Posted on 02/05/2005 3:15:15 PM PST by Indy Pendance
Edited on 02/05/2005 3:17:49 PM PST by Lead Moderator. [history]
The coolest spy plane ever built, SR-71. I was watching Modern Marvels on the History channel last night. This aircraft broke all kinds of international speed and altitude records which still have not been beaten today. It was nothing for them to fly at 80,000 feet and it was a piece of cake to fly at about mach 3, or about 2100 mph. For those of you old enough, remember the sonic boom days? About 750 miles would create a sonic boom, or a doppler effect.
Here's the question, this plane was so fast, it was faster than the earth's rotation. What would happen with time over a long sustainable period of flying time? If it goes faster than the earth's rotation long enough, will it be ahead of time when it lands, or likewise in the opposite direction, will it go back in time. Do you think Einstein has an answer? Saturday night ponderings.
As to the time argument, 23 hrs is 23 hrs; a more interesting notion is, with a well thought out launch site, could the pilot pick up an extra day's pay?
And it was the second time he did it. The orginal design to meeet the CIA's Project Oxcart specification was the A-12 (with by that time, corresponding F-12, RB-12 Fighter & bomber versions). But Prez Johnson announcced it as the "A-11", so they declared that was the Lockeed name for the A-12 project.
I have the answer for you but I'm not telling you because you will never, ever have the opportunity to fly in that time altering jet. Just let it go .........
OK, I'll simplify it for you: Flying in that jet will get you from point A to point B faster than someone flying in another plane attempting to get from point C to point B assuming of course that point C is equidistant from point B as point A.....
Each will have aged the same considering the fact that the pilot of the fast jet will have had time to hang out and down a couple of beers while waiting for the slower jet to arrive.
In the whole space/time continuum thing, the main point that scientists never seem to factor into their equations is the "wait" factor. What that means is that while you may have developed the way to get from her to there via a time warp, there ain't nothing there till the rest of us catch up.......So whats the point? Hurry up and wait........
They go forward in time, as do we all.
When LBJ first announced the airplane, it was known as the YF-12A.
11 for the SR-71A, 1 for SR-71B. The YF-12A and A-12 suffered 2 and 5 respectively.
The Air Force actually did this with an SR-71. The abandoned the experiment because the plane almost colided with its own tail.
Don't be messin' with my favorites !
LOL
Oh yeah?
Immediately prior there was an RS-70. Never were anything in a series before the SR-71
Looks like a mid-air engine restart.
Something Blackbirds had to do a lot.
Hopefully interesting side note:
I worked at Lockheed to earn college $ in the '60s. (F-104's)
People on the U-2 side of the house talked about go carts and such,
we were utterly denied any sight or sound.
But I've been told that folks working across the runway sat out in the noon-day sun to eat their lunch in plain view of ready to deliver (late at night) blackbirds.
Has anyone else noticed that the U2 looks almost just like an F104 with real long wings?
That and I'm kind of partial to A Salty Dog too.
Your right. Kelly Johnson based the U-2 design on the F-104.
There's a difference between 1/2 and 1/200000000. Both are fractions :)
From a website:
"Several Russian cosmonauts have spent a year or more in Earth orbit on the space station Mir. Their orbital velocity, about 7700 metres per second . . . each second on board Mir, 1.00000000033 seconds pass on Earth. For every second you age on Earth, the cosmonaut in orbit ages 3 nanoseconds less. This doesn't seem like much, but it adds up; after a year the cosmonaut's watch will be 3.8 seconds behind your earthbound timepiece."
***Only one SR-71 crashed, at Edwards, ***
Nonsense.
I was at Beale AFB in 1968 when we watched takeoffs and landings of the SR-71.
One flew over, then came in for a landing. There was a big puff of smoke at the end of the runway from the direction he was landing and the firetrucks, APs (Apes as we called the Air Police then, now Sp) and assorted vehicles rushed to that end of the runway.
Rumor had it that the AF only had 3 Blackbirds, but this was the 4th to crash, and others were still on the ground.
Blue feather II clearance.
I worked on the KC-135s TDY from Little Rock AFB.
Sorry...missed it.
I second that! My sons, when they saw the SR71 up close were simply awestruck. My middle son said "Dad, we've gotta get one of those!" He's 4...
The Lorentz transformations give the changes in mass, time and length in relation to velocity. Basically, the rest value (rest mass, rest length etc.) is altered by a factor known as tau, which is the square root of 1 minus the apparent velocity as a fraction of the velocity of light. At 1/2 the speed of light, or .5c, tau = SQR (1 - .5), or .8660. So length is 87% of rest length, time slows to 87% of rest time and mass is 1/.87 of rest mass, or 1.15 times greater.
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