Posted on 01/12/2018 11:43:02 AM PST by Red Badger
All but about 4 or so. NASA has one or two for research and the AF kept a couple for special uses..................
Better plan to spend an entire day at W-P — including the Museum Annexes Believe me, it’s worth it!
There is also a 1967 A-12 at the Intrepid Museum in Manhattan, NYC right on the West Hudson River. You can walk right up to it.
https://www.intrepidmuseum.org/AircraftCollection
I got to see an SR-71 up close at an air show in SoCal (at the now defunct Norton AFB). Near the end of the show, it did a slow pass down the runway, lit the afterburners and was GONE! An awesome sight.......
Thanks. I'll do that.
When I was in the Air Force at Offutt we had an Air Show and one showed up.
We saw it take off the next day. After it rotated and lifted it’s wheels, it accelerated horizontally at about 200-300 feet until it got just past the end of the runway. Then it went vertical until it disappeared.
Consider that the SR-71 was designed 50 years ago, it is inconceivable that there hasn’t been a successor developed and flown in the last five decades.
Cool. That is quite the collections of planes at the Intrepid.
Was privileged to see a pre-dawn takeoff from the flight line near the T/O end of the runway. The climb was so rapid that the U-2 was up into the sunlight -- seemingly before it reached the other end of the runway!
Jaw-dropping -- until I saw a RB-57F takeoff...
I saw one this summer at the USS Alabama memorial. Reached up and touched it. Way cool.
I just want to know one question, Is the son a leaker like his dad. ;-)
Actually, it is understandable when you consider there is no longer a Clarence “Kelly” Johnson around to develop that successor.
This historical static display is located next to the Air Force Flight Test Museum at Edwards Air Force Base. Created by the USAF Museum Program, this park allows visitors close view of several aircraft and was officially dedicated on September 27th, 1991.
The remarkable stories of how these aircraft were developed are told in "Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed" by Ben R. Rich.
That looks more like a lifting body test vehicle. One that is strapped to a B52 and dropped from high altitude to test the flight dynamics.
Used to the lifting body used in the shuttle program flying into the Edwards recovery runway in the early 70s.
Of course not. That would cause more global warming................
Yes...and no.
There is only so much that can be done with aeronautics and material strengths and friction heat.
Make no mistake, the SR-71 was probably the most revolutionary plane ever built, INCLUDING the Wright Flyer.
all done without CAD programs, using slide rules.
The successors have been developed and flown. Their operating altitude is 200 miles, not 20 miles, and their speed is 18,000 mph, not 3,000 mph.
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