Fascinating photos reveal how they built the SR-71 Blackbird

SPLOID Gizmodo.com ^ | 7 Feb 2015 | Jesus Diaz

[brooklin]

bookmark

[tacticalogic]

Nice.

I halfway expected to see Brian Williams in the cockpit.

[huldah1776]

Don’t you think the nation exists but that there has to be someone who is willing to gather the people with the right stuff and git-r-done?

[Fresh Wind]

Great stories!

[Fresh Wind]

Great story!

[Eric in the Ozarks]

A U-2 pilot was a family friend when we lived in Japan in the 1950s. He was 100 percent American Indian.

[jttpwalsh]

Glad you enjoyed !

[tenger]

These threads really annoy me because I am forced to surf for another hour looking at these planes and their specs, looking at their sister planes, then inevitably finding some RC135 threads to see how much has changed since we flew on them.

Happy to say, not much has changed, and it's still one of the better kept secrets in the military. I'm sure I wouldn't recognize the interiors of these birds what with 30 years of upgrades, but the noise would always be deafening inside.

[nuconvert]

I don’t know. Here’s their website

http://www.collingsfoundation.org/menu.htm

[353FMG]

The coolest plane of WWII, the P-38 in my opinion, was also a Kelly Johnson brain child.

The guy was a genius.

[jttpwalsh]

Thanks for both your reply, and your service !

[SunTzuWu]

Bookmark.

[Mean Daddy]

My cousin was one of the main superintendents on the SAC museum by Ashland, Nebraska. They moved one from Bellevue to the new location, a distance of 30 miles. Took them several hours. The TV did a story about it taking longer to move the 30 miles due to taking wires down etc. then it did to fly cross country.

[CopperTop]

"..20 months is all Kelly Johnson and the Skunkworks magicians needed. All without the massive computer power available today.."

In wayyy much more time than this, and I'd wager prolly more money as well, our current administration failed at a website.

**sigh**

[bicyclerepair]

Now our military is the most under staffed and all kinds of dykes and poofters are involved.

How sad, the sheep of this country have no idea what evil they’ve unleashed on this country by electing this POS twice.

[zot]

Thanks for the ping. Very good!

[cyclotic]

The photo from the article would look great with Brian Williams, the real pilot’s photo instead of that obvious imposter.

[yarddog]

The P-38 was a cool plane.

When I was a kid, I had cheap models of every common WWII fighter and bomber. To me the Spitfire and ME-109 were probably the most beautiful ever.

Actually liked the P-40 too.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

Designed 55 years ago, and it still looks futuristic.

[ThomasPaine2000]

WOW, I need to take a cold shower now... The SR-71 was a beautiful “Cold War Warrior”.