SR-71B Blackbird Walkaround with its former Crew Chief https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tSXckp6OP28
SR-71B Blackbird Cockpit Tour with its Former Instructor https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tSXckp6OP28
Author Brian Shul on piloting the SR-71 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6nuAZfKSvvg&pp=QAFIAQ%3D%3D
Enjoy!!!
Ping to the usual suspects 🤪
I just want to strap 2 J-58s to a 1974 Pinto...😁😜
https://www.airzoo.org
Air Zoo Aerospace & Science Museum | Kalamazoo, MI
The Air Zoo is located at 6151 Portage Road in Portage, MI, halfway between Detroit and Chicago. We’re off I-94 (exit 78), just south of the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport. Please note, MDOT has begun working on I-94 near the Portage Rd Exit and there may be detours.
It’s interesting that the Pratt & Whitney J58 engine was originally designed for the Martin P6M SeaMaster flying boat.
The aircraft was not known as the 'Blackbird' at the time, and I hadn't really heard much about it.
It didn't take long for me to appreciate just what I was working on, the amazing capabilities and the Buch Rogers stuff that we were using. Best duty ever for a USAF Airman.
Fast forward to a few years ago, working as a docent for an aviation museum that had a real live J58.
It fell to me to give presentations on the engine, and of course the aircraft. The truly astonishing engineering triumphs of an engine that could function as both a turbojet and also a ramjet is an underappreciated feat.
I'll watch the vid, and I'm sure that I'll learn even more about the incredible J58.
engine sound
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfi7q1cwOgg
There’s a small county airport a few miles west of me here in Ocean County, NJ and a few days ago, sitting here at my computer terminal I heard that distinct , throaty sound of two Pratt & Whitney’s in the distance and when I went to the window and looked to the east , sure enough, there was a DC 3 chugging west to that little airport.
Man that’s a classical plane right there.
Pratt-Whitney is based in my hometown. My dad, was an engineer there. Pratt created some great engines in the 60s and 70s. GE and Rolls are now better, as much as I hate to say it.
“Author Brian Shul on piloting the SR-71 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6nuAZfKSvvg&pp=QAFIAQ%3D%3D“
Brian Shul has an hour long motivational speech where he talks about his experiences with the SR-71. Highly recommended.
4L8TR
I remember taking the time to place ONE FINGER on the front (intake) side of the engine, and rotating the ENTIRE ENGINE with just finger pressure.
To me it was an incredible example of how well balanced those engines must have been!
A statically mounted Pratt & Whitney J58 engine with full afterburner on disposing of the last of the SR-71 fuel prior to program termination. The bright areas seen in the exhaust are known as shock diamonds.
Friend of mine was the RSO in that plane for a few years.
Good stuff!
Advances in Soviet AAA in the late 1950s gave Kelly Johnson to know that the U-2s days were nearing an end and he already had begun designing the A-12 almost two years before F.G. Powers was shot down. Without Johnson’s foresight neither would we have had the P-38 Lightning for WWII, which turned out to be the only fighter capable of pulling off the mission to intercept Admiral Yamamoto’s air convoy over Bougainville and kill him.
The engines in the SR-71 weren’t off-the-shelf J58s. The engine as P&W designed it only made 18% of the thrust the Blackbird would need. Only the ones made for the SR-71 got all the high bypass system.
Not sure how much stock I would take in an engineer who can’t multiply 40 times 15 and get the right answer.