Posted on 12/28/2016 8:20:44 PM PST by BulletBobCo
Who cares? It’s a story, a rather good one at that......’MERICA!!!!
You are correct. And the Space Shuttle was nothing without the strap-on rockets, unlike the Blackbird which I admire.
I saw the first Space Shuttle launch from US 1 in Titusville. I saw in person the Challenger explosion from Melbourne, FL. I saw two shuttle night launches from the VIP area at Kennedy Space Center.
I saw a Saturn 5 in the Vehicle Assembly Building for a moon flight.
I regret that I never saw a SR-71!
My favorite SR-71 story (which I read here on Free Republic) dealt with a craft that did an unauthorized low-level pass over a retired RAF field. some Some sort of scout troop was visiting the base and had been promised “a special visit” by some aircraft during the day. Apparently, the effort it took to bring the craft so low and slow (so that buildings weren’t subjected to a sonic boom) for an approach not intended for a landing brought it close to a stall.
True or not, it was a story I read here!
Two paintings on my office wall next to the 71 is “Lightship” - a night launch. Another is “Cape Winds” (shuttle creeping on a transporter towards the pad & tower).
Made many trips to T’ville back in the early 90’s (a GF was the sister-in-law of the Shuttle Simulator chief engineer). With all the trips there and special access I never saw a launch - all postponed and I had to get back to work in Alaska - bummer. But it sure was interesting and fun.
While I knew Bill I never saw a 71 in flight - only on the ground.
Thant is this one: http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-sr-71-blackbirds-most-spectacular-flyover-was-also-1719654907
Both do land on the earth, at least using landing gear, one way or the other.
I was lucky enough to have twice viewed SR-71s in flight... both at Edwards, both NASA operated. The first was while visiting (then) Dryden Flight Research Center... the main building had a map of the dry lake bed and runways painted on the roof to orient the visitors. While we were on the roof, an SR-71 departed... um... that was loud. The second wasn’t during the Edwards AFB air show a few years later... great air show that year: first public F-22 flight, B2 demonstration, x-15 pilots on hand answering questions, and a SR71 Mach 3 flyby... a speck darting across the sky that was long gone by the time the boom hit us. Have not been as lucky with launches... delayed the one time I was in the neighborhood with access.
That’s just Dennis Kucinich in his flying saucer.
There’s no telling what Trump will do.
I made the mistake, with a buddy, of taking a shortcut through their hanger once.
Thank you for that.
Well, the fuel leaking at the seams confirms what my friend’s dad told me about the blackbird, that it would leak jet fuel all over the runway when taking off.
Only one sighting of one in flight at a Pt Mugu airshow when one did a flyby. Not supersonic, dammit. Still unearthly with that dull black paint and shape. Looked more like a space plane than an aircraft. Seeing a static display at Miramar years later, was shocked at how huge the thing was.
The space shuttle actually did not have a main booster. The thing in the middle was just a big tank that fueled the 3 engines on the orbiter during take off. According to Wikipedia, each of the three orbiter engines had 393,800 pounds of thrust at lift off and each solid rocket booster had 2,800,000.
* * *
1900 knts is way faster than Mach 2. In fact 1900 knts at 80,000 feet is over mach 3.
There is a another story in Sled Driver that goes along the same lines. Pilots requesting to fly at higher altitutes to show off. Some fighter joke request 50 or 60 thousand feet. He gets cleared and then the SR71 requests 80,000 the controller says and just how do you think your going to climb to 80,000? And the sled driver says “we want to descent to 80,000”.
Re the “have you been to Frankfurt” joke.
Two other versions etc.
German citizen to a British visitor. “Have you ever been to Frankfurt before?”
Britisher: “Yeah, in 1944 to bomb it”.
TRUE STORY: A friend of mine, F-4 pilot off of two carriers during the VN war, call sign “ Sundowner 1”, and I were talking about Vietnam.
I asked him how did he like the country. He said, “I never landed there but I bombed it, both the North and the South.”
A couple weeks ago at his 71st birthday, we were talking about this very saying, and he said that when he would go into a Vietnamese restaurant in No. Virginia and saw a map of the country, he would go up to it and unconsciously say out loud, as he recognized places, “I bombed this, and that, and that...” and then stopped for fear of upsetting the owners and patrons.
I once asked a helicopter pilot if he ever went to Vung Tau (which had a beautiful beach, if you didn’t mind the signs that said “Landmines”). He said, “Yes, I crashed into the bay there”.
Curly, a DC policeman classmate in one of our police science classes, told me that he was a helicopter pilot on Search and Rescue (SAR) missions. I asked him if he was ever shot down and he said, yes, about 15 times - in No. Vietnam, Laos, and So. Vietnam.
He had to be one of the toughest cops ever - short, wiry, and Vice Squad. I’d trust him with my life.
These are the guys who made America great.
PS: A B-52 flew near my house about two weeks ago. Had to be coming out of Andrews AF Base (now Join Base Andrews). Needed an oil job because the black smoke trail it left.
Once saw a B-1 take off from Andrews. Never saw a plane go down a runway and lift off at a 45* angle. What at sight?
#26: Superman going out for a pizza.
great shot ! Dad’s down there somewhere
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