[commish]

If you want to get really technical it was originally the A-12, and flown as a prototype for the AF as the YF-12. She was originally planned to be a fighter/interceptor.

I had the priviledge of working with the 9SRW at Beale afb for 4 years as a Mission Programmer for the Blackbird.

Spent many a night listening to the sound of freedom as an SR that had just returned from doing it's job of protecting this great nation sat in the burnoff area with her engines roaring.

There is no sight more beautiful than an SR-71 roaring down the runway with those twin Blue flames trailing behind her

[Flightdeck]

Thanks for the info. I know the windshield would be hot to the touch for the pilots even with leather gloves because of the friction. And the plane was almost sunk until Kelly Johnson invented the aerospikes.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

I had a person tell me, that he worked on the SR - 71 black bird, and he told me that they had to use V - 8 car engines to start the engines on the Blackbird, and many a time, they would ruin those V - 8 car engines just starting the plane, is that true ?

[GW and Twins Pawpaw]

I was privileged to see one at Oshkosh do a flyby. After it came from Edwards in under an hour, refueled over Lake Michigan, then flew in formation over the field with a KC-135 and an FA-18. I have no idea why the fighter was there since it couldn't keep up with the SR-71 either in speed or altitude.:-)

[Michael121]

And coming back a little hotter and a little longer to boot.

[Phsstpok]

I thought the YF-12 was the proposed fighter derivitive of what ended up as the SR-71. The thing I remember about that plane was that, first, it was faster than bullets, literally, so they couldn't arm it with guns. Therefore they came up with a missle specifically for it's use. Though they dropped the fighter variant, they kept the missle for other planes and dubbed it the Phoenix.

A couple of folks who should know have told me that's wrong. A couple who should know have told me that's the way it was. It still gets the point across about the planes speed.

I saw the SR-71 in person in what I understand to be one of the first times it was shown to the public. We were visiting a friend at Travis AFB who was waiting for a MAC flight to his home in Hawaii. He was retired due to injuries in Vietnam and could fly free, but he was waiting for weeks because it was in the middle of the PATCO strike, so anyone who could fly MAC was and a retired Marine grunt was WAY down the list. They had an airshow up a Travis so we used the excuse to go spend time with him ("meet me under the wing of the B-52" were his instructions). That would have been in 1981.

They had the SR71 on display but kept the public about 30 feet away, behind ropes, with armed guards around it. The pilot (I think a Colonel) was at the rope line talking to the public. When asked how fast the plane could fly he told a story "he had heard, but couldn't vouch for." 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. A Russian Mig was flying that route to set the record and prove the superiority of Soviet airplanes. About halfway across the Atlantic an SR-71 sidled up along side the Mig, the American pilot waved at his Russian counterpart, smiled and waved, then hit the afterburners. The SR-71 left the Mig far behind. The Russian turned around and went home at that point.

I bet the story is apocryphal, but I love it.

[Zack Nguyen]

There is no sight more beautiful than an SR-71 roaring down the runway with those twin Blue flames trailing behind her.

In Dick Helms autobiography, he describes standing on the runway at a "secret airbase" (Area 51 at Groom Lake I guess) when they lit off both engines to take off. He said it made him jump about 6 feet.

[knews_hound]

For years, I lived in Foresthill, a very small town about 20 miles South of Colfax.

I apparently lived in the return flightpath and would hear on warm summer nights, a unearthly rumble that resembled an earthquake more than an airplane.

I always reveled in that sound of power.

Cheers,

knews hound

[Moiraine]

What years were you there? I was there (as a D-brat) from the summer of '65 to the summer of '67. They held an open house when they got the first one and we all got to go see it. After that, seeing it flying around was a common occurrence.