The Photographer
Ken Hackman, United States Air Force
Via
http://ChamorroBible.org/gpw/gpw-20060917.htm (medium, large)
Posted on 04/30/2013 5:22:57 AM PDT by EnjoyingLife
The Photographer
Ken Hackman, United States Air Force
Via
http://ChamorroBible.org/gpw/gpw-20060917.htm (medium, large)
That makes me think of a photo that used to sit on the wall of our squadron (9th RTS) at Beale when I was there. We were allowed to pick an unclassified U-2 or SR-71 photo for our going away plaques, and I so wanted a copy of that photo for mine. Unfortunately it was not to be as it was not 'eligible' at that time.
The photo was of the Space Shuttle Booster Separation - Taken from ABOVE! You do the math......
"The SRBs are jettisoned from the space shuttle at high altitude, about 146,000 ft"
In mid-ocean?
Was?
What 'have blue we got now?'
I saw an SR-71 at an airshow (pre-sequester!) in SoCal many years ago. It made a “slow” and low pass over the runway, then as it reached the end, it nosed up, lit the afterburner and was just....GONE!
“Watching one take off is an experience that never grows old and is never forgotten.”
Yes indeed. It was my favorite airplane. I was privileged to work on it in ‘72. Somewhere on the plane, it used tiny little ball bearings and many of us would take one and put it on our key chain. That way, if some officer took issue with our appearance and said, “Sergeant! Where’s your military bearing?!”, we could whip out our keys and say “Right here, Sir!” I never did hear of anyone who had the guts to do it....
With respect to Hubu...was. They put one on a pedastal to determine the radar cross section. They could raise and lower it fairly quickly. As the Soviet satellites would approach they would blow a horn and quickly bring it down and cover with canvas. People would go into cover. This activity was called, “Toot and scoot”.
Yep, as would we, if we changed numbers between the 2nd fleet and 6th fleet, 3rd to 7th, 5th to 7th, etc.
The Soviets were also in the habit of towing each other about during transits. They had a "fleet in being" mentality that didn't require them to "train like you fight". They put importance on hardware availability.
The "fleet in being" mentality explains the long historical list of Russian and Sovient naval victories.
The name change from RS-71 to SR-71 was a last minute decision by Curtis LeMay.
The press briefing packets had it as RS-71, the speech text was changed to SR-71, thus everyone thought Johnson misread it.
“Strategic Air & Space Museum in Ashland NE “
A great place. The SR 71 in the atrium is awesome. Have several pictures of it.
That makes me think I need a road trip over there to see it again!
I would have loved seeing the AG-330 starter cart fire up those J58’s
Ah, thanks..I learned something new today....
There was an eerie look to the plane, otherworldly maybe. That was in flight. The one I saw in a static display lost that magic. There was just something about the look of it when flying.
Great pic of a GREAT plane!!!
If I told you, I'd have to kill you.
Seriously.
No. US Navy hull numbers are never changed unless a ship is converted to another class or renamed. Changing fleets does not change hull numbers.
Had the privilege of seeing one fly in 1981 at Fairchild AFB. The SR-71 had shown up and was supposed to fly a year earlier....on May 18th, 1980. That was cancelled by the eruption of Mt. St Helens. They had to stick it in a hangar and store it for several days because they weren’t sure if the ash would damage the engines.
The next year, it did fly. I happened to be working for a college radio station and got a press pass to be in front of the crowd to watch it taxi, then be on the press stand when it did its flybys. It did two slow flybys, then the announcer said the next flyby would be with afterburners.
I have to tell you...I KNEW that pilot was a show-off. He took that thing down to about 5 feet above the runway. Right in front of show center, he lit the cans. I instantly saw the multi-diamond shockwave pattern develop and the ROAR...wow. He tilted that beautiful bird to a 45-degree angle and immediately took off out of there at that angle for as far as the eye could see.
25 minutes later, as people were leaving, they announced the Blackbird had just landed at Beale AFB...over 670 miles away. They had to have gone supersonic at some point.
The dull black RAM paint helped create the strangeness, I am sure. The sound and fury were great, but I knew the real performance was up where none of us would ever see it happen.
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