SR-71 Blackbird: The Cold War's ultimate spy plane

BBC ^ | 2 July 2013 | Stephen Dowling

[sukhoi-30mki]

Inventive engines The plane travelled so fast that the engine inlets needed special inlet spikes to slow down the supersonic air so that it didn't shatter the engines. (Copyright: Stephen Dowling)

[yadent]

Used to watch the SR-71 fly out of the Palmdale, CA ‘skunk works’ facility from my 2nd story condo balcony. Quite a sight!!

[DManA]

If they built this 50 thirty years ago, imagine what they are capable of today.

[NonValueAdded]

More interesting reading: Early years...SR-71...ever wonder how it got from there to there?

[taildragger]

If they built this 50 thirty years ago, imagine what they are capable of today.

Really, not with the EPA, NIOSH, and every other alphabet soup apparatchiks clogging up the works so men of science can't perform their black-magic. Unless in the "dark world" they throw out all the crap so the job can get done..

[Vince Ferrer]

And the coolest looking plane ever.

[DManA]

From that site:

The Soviet Union actually helped build the Blackbird: "The airplane is 92% titanium inside and out. Back when they were building the airplane the United States didn't have the ore supplies - an ore called rutile ore. It's a very sandy soil and it's only found in very few parts of the world. The major supplier of the ore was the USSR. Working through Third World countries and bogus operations, they were able to get the rutile ore shipped to the United States to build the SR-71."

[ASA Vet]

There was a freeper here a few years ago, who was one of the SR-71 pilots.

[cripplecreek]

I doubt regulations get in their way. I don’t recall the number but Clinton issued an executive order that allowed military R&D to get a pass from environmental regs for this sort of thing.

[DManA]

Big irony in the BBC web page name - Future Technology

[RedMDer]

Help End FReepathons by Donating Monthly!
Generous FReeper Sponsors are donating $10 for every New Monthly Donor!
Please Sign Up to Donate Monthly!

[DManA]

The future was so much more exciting 50 years ago.

[martin_fierro]

[sport]

I agree.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Sad but true.

[Gaffer]

We called it the Habu

[PapaBear3625]

Inventive engines The plane travelled so fast that the engine inlets needed special inlet spikes to slow down the supersonic air so that it didn't shatter the engines. (Copyright: Stephen Dowling)

The Pratt & Whitney J58 engines are variable-geometry. Below Mach 1.6, it functions as a regular turbojet. At high speeds, the intake shifts, and turns it into a ramjet.

[real saxophonist]

Somewhere there is a picture of me standing in front of an SR-71 with my hand on its nose. This was at Robins AFB about 20 years ago, before they built the indoor museum. They just had all these planes in their 'back yard', as it were. You could just walk right up and touch them. There was a U-2 by the SR-71.

I always thought that was funny, because not too many years earlier, at an air show at that very same Robins AFB, there was an SR-71 on display, cordoned off, couple of guys with M-16s, signs saying 'Use of deadly force authorized', and the pilot answering every question with 'That's classified'.

[umgud]

If they built this 50 thirty years ago, imagine what they are capable of today.

Imagine what they're flying today we don't know about.