Posted on 11/01/2013 4:22:41 PM PDT by njslim
Aviation Week's Guy Norris has an exclusive article on the successor for the Lockheed Martin SR-71 Blackbird, the legendary spy plane that may be the favorite of every airplane nerd in the world. The hypersonic SR-72 is the first aircraft that can fit perfectly in Star Wars or Galactica, a true space age ship.
Not bad for a tweak of an early 50's design J58........though I'm sure the inlet spikes and rest of the engine are all digital control now. if not a brand new design.
Isn't that because the engine (due to those pointy nose cones and the design) becomes a RAMJET ?
There is an internationally accepted speed record for aircraft set from a fixed point in international waters off of England to a fixed point off of New York.
In the 70’s an SR-71 set that record going from NY to England.
The SR-71 was ordered to do an in flight refueling. This fact was not released to the public at the time. They did it so the USSR wouldn’t be able to calculate its top speed.
I don’t know much about how the engines worked.
He has another book called "The Untouchables" that is only available as overpriced used copies that I take has tales of some of his missions.
Ramjets are ultra neat in "the faster they go, the faster they go" and only material temperature limits hold them back. I am still in awe that this engine was designed in the 50s. Far too monstrous for use in anything but something like the big SR-71 and very thirsty. It might have been the engine used in the B-70, can't remember.
The top speed was faster than the official cross country record set by the SR-71 at the Air and Space museum annex on its delivery flight. They had a fuel pump problem during that flight slow them down. I was told that by someone who was there when it took off. He also said some in the program had thought about pushing it and setting as fast a record as possible. They called up the engine manufacturer to ask what the real engine temperature limits were, but finally decided that delivering an intact bird to the museum was more important than showing off its limits.
Ah, the “slowest” story ... now I don’t need to post it myself.
To which the only possible reply is "Ho! Ho! Ho!"
As am I. And I 'worked' Blackbirds many times, sorta. Actually, once they go above 60,000 they go 'operational' and do not talk to controllers again until descending past 60K to land. They did have to refuel fairly often, and had to descend to around 28,000 to fill up from a KC. These were scheduled in advance, we'd be working the tanker in an AR Route that was kept sterile for them.
With the tanker established in the AR, the BB would appear, right on time (ALWAYS) at 60K, descending. He'd ease up, tank for about 10 minutes, accelerate and climb thru 60K and....gone.
His airspeed and altitude always displayed when at 60K or below. Above 60K his transponder automatically went to standby, so as far as ATC radars were concerned he was invisible. Our raw radar capabilities were nowhere good enough to track him, let alone see him at all.
When he came down for the tanking evolution we never talked to him, had to communicate thru the tanker if we needed anything from him.
So I kinda raise my eyebrows over the "SC" and Mach 5 comments.
“The SR-71 remains to this day the only aircraft rated to run in full continuous afterburner.”
http://www.habu.org/sr-71/17968.html
—
Barry Goldwater was the 1st non-rated pilot to fly the U-2, SR-71 and B-1.
http://www.azcentral.com/specials/special25/articles/0602GoldwaterFacts01-ON.html
Listing of all Personnel who Flew the Blackbirds
http://www.sr71.us/Supp_BBook.htm
221 VIP Senator MajGen Goldwater Barry 2-Apr-69
Aurora...shhhhhh...
Don’t be silly. There is no Aurora. There never was an Aurora. Didn’t happen. Those contrails were a...uh...a weather balloon. Yeah, that’s it.
30 years ago, while I was in college, my two room mates and I were all Military Science students and the university had what was (and still is) considered one of the best aerospace programs in the country.
One of our instructors was a former SR71 pilot. Heck of an instructor, too. One day outside of class, we asked him about the top IAS he saw on his SR71... He wouldn’t give us a number, but advised us the he watched as the leading edges of the wings turned neon blue with heat. He said he had always wanted to have a rear view camera so that he could watch the missles fired at him run out of fuel and fall back to earth... Before we could ask for an explanation of that statement, he held his finger in the air and then moved it across his lips in a “be quite” motion. He then smiled and walked away... I never herd him make a statement I felt was false, so I always wondered where he was when he outran the SAMS.
We had another instructor that was about 6’5” that flew F86 Sabres in Korea... He always laughed and said he didn’t get into the F86 - he walked up to it and put it on! :-)
Those were good days!!!
That had to be project Santa Claus...A late delivery system that left that contrail.;-)
I’m just relating to you what he told me.
Is there a list of those who flew U2?
TNX
Thanks for the Blackbird ping.
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