I saw one fly ( the SR-71 ) a few years ago at Edwards...
Wow!
They're incredible. I really hated to see them retired.
NASA still uses the SR-71 out of Edwards.
Or at least, they did until recently.
A friend of mine used to be a Flight Engineer on the SR-71 with NASA. She is the woman with the most supersonic time in world. Pretty cool distinction.
dd
Sled driver Brian Shul has a great book out on the SR-71.
I was at the Reno Air Races, maybe 15 years ago, when the SR-71 was known about, but virtually no one had seen one in person, or had seen one fly.
The air show was going on between races, and the SR arrived in the airspace, perhaps 10k feet agl, directly over the airport. The whole crowd of thousands jumped to their feet and started craning their eyes straight up and pointing at the Blackbird. The poor aerobatic guy doing his act was completely ignored as everyone followed the SR as it orbited the field waiting for the airspace to clear.
He did a nice pass and lit the burners. I've never seen an airshow crowd so jazzed up by an airplane in my life. It was like seeing a legend for the first time.