Not too long afterward, maybe five years, the SR-71 was retired and Robins AFB was building a museum. Some planes for that museum were just sitting in a field, including an SR-71 AND a U-2. One could walk right up and touch them.
Now the museum is complete, and those planes are indoors and roped off again, but my brother and I just happened to stop by during the brief period they were in that field.
I watched one make the turn to final into Randolph right before that year’s air show. It was truly a spectacular sight. I was a law clerk, my boss had been a fighter pilot (burned up at the end of the runway at Cam Rahn Bay but survived) and he knew I was (at the time) an Air Force brat. He yelled down the hall to me and we watched it together. Nobody else at the firm had any idea why we were so excited.
Colonel, USAF JAGC (Ret)