Growing up in an aviation family, I have heard endless cool stories (but few so cool).
One of my favorites was when my grandfather was flying when the F15 was in early flight development. The skies were much less busy, and there was a bit less formality.
Ground knew who was where, so it asked my grandfather, “would you like to see something interesting?” GD agreed, and moments later an F15 pulled up alongside him, pointed at an upward angle and maintaining what was a slow flight speed for it. The two pilots were close enough to exchange waves, and moments later the F15 rocketed away.
Most likely that day, the F15 was the fastest thing in the air for several hundred miles.
The SR-71's actual top speed was classified, and the 'official' top speed was faster than anything else in production.
At several points growing up someone would come up with a new plane that encroached on the SR-71's speed record. Then a couple weeks later there would be an announcement about the SR-71 setting a new top speed.
I suspect someone in Intelligence had to decide that being officially the fastest was important, but exactly how fast being a secret made the plane and pilot a little bit safer. So they had to nudge the fiction a little bit closer to the truth any time there was a pretender. Or, manufacturing improvements nudged the maximum safe speed up over time, and they only bothered updating the public about this when a dick measuring contest was held in their honor. Or maybe both.
That said, we both know the shape of the SR-71, and the Compressor Inlet Temperature limit. The shape determines the smallest Mach angle that the entire plane fits inside, which gives a value for the maximum speed. The CIT limit gives a value for the maximum speed, which is roughly the same as the Mach angle value, at approximately Mach 3.3. To go faster, the plane would have to be skinnier, or the wing tips would poke beyond the Mach cone, and the entire tip would generate it's own set of shockwaves, which would most likely result in a sharp increase in temperature for the part outside the cone (which can be read as: the wing tips melt off).
It's just nuts to think about people on Concorde sipping champagne at Mach 2.04. I wonder if that's something which will be possible again in my lifetime.
This might be a dumb question, but isn’t that the maximum sustained speed for the plane, and higher speeds would be possible for short bursts? (as in, before the wing tips get hot enough to melt off)
A related quote from the same pilot on how fast the SR-71 could fly: “There really isn’t one number to give, as the jet would always give you a little more speed if you wanted it to.”
I’d recommend reading Skunk Works by Ben R. Rich for more on the engineering of the Blackbird and other special aviation projects.
I knew the Blackbird was fast, but didn’t quite realize how fast until reading this book. The SR-72 would cruise at Mach 3, or three times the speed of sound. It would do this at 80,000 feet, over twice the traditional cruising altitude of a 747. Even at this height, where the temperature is -60°F, friction would cause the fuselage to heat to 600°F. This would melt traditional aircraft, so the plane was built with titanium (ironically supplied by the Soviet Union). The Blackbird used to overfly North Korea five days a week in just ten minutes.
According to this [0] article it leaks fuel sitting on the runway because:
"The fuel system of the SR-71 could not be sealed permanently because there simply were no sealants that were flexible and durable enough to deal with those kind of temperatures and shrinking-expansion cycles."
I think that says enough about how bonkers fast that thing is.
Not just on the runway. The hangers had big drains in them to catch the fuel and anyone unfortunate enough to have to work under the plane would get soaked. "Hey, I think the plane is leaking" -- me.
Given how bloated and wasteful our government is today, and how much the dept of defense blew on the F-35, I would be staggered if anything useful happens behind closed doors, besides corruption.
I think we were able to accomplish a lot more in the past.
I never understand this belief. The A-12 was only secret 20 months before the announcement so it wasn’t any mystery for long. The idea that there is some supermagic is weird. Materials science of titanium is known. It was new then. Turboramjet theory was novel then, but I read about the internals in the late 70’s in Airpower magazine.
Such a belief means there must be some unknown material or physics that has been embargoed, successfully, for decades.
There’s no there there to be staggered by. Look at a half century of fusion physics or billions on multiple failed hypersonic research. Shit is hard. There are no shortcuts.
They had Kelly Johnson in 1964. He is, quite literally, the godfather of high-speed aircraft including the U-2 and the A-12/SR-71. He was not only a highly skilled engineer, he was a manager of the first order. A former colleague of mine had the privilege of working for Johnson early in his career and said that he'd never worked for a better boss. I believe it.
I've got a lil titanium bowl for camping. Feels like alien material, it's so light and feels like you could snap it, but then it's incredibly strong. I used it in the oven last night to make TikTok feta pasta. No worries on being oven safe as its melting temp is 3,000°F.
/second that book, one of the best on US aviation history and engineering.
Also iirc, ironically the technique for shaping the F-117 to reflect away radar came from a Soviet journal article on shaping nosecones to minimize their interference on radar emanating from them.
Another fun thing is that claims about no computers being used for A-12/SR-71 are mostly boasting possibly to avoid mentioning then black project details, like CIA buying a custom computer (PDP-2) to do calculations on A-12 shape.
a small plane got on the radio and said "how fast am i going"
the tower said "you are going fast"
and then a bigger plane got on the radio and said "haha i think i am going faster how fast am i going"
and the tower said "you are going a little faster"
and then a jet fighter was going really fast and talked like a really cool guy and said "hey there, I sound like a cool guy, tell me how fast I'm going"
and the tower said "you are going very fast" but he sounded totally normal
And then I wanted to say something but that was against the rules, and then the other guy in my plane said "hey tower, are we going fast"
and the tower said "yes you are going like a million fast" and then the guy in my plane said "I think it's a million and one fast" and then the tower said "lol yeah ur plane is good"
I love how it manages to dumb down and parody the original story while still retaining all the details, they really crossed every i and dotted every t.
Oh man, this sucks. Learning about it from your comment. I always wanted to go see one of his speeches. I remember seeing them on YouTube and they were great. His story is truly inspirational. His books are incredible as well. I was gifted signed copies of Sled Driver and The Untouchables and I honestly treasure them. Guess I’ll just have to read them again today.
"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."
Just because military aircraft don't use the same frequencies as commercial aircraft doesn't mean this SR-71 crew on a training mission wasn't listening in on commercial air traffic frequencies.
It's a great story that I loved reading, but I'm skeptical by nature:
Has there ever been any other recorded witness to this story? Obviously there was at least 3 other pilots and an air traffic controller, but I imagine there were more people on frequency at the time.
Additionally, can ATC equipment even depict that speed? For example, modern U.S. ATC equipment will not indicate the altitude of anything above FL600.
I remember there being a reddit comment that had quite a few upvotes debunking the story, but I can't remember what their reasons were.
I found this on Reddit which matches up. It's another SR-71 pilot that says the military aircraft wouldn't even be on the same radio frequency. But military does transit commercial space from time to time so you never know.
Military aviation uses non-military frequencies to communicate with ATC, which they do except when operating in closed airspace. E.g. ATC is notified by the pilot of each aircraft entering the sidewinder low level training route in southern CA.
Later in that thread someone mentions that the SR-71 has 4 radios (like the story mentioned) 2 UHF, 1 VHF, and 1 HF. So despite not being on the same frequency for most communications, they were definitely capable of monitoring and transmitting on civilian frequencies. A bored radio operator on yet another training flight could easily be listening into civilian radio traffic.
It was a different thread that I remember. Someone posted the story as a submission, and one of the top-level comments was debunking it. My Google-fu used to be extremely good, back when Google was a good search engine, otherwise I would have found it by now and posted the link.
I like the effect that the story has had, but I dislike the idea that it might have been an exaggeration.
The author of Sled Driver made a lot of appearances/talks, but I don't know how much he was paid for them.
-
The author states he doesn't normally monitor the frequencies as that was the other person's job, but the one time he does monitor, this happens?
Either things like this happen all of the time, in which case there would be plenty of people sharing their version of these kinds of stories, or the pilot got extremely lucky in his timing.
Oh, it does matter. I've made a living at times from non-fiction storytelling, and if you don't get in the habit of sticking to the facts, it's shamefully easy to slide ever closer to George Santos territory.
But there's a compromise that will keep us both happy. Nothing wrong with having this go into the "legends" category -- where it's harmless fun to keep them circulating. Just as long as we know that this isn't quite how everything works.
Readit News
Growing up in an aviation family, I have heard endless cool stories (but few so cool).
One of my favorites was when my grandfather was flying when the F15 was in early flight development. The skies were much less busy, and there was a bit less formality.
Ground knew who was where, so it asked my grandfather, “would you like to see something interesting?” GD agreed, and moments later an F15 pulled up alongside him, pointed at an upward angle and maintaining what was a slow flight speed for it. The two pilots were close enough to exchange waves, and moments later the F15 rocketed away.
Most likely that day, the F15 was the fastest thing in the air for several hundred miles.
At several points growing up someone would come up with a new plane that encroached on the SR-71's speed record. Then a couple weeks later there would be an announcement about the SR-71 setting a new top speed.
I suspect someone in Intelligence had to decide that being officially the fastest was important, but exactly how fast being a secret made the plane and pilot a little bit safer. So they had to nudge the fiction a little bit closer to the truth any time there was a pretender. Or, manufacturing improvements nudged the maximum safe speed up over time, and they only bothered updating the public about this when a dick measuring contest was held in their honor. Or maybe both.
How do we know this is also not part of an official/unofficial limit?
https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blac...
I knew the Blackbird was fast, but didn’t quite realize how fast until reading this book. The SR-72 would cruise at Mach 3, or three times the speed of sound. It would do this at 80,000 feet, over twice the traditional cruising altitude of a 747. Even at this height, where the temperature is -60°F, friction would cause the fuselage to heat to 600°F. This would melt traditional aircraft, so the plane was built with titanium (ironically supplied by the Soviet Union). The Blackbird used to overfly North Korea five days a week in just ten minutes.
"The fuel system of the SR-71 could not be sealed permanently because there simply were no sealants that were flexible and durable enough to deal with those kind of temperatures and shrinking-expansion cycles."
I think that says enough about how bonkers fast that thing is.
[0] https://nodum.org/was-sr-71-blackbird-leaking-fuel/
1.9.6.4.
They had this level of engineering in 1964.
Just imagine what shit goes on behind closed doors today. It really does sort of stagger you.
I think we were able to accomplish a lot more in the past.
Such a belief means there must be some unknown material or physics that has been embargoed, successfully, for decades.
There’s no there there to be staggered by. Look at a half century of fusion physics or billions on multiple failed hypersonic research. Shit is hard. There are no shortcuts.
Two things:
- Your bowl is most likely not pure titanium and is probably made of an alloy.
- Over 1,200F titanium produces titanium dioxide and may give you titanium dioxide poisoning.
Dead Comment
Also iirc, ironically the technique for shaping the F-117 to reflect away radar came from a Soviet journal article on shaping nosecones to minimize their interference on radar emanating from them.
The Ground Speed Check – Tales from the Blackbird - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36030304 - May 2023 (1 comment)
SR-71 Blackbird's ground speed check story - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25733807 - Jan 2021 (12 comments)
SR-71 Blackbird 'Speed Check' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18101839 - Sept 2018 (1 comment)
SR-71 Blackbird Pilot Trolls Arrogant Fighter Pilot with Ground Speed Check - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10902209 - Jan 2016 (3 comments)
SR-71 speed check
One time we were going fast
a small plane got on the radio and said "how fast am i going"
the tower said "you are going fast"
and then a bigger plane got on the radio and said "haha i think i am going faster how fast am i going"
and the tower said "you are going a little faster"
and then a jet fighter was going really fast and talked like a really cool guy and said "hey there, I sound like a cool guy, tell me how fast I'm going"
and the tower said "you are going very fast" but he sounded totally normal
And then I wanted to say something but that was against the rules, and then the other guy in my plane said "hey tower, are we going fast"
and the tower said "yes you are going like a million fast" and then the guy in my plane said "I think it's a million and one fast" and then the tower said "lol yeah ur plane is good"
and then I said "did we just become best friends"
and the other guy said "yes"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29373436
SR-71 pilot, photographer and storyteller Brian Shul dies at 75 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36028041 - May 2023 (47 comments)
https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/american-air-museum
Brian Shul died just a few days ago. :( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Shul
1. The HN link should be to the actual video of the retired pilot telling the story firsthand. That's below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AyHH9G9et0
2. Most former SR-71 pilots consider the story not true, but it's a fun story to hear nonetheless.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/xis19w/reddits_be...
"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."
Just because military aircraft don't use the same frequencies as commercial aircraft doesn't mean this SR-71 crew on a training mission wasn't listening in on commercial air traffic frequencies.
What's next? Am I gonna find out that every TED talk is basically BS?
Has there ever been any other recorded witness to this story? Obviously there was at least 3 other pilots and an air traffic controller, but I imagine there were more people on frequency at the time.
Additionally, can ATC equipment even depict that speed? For example, modern U.S. ATC equipment will not indicate the altitude of anything above FL600.
I remember there being a reddit comment that had quite a few upvotes debunking the story, but I can't remember what their reasons were.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/xis19w/reddits_be...
But, then again, doing Mach 2.8 in Class A airspace is kind of unrealistic. And noisy.
My understanding is that the SR-71 flies so high (up to 90,000 feet) that they can go as fast as they like because there's nothing else up that high.
I like the effect that the story has had, but I dislike the idea that it might have been an exaggeration.
The author of Sled Driver made a lot of appearances/talks, but I don't know how much he was paid for them.
-
The author states he doesn't normally monitor the frequencies as that was the other person's job, but the one time he does monitor, this happens?
Either things like this happen all of the time, in which case there would be plenty of people sharing their version of these kinds of stories, or the pilot got extremely lucky in his timing.
But there's a compromise that will keep us both happy. Nothing wrong with having this go into the "legends" category -- where it's harmless fun to keep them circulating. Just as long as we know that this isn't quite how everything works.