm not saying it was one, I'm saying we have no idea who was behind it.
The SR-71s were over Libya in 1986 because the Libyan secret service detonated a bomb in a Berlin nightclub, killing 3 and wounding hundreds, ten days prior.
Ah yes, the US said so. You should probably look into the actual investigations and events before telling other people to stop. Almost no european country agrees with the conclusion of the US government (that bombed libya in a matter of days, before any investigation started to begin with).
A government that was back then almost frothing at the mouth at any occasion to blame everything on the libyans, to a comical degree. Which was well known, and also the reason why most european countries did not agree with the intervention that we are discussing
The days of America violating sovereign airspace are drawing to a close, thankfully.
“The United States-initiated aerial bombing of targets inside the borders of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah which took place on April 15, 1986, was met with substantial and immediate criticism by the world community. The positive reaction from the U.S. congress and the American public was not shared by much of the world. Arab nations denounced the American action, as did the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. In meetings of the UN Security Council, countries denouncing the raid outnumbered those which supported it.
Good article: “American Bombing of Libya: An International
Legal Analysis” (1987)
Ah yes, because surely when the US stops patrolling the seas and skies of this planet, nobody else will try. We will finally have our peaceful utopia once that pesky United States is out of the way!
There is a huge difference between patrolling international tradeways or helping nato allies, and invading or violating foreign countries on a whim with absolutely 0 consequences.
There is no international law (or agreement) defining the vertical boundary of a nation’s sovereign territory/airspace, but I guarantee no Libyans were up at 80,000'.
> My first encounter with the SR-71 came when I was 10 years old in the form of molded black plastic in a Revell kit.
> Twenty-nine years later, I stood awe-struck in a Beale Air Force Base hangar, staring at the very real SR-71 before me.
> In 1962, the first Blackbird successfully flew, and in 1966, the same year I graduated from high school, the Air Force began flying operational SR-71 missions.
> I came to the program in 1983
So the author was born in 1944 if they were 39 (29+ 10) in 1983.
1966 then puts them graduating at 22 (was high school longer back then? I wouldn’t have thought so and he’s supposed to have a stellar record and 22 feels a little old for joining the military) and playing with the SR-71 model in 1952 before it was even conceived in 1960.
A bunch of this doesn't make much sense to me either, the SR-71 was revealed to the public in 1966. That would make him born in 1956. He would be 30 in 1986, which makes sense, but the the 29 years later part doesn't sound right.
I built an SR-71 kit as a kid. But I was born in 1977. I wish I still had it. I put a ton of work into it.
The model manufacturers did scoop the reveals at some points, but they were never that accurate. I had an "F-19 Stealth Fighter" kit I built as well. It had significant differences from the F-117 when that became public.
I built an SR-71 model rocket. It was Estes, not Revell, and looked like this [0]. It was very difficult to build compared to other models, because it had three cylinders with webbing for the fuselage and engines. I remember being disappointed that the two outer cylinders were not designed to take individual model rocket engines. There was only one in the center. I guess it would have been too hard to ignite them synchronously.
When I launched it (vertically of course), the plane seemed to hover forever on the launchpad before finally overcoming gravity and taking off. It did not achieve Mach 3.5 or anything significant for a rocket of its size. When it reached the ejection stage, it popped off the front cabin "nosecone", looking very ungainly as it fluttered to the ground on a parachute.
Thanks for posting this. I built that same kit back when it was new, but at the time it was just some estes rocket to me -- I just now realized it was an SR-71.
My thinking is high school graduation could be as early as 16 but more likely 17 or 18, so 1966 - 18 = 1948 (or 49 or 50). 1983 would be 35, though by the author's own math he'd be 39. I think its probably safe to discount "10 years old" memory for the Revell kit; I can't seem to find when the kit began production (because the Internet is about buying things) - but in order for high school graduation to be at age 18 then the kit would have to be produced and sold in 1958 which seems unlikely (or 1960 if graduating at age 16).
I’m not familiar with this space. Is a Revell kit for a top secret plane that hadn’t even been designed something that happened/happens commonly?
The author says the motivating incident was the U2 shoot down in 1960 which was the motivating incident for the engineer to start designing it. How would the author be playing with it then?
Misdirect about the kid part to enhance the story? Maybe they had the kit later in life and retrofitted it into a “destiny” theme?
Fastest official is Mach 3.43. I would note that that isn't likely the full story. The US Gov has famously been deceptive about the plane, both overselling or underselling its abilities. (Notably, I do not believe that the US Government ever 'officially' admitted to overflying the USSR.)
It is very possible that for a short period of time, they sustained over mach 3.5 or 3.6, what affect that would have/had on the airframe and engines is unknown.
An interesting story is that once, during the cold war, a Mig-25 was supposedly tracked over Israel at over Mach 3.2 in what is best described as "GTFO" mode. It basically was an attempt to do what the US was doing with the SR-71s. At that speed, the engines are assumed to have been scraped after each flight.
One could make assumptions that the ram-jet elements of an SR-71's J-58s could allow for a few minutes, in the right airframe, with a lucky bin of build quality and weather, far beyond that.
I would also note that this story buries the lede. The title states mach 3.5 but the pilot implies numbers beyond. I'm not sure how factual it is or if it is dramatized, but the pilot absolutely is who they say they are and wrote a book about it.
> At that speed, the engines are assumed to have been scraped after each flight.
> One could make assumptions that the ram-jet elements of an SR-71's J-58s could allow for a few minutes...far beyond that
I would expect the SR-71 to stay at speed longer and for the engines to be capable of higher power (assuming the airframe and intake can handle it). US engines were generally higher quality, while Soviet engines were expected to be replaced very quickly relatively. However, this was a conscious decision on the part of the USSR: instead of making expensive engines with good maintainability in the field, they chose to make cheap engines that were easy to replace. As a result, while a MiG-25 may have only been able to maintain Mach 3 for a few minutes and ruin the engine in the process, they built 1,186 of them, with probably >5,000 Mach 3 capable engines.
Not particularly relevant, but always interesting to discuss how different people think
I believe it's the upper limit to the SR-71's engine style based on air intake.
If you watched Top Gun: Maverick since it came out they (spoiler) had him flying a prototype plane called the Darkstar to hit Mach 10 in order to maintain a military contract. During the flight, he switches engines to SCRAM Jet once he reaches Mach 3.5 because in order for those types of engines to have enough air intake to function, you already have to be traveling at that speed.
This was such an innovation that China redirected a satellite to find the plane because they thought it was real.
If you've never read Skunk Works by Ben Rich, I highly recommend it. Lots of SR-71 stories along with U-2, F-117 too.
I remember my manager was obsessed with the plane and it's name. It sounded so cool. But then I told him what bird it really is (Koltrast in Swedish) and he seemed so disappointed. He probably thought it was a black Eagle or something.
Here the Blackbird is mostly known för its beautiful although melancholic song. And it is also the national bird of Sweden.
Readit News
It's truly incredible that the A12/SR-71 aircraft was designed without the benefit of modern computing. In Ben Rich's book "Skunk Works" I recall there a bit about a comment that somebody once made regarding Kelly Johnson, something like "That Swede can see air". Truly a compliment to Johnson's almost uncanny ability to design aircraft for a specification. The U2 was another example of such ability.
One of the huge things that computers give us is the ability to simulate where the design limits actually are - you can "relatively" easily design a device that needs to do "at least X" but once you're done, you don't really know how far past X you can go - computer simulations can help discover where and what exactly fails.
(Some limits like boat "hull speed" are easier to find than others).
Are we sure that story about the Titanium coming from the USSR is accurate?
The jet stream is insanely fast at that altitude mixing the air, and at Mach 3 the surface weather changes in fractions of a minute.
There's a great sketch that Kelly Johnson did of the A12. This was in September of 1958(!) and he had a rough top speed of Mach 3.0, with a possibility of Mach 3.2. And it existed on nothing but a sheet of paper and in his mind. No computers with advanced software and super computers with petaflops of power.
https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/History/CIA/a-12-blackbird-...
He draws his cars on paper.
Granted, I'm sure someone digitizes his designs and runs them through a CFD suite, if for no other reason that wind tunnel time rule limited.
Still.
Sure concepts to try can be sketched out on paper. Things like wing arrangements, rough intuitive ideas about where the clean and dirty air is. But everything in F1 is an iterative loop between a lap time simulation, vehicle dynamics, and aerodynamics.
Vehicle performance is largely a trade off between Cornering dynamics (typically demanding more downforce) and straight light speed (typically demanding less drag) which is why different tracks have different setups.
Basically balanced between cornering sections and straight line sections to figure out the optimal balance of lift/drag and the dynamic behaviour of the rest of the car in response to those aero set up effects.
I think my entire engineering department and a bunch from the production floor (about 15-20 of us) went over to the airport to see the bird. Back then you could drive up to and park at the upper departure level. So there we are, waiting... Someone brought a portable scanner along and was listening to air traffic control, so we knew when it would pass over.
First thing we heard was the sonic boom as it passed over (I believe this flight set the west coast to east coast speed record.) After some interval of minutes we heard which direction it would be coming from. All other landing and take off traffic was suspended while the bird circled the airport. Then turned a made a low level (like about the height of the tower) really slow. We got a really good look at it. He hit the afterburners, and took off. I've never seen anything move that fast. It practically disappeared, like something out of a movie jumping into hyperspace. Absolutely incredible, no matter how much I read about the SR-71 and the program, I'm just in awe of the designers and engineers that made it happen.
It kinda looks, to my eyes at least, like it has a matte finish in photos, so my thinking would be that it would have perhaps an almost shark skin roughness or something? Though you'd imagine surely not given the bit of extra drag when factored over the whole airframe...maybe?
But then again, at those speeds I wonder if there would be a difference or if boundary layer effects take over or something of that nature.
Disclaimer: am obviously not an aerospace engineer :)
The SR-71 speed check story is another good read: https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blac...
https://www.google.com/search?q=Sled+Driver+pdf
> There were a lot of things we couldn't do in a Cessna 172, but we were some of the slowest 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 172. Fun would not be the first word I would use to describe flying this plane. Mundane, maybe. Even boring at times. But there was one day in our Cessna experience when we would have to say that it was pure fun to be some of the slowest guys out there, at least for a moment.
> It occurred when my CFI and I were flying a training flight. We needed 40 hours in the plane to complete my training and attain PPL status. Somewhere over Colorado we had passed the 40 hour mark. We had made the turn back towards our home airport in a radius of a mile or two and the plane was performing flawlessly. My gauges were wired in the left seat and we were starting to feel pretty good about ourselves, not only because I would soon be flying as a true pilot, but because we had gained a great deal of confidence in the plane in the past ten months. Bumbling across the mountains 3,500 feet below us, I could only see about 8 miles across the ground. I was, finally, after many humbling months of training and study, ahead of the plane.
> I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for my CFI in the right seat. There he was, with nothing to do except watch me and monitor two different radios. This wasn't really good practice for him at all. He'd been doing it for years. It had been difficult for me to relinquish control of the radios, as during my this part of my flying career, I could handle it on my own. But it was part of the division of duties on this flight and I had adjusted to it. I still insisted on talking on the radio while we were on the ground, however. My CFI was so good at many things, but he couldn't match my expertise at sounding awkward on the radios, a skill that had been roughly sharpened with years of listening to LiveATC.com where the slightest radio miscue was a daily occurrence. He understood that and allowed me that luxury.
> Just to get a sense of what my CFI had to contend with, I pulled the radio toggle switches and monitored the frequencies along with him. The predominant radio chatter was from Denver Center, not far below us, controlling daily traffic in our sector. While they had us on their scope (for a good while, I might add), we were in uncontrolled airspace and normally would not talk to them unless we needed to climb into their airspace. We listened as the shaky voice of a lone SR-71 pilot asked Center for a readout of his ground speed. Center replied: "Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across 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 SR-71's inquiry, an F-18 piped up on frequency, in a rather superior tone, asking for his ground speed. "Dusty 52, Center, we have you at 620 on the ground." Boy, I thought, the F-18 really must think he is dazzling his SR-71 brethren. Then out of the blue, a Twin Beech pilot out of an airport outside of Denver came up on frequency. You knew right away it was a Twin Beech driver because he sounded very cool on the radios. "Center, Beechcraft 173-Delta-Charlie ground speed check". Before Center could reply, I'm thinking to myself, hey, that Beech probably has a ground speed indicator in that multi-thousand-dollar cockpit, so why is he asking Center for a readout? Then I got it, ol' Delta-Charlie here is making sure that every military jock from Mount Whitney to the Mojave knows what true speed is. He's the slowest dude in the valley today, and he just wants everyone to know how much fun he is having in his new bug-smasher. And the reply, always with that same, calm, voice, with more distinct alliteration than emotion: "173-Delta-Charlie, Center, we have you at 90 knots 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 my CFI was in control of the radios. Still, I thought, it must be done - in mere hours we'll be out of the sector and the opportunity will be lost. That Beechcraft must die, and die now. I thought about all of my 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, half a mile above Colorado, there was a pilot screaming inside his head. Then, I heard it. The click of the mic button from the right seat. That was the very moment that I knew my CFI and I had become lifelong friends. Very professionally, and with no emotion, my CFI spoke: "Denver Center, Cessna 56-November-Sierra, can you give us a ground speed check?" There was no hesitation, and the replay came as if was an everyday request. "Cessna 56-November-Sierra, I show you at 56 knots, across the ground."
> I think it was the six 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 my CFI 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 CFI-like voice: "Ah, Center, much thanks, we're showing closer to 52 on the money."
> For a moment my CFI was a god. And we finally heard a little crack in the armor of the Houston Center voice, when Denver came back with, "Roger that November-Sierra, your E6B is probably more accurate than our state-of-the-art radar. You boys have a good one." It all had lasted for just moments, but in that short, memorable stroll across the west, the Navy had been owned, all mortal airplanes on freq were forced to bow before the King of Slow, and more importantly, my CFI and I had crossed the threshold of being BFFs. A fine day's work. We never heard another transmission on that frequency all the way to our home airport.
> For just one day, it truly was fun being the slowest guys out there.
I bought a copy sometime in the 90s, found in the remaindered section of a bookstore, cheap.
Fast forward a decade or so, a couple of house moves, and I can't find the book. So I order a copy from Amazon, still available new at that time.
Another decade or so later, I find my first copy. Then I discover they're worth like $300+ each!
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>The entire world is truly their own backyard!
Yes..? If you are a state actor like Libya and you attack other nations civilians to cause terror then they have the right to attack you back. The US bombing Gaddafi's compounds and some other military targets in Libya was 100% justified. To act like a country can't retaliate in such a situation is honestly childish.
Plus, as the other comment says there has been no proof that libya was involved. Going by a "hunch" or "secret info from our intelligence agencies" isn't evidence either. You should probably read up on the events, it was super controversial at the time so claiming it was just a cut and dry self-defense move from the US is laughable.
If you think that some shady arm of US intelligence isn't capable of such a heinous false flag operation, I urge you to read more history. Now I'm not saying it was one, I'm saying we have no idea who was behind it.
"oh yeah well what abou.."
With all due respect, stop.
A government that was back then almost frothing at the mouth at any occasion to blame everything on the libyans, to a comical degree. Which was well known, and also the reason why most european countries did not agree with the intervention that we are discussing
“The United States-initiated aerial bombing of targets inside the borders of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah which took place on April 15, 1986, was met with substantial and immediate criticism by the world community. The positive reaction from the U.S. congress and the American public was not shared by much of the world. Arab nations denounced the American action, as did the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. In meetings of the UN Security Council, countries denouncing the raid outnumbered those which supported it.
Good article: “American Bombing of Libya: An International Legal Analysis” (1987)
https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ar...
https://news.antiwar.com/2023/03/25/us-carries-out-airstrike...
They're still overflying Afghanistan and who knows where else.
Que?
> My first encounter with the SR-71 came when I was 10 years old in the form of molded black plastic in a Revell kit.
> Twenty-nine years later, I stood awe-struck in a Beale Air Force Base hangar, staring at the very real SR-71 before me.
> In 1962, the first Blackbird successfully flew, and in 1966, the same year I graduated from high school, the Air Force began flying operational SR-71 missions.
> I came to the program in 1983
So the author was born in 1944 if they were 39 (29+ 10) in 1983.
1966 then puts them graduating at 22 (was high school longer back then? I wouldn’t have thought so and he’s supposed to have a stellar record and 22 feels a little old for joining the military) and playing with the SR-71 model in 1952 before it was even conceived in 1960.
What am I missing?
I built an SR-71 kit as a kid. But I was born in 1977. I wish I still had it. I put a ton of work into it.
The model manufacturers did scoop the reveals at some points, but they were never that accurate. I had an "F-19 Stealth Fighter" kit I built as well. It had significant differences from the F-117 when that became public.
When I launched it (vertically of course), the plane seemed to hover forever on the launchpad before finally overcoming gravity and taking off. It did not achieve Mach 3.5 or anything significant for a rocket of its size. When it reached the ejection stage, it popped off the front cabin "nosecone", looking very ungainly as it fluttered to the ground on a parachute.
I still have that model somewhere downstairs.
[0] https://www.rocketreviews.com/estes-industries-sr-71-blackbi...
The author says the motivating incident was the U2 shoot down in 1960 which was the motivating incident for the engineer to start designing it. How would the author be playing with it then?
Misdirect about the kid part to enhance the story? Maybe they had the kit later in life and retrofitted it into a “destiny” theme?
It is very possible that for a short period of time, they sustained over mach 3.5 or 3.6, what affect that would have/had on the airframe and engines is unknown.
An interesting story is that once, during the cold war, a Mig-25 was supposedly tracked over Israel at over Mach 3.2 in what is best described as "GTFO" mode. It basically was an attempt to do what the US was doing with the SR-71s. At that speed, the engines are assumed to have been scraped after each flight.
One could make assumptions that the ram-jet elements of an SR-71's J-58s could allow for a few minutes, in the right airframe, with a lucky bin of build quality and weather, far beyond that.
I would also note that this story buries the lede. The title states mach 3.5 but the pilot implies numbers beyond. I'm not sure how factual it is or if it is dramatized, but the pilot absolutely is who they say they are and wrote a book about it.
I would expect the SR-71 to stay at speed longer and for the engines to be capable of higher power (assuming the airframe and intake can handle it). US engines were generally higher quality, while Soviet engines were expected to be replaced very quickly relatively. However, this was a conscious decision on the part of the USSR: instead of making expensive engines with good maintainability in the field, they chose to make cheap engines that were easy to replace. As a result, while a MiG-25 may have only been able to maintain Mach 3 for a few minutes and ruin the engine in the process, they built 1,186 of them, with probably >5,000 Mach 3 capable engines.
Not particularly relevant, but always interesting to discuss how different people think
If you watched Top Gun: Maverick since it came out they (spoiler) had him flying a prototype plane called the Darkstar to hit Mach 10 in order to maintain a military contract. During the flight, he switches engines to SCRAM Jet once he reaches Mach 3.5 because in order for those types of engines to have enough air intake to function, you already have to be traveling at that speed.
This was such an innovation that China redirected a satellite to find the plane because they thought it was real.
If you've never read Skunk Works by Ben Rich, I highly recommend it. Lots of SR-71 stories along with U-2, F-117 too.
Here the Blackbird is mostly known för its beautiful although melancholic song. And it is also the national bird of Sweden.