Posted on 10/06/2016 7:37:27 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
Then disaster struck. On May 24, an A-12 stalled, went into an unrecoverable spin and crashed during a test flight in Utah. Fortunately, pilot Kenneth Collins ejected and survived.
Even in remote Utah, it’s hard to hide a crash. A local deputy witnessed the incident and a vacationing family snapped away with a camera. The CIA promptly seized their photographs and paid $25,000 each to the deputy and the family to keep quiet, according to a 2010 story in the Seattle Times.
The Blackbird wouldn’t stay officially secret for much longer. Pres. Lyndon Johnson would run for election in 1964, and to counter criticisms from Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater, revealed the SR-71 during a speech on July 25.
More than a half-century later, the SR-71 is a museum piece. But secret aircraft projects, and strange sightings over the western United States, have not stopped. When observers notice and publicize their suspicions, an anonymous official is somewhere, surely, typing away notes.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalinterest.org ...
Very nice!
Interesting that most of the load is on the landing gear,to dampen road shock, yet the nose appears to be in a rigid mount(photo 5).
Also the photo of ‘lunch break’ with the crew, one guy in a TRENCH COAT! Was that issue?
An enjoyable read!
I’ve got about a roll of pictures of an SR-71 on its final landing at Wright-Patterson before being put into the museum there. The weather had to be perfect to be able to land on the short runway behind the museum.
WOW!
Lots of ‘good stuff’!
Wing panels that were spot welded
in the summer failed within six or seven weeks, but
those made in the winter lasted indefinitely. The
problem was traced to Burbank’s water, which was
heavily chlorinated in the summer to prevent algae
growth but not in the winter. Switching to distilled
water to wash the panels after acid treatment
prevented a recurrence. When bolt heads dropped
off under high heat, Skunk Works troubleshooters
found that cadmium-plated wrenches left enough
residue to weaken the fittings. Hundreds of tool
boxes had to be inspected to get rid of the nowuseless
implements.
A modified version of an engine designed for
another program four years earlier, the jet generated as much power as the turbines
of the ocean liner the Queen Mary.—160,000 horsepower
or over 32,000 pounds of thrust.
Rich and his colleagues did
much of the testing in wind tunnels at a NASA facility
in northern California. They had to work mostly at
night because the tests drained too much electricity
from the local power grid during the day.
On the second pass toward
Hanoi and Haiphong from the west, at least six
missiles were fired from sites around the capital. The
A-12 was flying at Mach 3.1 at 84,000 feet. Looking
out the rear-view periscope, Sullivan reported
seeing six vapor trails go up to about 90,000 feet
behind the aircraft, arc over, and begin converging
on it. He saw four missiles—one as close as 100
to 200 yards away—and three detonations behind
the A-12. Six missile contrails appeared on mission
photography.
727 Landing Meigs Field, Chicago Museum Science and Industry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV4tgjSPgks
You can see this 727 inside Chicago’s Museum of Scince and Industry!
The runway at Meigs Field was nearly 3,900 by 150 ft.
The plane was flying a mile every 1.6 seconds, well above our Mach 3.2 limit. It was the fastest we would ever fly. I pulled the throttles to idle just south of Sicily , but we still overran the refueling tanker awaiting us over Gibraltar.
http://www.vfp62.com/sr-71.html
At $400.00, a most expensive book!
Back in 1970 I was a DOD contractor working at Otis AFB on Cape Cod doing Avionics and Electronics, mostly at that time on RB-57B’s and EC-57’s.
Working the night shift, I was dragooned by an AF Major and two armed MP’s and taken to a runway off in the woods that I didn’t even know existed.
There I found a big black beast surrounded by light towers, and literally dripping fuel. I had been around long enough to immediately know what it was, but it was still an awesome sight.
I was pointed to a panel and told the problem was in there.
I then asked, “What’s it supposed to do?”
Major - “You’re not cleared for that.”
That was surprising to me since due to some previous government work, I knew I had the highest security clearance in our company, higher even than my bosses, which really pissed them off, who kept wanting to know what I worked on to need one that high. It didn’t help when I told them they weren’t cleared for that. LOL
When I next asked about schematics, specs, anything, I was again told, “You’re not cleared for that.”
Pulling the panel and taking it back to the shop, I noticed the MP’s seemed a lot more nervous, looking around like they were afraid Russians were going to swoop in and steal this panel of relays.
Back at the shop, I started ringing out each relay coil and contact until I found a bad one, and replaced it.
The Major now wanted to go, but I told him I wanted to finish checking ALL the relays. He was mad, but quickly cooled off when I found two more bad ones.
Back at the plane, I reinstalled the panel, and waited while the pilot powered up and ran some checks. Then after a few minutes, he gave a thumbs up and we were back in the jeep heading back to the shop.
Dropping me off, the Major said, “You were never there.”
I looked back at him and said, “Where?” and smiled.
He said, “Right.” and drove off.
Thinking I was done, I was surprised to see the Major show up again the next night. He then thanked me, and said that besides the original problem, I had also fixed a couple of small nagging writeups that no one had been able to fix before.
That’s what happens when you don’t start with the basics.
***I’ve got about a roll of pictures of an SR-71***
I remember when you could almost be SHOT for doing that at Beale AFB!
Yikes!! I just checked and saw it available through Amazon for $417 and up.
I think I'll hold on to my copy for a while.
No one saw this coming.
Worked with Ken Collins for a couple years, though he was a program manager and I a lowly engineer.
I finally scored a used copy of "The Untouchables" by Schul for a reasonable price.
Amazing story.
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