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Posted on 09/29/2026 2:49:10 PM PDT by george76
This is not an easy undertaking.
...
The SR-71 program was scrapped decades ago. There are few people alive who remember how the engines were designed and built.
And yet, it seems NASA is getting the gang back together:
...
Mike Relja, a retiree in his late 70s, received an unexpected job offer from NASA about a month ago.
The assignment: Help put a former NASA-operated Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird back in the air after a nearly 27-year hiatus.
Relja, an ex-U.S. Air Force and NASA test engineer for the SR-71A, could not believe his ears. David Ash, a former U.S. Navy and Joby test pilot who was hired in June as a special projects director for NASA, asked Relja to provide his expertise for a secret effort to return a long-retired and neglected Blackbird to flight.
'I told the guy, "You know, I'm too old to be doing this,'" Relja recalls to Aviation Week. "‘I wish you well. I'd like to see you make it. It would be interesting. But I just don't think you can get there from here.'"
It appears NASA is going to try.
The SR-71 was a feat of wizardry that used new tech for the day, but ancient tech by our standards, that only a handful of people knew how to build.
Consider the special tires that were made for the plane:
...
The Blackbird was developed in the 1960s by Lockheed to fly three times the speed of sound at 85,000 feet of altitude, effectively allowing it to outrun missiles. This made it a vital tool for reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union, Vietnam, and other contested theaters throughout the Cold War.
The SR-71 still holds the world record for quickest flight between New York and London (1 hour 54 minutes) and fastest airbreathing manned aircraft.
When the program was retired in 1989, 12 of the 34 original jets had been lost due to accidents. A handful ended up in museums. NASA used a few of them until 1999.
...
But in spring 2026, a display SR-71 at the Armstrong Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base mysteriously vanished.
Now we now why.
Aviation Week confirmed that the agency approached Relja, Tim Conners, another former NASA SR-71A test engineer and others over the summer with job offers to work on the return-to-flight project for Tail No. 844.
NASA head Jared Isaacman, a pilot himself, has indicated the agency now has the goal of redeveloping "X-planes," or experimental aircraft, that push the limits of known engineering.
In the service of the first "A" in NASA, we are rebuilding our X-plane fleet,' Isaacman said. 'It will not be long before NASA is once again flying as high and as fast from decades past — and then even more.'
....
As Obi-Wan so famously reminded us, the high ground is the high ground. In an era of supersonic nuclear missiles and cheap rocket launches (thanks to SpaceX), there are new applications for high-altitude craft that can travel insanely fast. Whether for science, space travel, or national defense (just wait until U.S. Marines start dropping out of pods from suborbital craft!), there are endless applications for old tech married with the new.
An agency spokesperson declined to elaborate on Isaacman's comments or the reason for the removal of Tail No. 844 from the display position. NASA has not confirmed that the return-to-flight project exists.
....
The new plane will likely use the SR-71 as a scaffolding for an entirely new model, but that doesn't mean the plan is any less ambitious.
If they actually manage to pull it off?
It would be legendary.
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Cool!
Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird
https://rumble.com/v601czq-lockheed-sr-71-blackbird.html
It’s like trying to go back to the Saturn V rocket program, it ain’t gonna happen because those folks are close to being gone or gone already
Jake: We’re putting the band back together.
Waiter: Forget it, no way.
Elwood: We’re on a mission from God.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LPbs_g-5J8
Might as well try to build a new Great Pyramid. Even with modern tech. Go ahead. Do it!
I believe I have a book with an exploded view. Will that help?
The permitting would take decades alone!
That is exciting.
You have to wade through some cookie BS, then I got a redirect to some weird site, but the second time I was able to break through to this source story.
At some point early this year—certainly before May 17 and perhaps even before April, according to commercial satellite imagery acquired by Aviation Week—agency employees removed the SR-71A with Tail No. 844 from a display pole near the corners of Lilly and Walker Avenues at the Armstrong Flight Research Center on Edwards AFB, California.That SR-71A had stood there since about Oct. 9, 1999, the day that marked the final flight of No. 844—and of any Blackbird. NASA employees rolled the SR-71A into the hangar that once housed the Space Shuttle at Edwards...
Maybe the SR-71A exhibit inspired Porsche to put three 911s on poles in Stuttgart. (we were there ten days ago -- it's really cool!)
I have a dumb question: Don’t we have aircraft which have already replace the SR-71?
Seems like a lot of people say “We’ve got stuff that’s decades ahead.”
Some of the new stuff is hot garbage compared to some of the older stuff.
Why are we using B-52s and A-10’s otherwise?
Just sent this to a buddy who was a WSO on the Blackbird in the 70s.
There are a couple of companies developing hypersonic multi-cycle engines. The technical problem is getting that ram cycle up to about mach 2.5 before you drop it into ran-mode. My theory is that they need an airframe with a large engine bays to accommodate these long engines. Well, the Pratt & Whitney J-58’s are already removed from that bird, and they have a heat resistant airframe for free.
My money’s on them reactivating probably just one to be the chase plane for test flights of the new SR-72.
Why? Because the SR-71 was difficult to maintain, and operate. And it’s no longer anywhere near invulnerable to AAA. Today there are numerous missiles that have the range to catch it and a max velocity of up to Mach 6.
Plus, the new stuff can be fired in salvos, maybe three at a time. So if the target maneuvers to evade one, it’s simply flying into the flight path of one of the others. The SR-71 is stealthy, particularly for it’s time, but not good enough any more.
I can’t imagine any scenario under which it would be a cost-affective solution to any 21st Century problem, so my guess the use won’t be operational. It can’t keep up with the SR-72 at full suck, but it can go fast enough to monitor operation with the scramjets engaged.
Or the underground nuclear test program.
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