Posted on 05/09/2023 5:48:49 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
No story on the SR-71 would be complete without an understanding and appreciation of just how valuable the KC-135Q model tankers and their crews were to the successful and safe completion of every mission.
“We had to refuel right after takeoff for only one reason, and it wasn’t because we leaked JP-7 fuel on the ground. Yes, the plane does leak fuel, but not enough to require refueling after takeoff.
“The JP-7 fuel reaches temperatures well over 300 degrees F. during Mach 3 cruise, making the fumes in each of the six fuel tanks very volatile and potentially explosive. The metal skin of the aircraft approaches 400 degrees F., adding to the volatility of the fuel inside the tanks. One of our aircraft limitations was a maximum speed of Mach 2.6 without an inert atmosphere inside the fuel tanks."
(Excerpt) Read more at theaviationgeekclub.com ...
Not to pilots!
I’m into pulsejets and ramjets as a hobby, maybe even an invention. I have a chart somewhere that shows ramjet efficiency equals turbojet at about Mach 2.4.
Find the chart after Mach 2.4 for a Ramjet.
Crew have personally told me that to date NOBODY knows how fast the SR-71 really is, because they were never allowed to reach maximum speed of the Ramjet. The Titanium airframe couldn’t take what the Ramjet could produce. They did mention that the plane was ‘rated’ to Mach 2.5, but stated they felt it was ‘much faster’.
So.....How long has the US had manned Hypersonic Nuclear bombers again? Oxcart anyone?
I LOVED the LA Speed story.
I purchased my first slide rule in high school. As I started college at UCSD, I had a 4 function Radio Shack calculator and my slide rule. I used the slide rule for a first approximation of a square root and successive approximation with my 4 function calculator, pencil and paper. The physics classes required a fairly precise answer. It was difficult to compete at times with classmates who had HP-35/HP-45 calculators. One button happiness. At the end of my first year at UCSD, I was able to afford a Casio scientific calculator that included factorial functionality. A huge win for my genetics probability courses.
My Post slide rule is still in my desk drawer.
These were on each of several desks in the construction project office. In go the numbers and they would grind away to produce an answer. Mostly cut and fill volumes from several surveyed cross sections.
There were also slide rules. Some were large ones to facilitate easier to see and finer precision. Bamboo was the most common material but the aluminum ones were more reliable in the field since they didn’t react to moisture and stick. When Dad taught slide-rule at university he used on on a rotary stand that was about six feet long. We used not just the C and D scales but lots of trig and log functions as well.
Airframe was the limitation, not the engine.....
Kinda crazy when you think about it. We know that it could do at least Mach 3.18.......
There can only be ONE, and my slide Rules.
Unfortunately, it would have been more successful if the science, engineering, and production staffs had been properly staffed with female, minority, illegal alien, and LGBT persons...
“And today’s software is miles ahead of yesteryear’s.”
Most of it is not.
log ago software was written by very smart people who had to optimize it properly, and they did
Today everything is a bloated slow gui mess, and likely uses lots of libraries. (java .net etc)
Wow, that was an incredible story of survival.
The SR-71 WAS officially designated the RS-71 (for reconnaissance/surveillance) but President Kennedy misspoke it when he revealed its existence; they then changed the designation. It came out of the Lockheed Skunkworks program.
I worked right on the flight line in the terminal at Kadena in 1970/71 and watched Habus take off and land all the time. They did leak fuel on the ground but their takeoffs (and landings) were amazing.
You’d see it barrel off on takeoff and it was gone from sight in a minute or less and landing was one very high altitude single 360 degree drop to the runway. All of them headed to or coming from west over China, I guessed. We ran a secure data link to them from the tech control I worked in.
“TI doesn’t use RPN - that was HP.”
I cannot use a regular calculator, and Nat Semi used to make some RPN calculators also.
I saw a hp at a pawn shop that they wanted way too much for.
I told them it was a worthless calculator that did not work, but that I collected stuff like that anyway.
They got offended and told me it totally worked so I asked them to multiply 3 x 5. when they failed I offered them $5
ping
What were the preferred pronouns of the SR 71 designers ?
My old HP42S LCD screen went weird, picked up two for posterity off ebay. Have a couple 300+ line programs I wrote that I cannot part with firing up to remind myself I was not always stupid.
Not totally certain that the Okinawans named the A/C. I heard that it was aircrew or other USAF peeps.
It happened before I got there, so I don't know for sure.
Yes it is, I wonder if he caught any bugs in his teeth ?
Damned lucky to end up on a Ranch with an attentive Rancher and a chopper.
—”What were the preferred pronouns of the SR 71 designers ?”
My guess; is a mostly self-selecting team of mostly males with short or no hair, and Mary Golda Ross...
“The nature of the work required immense skills, disruptive creativity, and intense focus on execution. Kelly’s team had superstars like Mary Golda Ross, who had helped fix flaws in the P-38 and became the first female Native American flight engineer. Each engineer on the team were talented, quirky, and mirrored the misfit profile of today’s developers. In the traditional era of the 40’s and 50’s though, they did not fit the ideal of model employees.”
https://www.teetee.us/skunk-works-hiring-the-outliers/
She moved to California in 1941 to seek work after the US joined World War II, on the advice of her father.[7]
Ross was hired as a mathematician by Lockheed in 1942. While there she began working on the effects of pressure on the Lockheed P-38 Lightning. The P-38 was one of the fastest airplanes designed at the time: it was the first military airplane to fly faster than 400 mph (640 km/h) in level flight.[9][10] Ross helped to solve numerous design issues involved with high speed flight and issues of aeroelasticity. Although Ross preferred working on topics surrounding interplanetary spaceflight, she later said that “If I had mentioned it in 1942, my credibility would have been questioned.”[11]
“Often at night there were four of us working until 11 p.m.,” she recalled later. “I was the pencil pusher, doing a lot of research. My state of the art tools were a slide rule and a Friden computer.”[6]
“...After the war, Lockheed sent her to UCLA for a professional certification in engineering. “She studied mathematics for modern engineering, aeronautics and missile and celestial mechanics.”[8] It was unusual for a company that hired a woman for work during the war to keep that woman once the war ended; “Gold” Ross continued to work for Lockheed.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Golda_Ross
Welcome, Apparently 50/50 for this Flight Crew. I was surprised to see even that.
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