Posted on 12/20/2009 3:47:34 PM PST by The Magical Mischief Tour
Speed 3.5+ mach
Altitude 100,000+ft.
The pilots fly in fully pressurized suits.
There are some awesome SR-71 and U-2 videos on You Tube, sorry I’m not able to post the links right now. Just do a search on SR-71. You’ll see the U-2 movies there as well...
Mark
So if you fuel it when it’s cold, they’d have to hose down the area after because jet fuel was everywhere!
There's an SR-71 video on You Tube that gives you a close-up view of the plane leaking like a sieve! And the video of the plane taking off from the rear shows a haze of fuel coming off the back of the plane as it takes off!
Mark
Yeah, quite so. As if it weren’t impressive enough.
I thought it was 80,000 or 85,000 or some where in that range.
I thought it was 80,000 or 85,000 or some where in that range.
Well, since we didn't have a active air wing at the base (other than ANG C-130's) all we got were transients so it was quite a treat for us to have such a unique bird on the ground.
As an aside, I was always amazed at the things fighter pilots flew around with. You have no idea how many broken F-16's, F-4's, F-111's and such would end up breaking down in our vicinity and, as luck would have it, the pilot would have skis on board!
Like women never say to me: “Thank you for one glorious post!!!”
That photo looks like it could have been taken from a tanker, and the fuel you see is left over from disconnect.
Great story. I have one friend who was a photographic processor (I don’t really know what the name of that job is, I just know that he processed the images taken from the camaras of the SR-71) back in the 1970s, and, of course, he could never talk about the images, ‘cause all that was under security restriction, . . .
But he told me some great stories about the plane and some of the crews he had met and discussed its photography with. Great pilots.
My dad was a pilot also in WWII. CBI. Man, he had some stories.
If true, then that is soooooooo cool and I really feel priveleged to have seen it, although by accident.
Billy Bob Thornton in Pushing Tin?
The A-12s have been distributed to various museums. For example the “blackbird” on the USS Intrepid is an A-12. There is one at the CIA headquarters as well and I know of one being at Birmingham International airport at their meager air museum. I believe another is at the Air museum in San Diego. And one more is at the blackbird air park near palmdale,CA.
The A-12 was actually faster and could fly higher than the SR-71..... The YF-12s which only 3 were built and only 1 is still in existance at the Air Force musueum in Dayton. One was lost and the first example was turned into an SR-71.
I believe that the missile system developed for the YF-12 was the basis for the Phoenix Air 2 Air missile that was used for the F-14.
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