Posted on 02/07/2015 10:23:21 AM PST by rey
Built and designed in the 1960s after the A-12 Oxcart, the SR-71 Blackbird is still the fastest, most vanguardist air-breathing airplane in the history of aviation. These once classified photos reveal how Lockheed built both birds in secret, in California. They look taken at the Rebel base in Hoth.
"Everything had to be invented"
The A-12 and the SR-71 were a completely different design from anything else before it—and everything after, as time has demonstrated. At the time, many of the technologies needed to make these airplanes were considered "impossible." And yet, thanks to Kelly Johnson and the amazing team at engineers and scientists at Lockheed's Skunk Works, they were invented from scratch—in twenty months.
(Excerpt) Read more at sploid.gizmodo.com ...
Someone more adept at posting pictures will have to help out.
478 total people have flown the Blackbirds. More people have climbed to the top of Mount Everest than has flown this aircraft.
Although a few Lockheed crewmembers were killed during the testing stages of the Blackbird, the U.S. Air Force never lost a man in the entire 25 years of active service.
The SR-71 flew for 17 straight years (1972-1989) without a loss of plane or crew. Considering the environment the Blackbirds flew in, that is an enviable safety record.
What a wonderful country this was when Presidents worried about titanium for airplanes for defense instead of titanium for golf clubs for longer drives.
My Uncle(Dead now) worked on that plane-electronics tech. When I see it a great sense of sadness comes over me-we ain’t got Kelly Johnson no mo!
what is one of the most amazing things about this aircraft is that they could roll out out of the museum, blow the dust off of it and as soon as it hit the runway, it would be the baddest boy on the block.
Museum of flight in Seattle has an M-21 Blackbird. Went there last summer. Great museum.
Same era when we went to the moon. Will we see the likes of these men again?
Hopefully pride can replace the sadness. The plane is an amazing feat.
We have one parked out in front of the Space & Rocket Center here in Huntsville. And I bought the Hallmark ornament of the SR-71 Blackbird. They sold out here.
(Brings me back to my USAF days as a young Airman who worked on these fantastic airplanes.)
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One of the guides told the following story:
The US didn't have sufficient quantities of titanium to build these airplanes so the CIA set up a dummy trading company in South America. This company made contact with a Russian company that had titanium and the finished materials for the project came from the USSR via Brazil.
The M-21 was a two-seater with the extra seat designated for the drone launch officer. The drones were to be flown over territory “too hot” for the Blackbird. It is believed the drone system was never used. Only two M-21 birds were built.
The Evergreen Museum in McMinnville Oregon has an SR-71 on display as well as the Spruce Goose, a Me-262, a B-17, a Spitfire, and a whole passel of other military and civilian aircraft.
It’s well worth a visit. One could spend a couple of days there. Go in the morning, as there is SO much to see.
Get over it. They didn’t build this. Everyone knows the Government builtd it for them. Just ask Zero.
(Isn’t amazing what we could once do in this country when Government was one heck of a lot smaller!)
I saw an interview with a pilot who flew one over Libya when they were being especially bad.
He described how the radar detection lit up and he knew missiles had been fired.
He opened the throttle and he said the plane just wanted to fly faster and faster. When he finally eased off, it was nearly to wherever he was going.
“What a wonderful country this was when Presidents worried about titanium for airplanes for defense instead of titanium for golf clubs for longer drives.”
You win the entire Internet today for this comment.
This article left out the contributions of muslims and LGBT service members without which the plane would never have flown...
Stationed at Mountain Home AFB 1967-1968.. SR71 landed there.. When He took off Went straight up. Then He went around and did a High speed Fly by... Wow that plane is fast...
“The SR-71 flew for 17 straight years (1972-1989) without a loss of plane or crew. Considering the environment the Blackbirds flew in, that is an enviable safety record.”
As I recall, there was at least one which crashed in Oklahoma.
Perhaps you meant that no SR-71 was ever lost due to enemy action?
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