Sr-71

TheZenful1 said:
And, to think... the first units went into service for the CIA back around 1962... 48 years later, hmmm, wonder what's flying about now? and, what's it capable of? :confused: :eek:
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Probably nothing with remotely the speed or altitude performance capabilities. These aircraft were devloped in an era where real time satellite intelligence was not a reality. What killed these aircraft was space based survelience. We can pick a spot on the planet and have a look at it every 90 minutes in real time if needed. Surely there are advanced tactical aircraft being devloped but their soloutions to problems like missiles and radar are infinitely more elegant than brute force speed and altitude. The stealth fighter (F117?) has no defensive weaponry and isn't even supersonic. Were it not for it's exotic faceted apperance it would garner little interest outside the aircraft engineering community.
 
Fantastic plane.

How about a knife maker making a "SR-71" model to commemorate the life?

There are enough slick design elements on that plane that can be incorporated into a sweet knife design.
 
knarfeng said:
The SR's actual top speed and max altitude were never revealed.
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True. Both the speed and altitude capability of that plane just kept going up and up every time the Air Force did an officual press release. We see the same thing today with the F22 as far as the altitude at which it can still do combat manuevers. I thnk that we are up close to 70,000 feet now. As far as speed goes, I have heard rumors from up around Tyndall AFB that if you are not worried about messing up the RAM coating on the leading edges of the wings, the F22 can go considerably faster than the "accidentally" released figure of Mach 2.4. :D Of course that coating works apparently, because I have also heard complaints that pilots going up against the F22 have a LOT of trouble getting any kind of lock on the plane even if they are close enough to see whether the pilot brushed his teeth that morning. As for the SR71, I wonder if the Air Force even knows what that plane can do? I don't know how much it was updated, if at all, during its service career, but the idea that Kelly Johnson and the boys at the Skunk Works came up with a plane that essentially turned from a turbojet/fan into a ramjet above a certain speed and had rudimentary stealth capability in 1960 is pretty amazing. We need more guys like Johnson and more projects where the braniacs can just go crazy like they did with the SR71 and the F117.
 
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Ilovetoolsteel said:
Probably nothing with remotely the speed or altitude performance capabilities. These aircraft were devloped in an era where real time satellite intelligence was not a reality. What killed these aircraft was space based survelience. We can pick a spot on the planet and have a look at it every 90 minutes in real time if needed. Surely there are advanced tactical aircraft being devloped but their soloutions to problems like missiles and radar are infinitely more elegant than brute force speed and altitude. The stealth fighter (F117?) has no defensive weaponry and isn't even supersonic. Were it not for it's exotic faceted apperance it would garner little interest outside the aircraft engineering community.
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The two things that really killed the SR71 were the cost of operating it and the advent of advanced UAV's. There are some things that a satellite still can't do like change direction rapidly to a new target or go back for another look right away, but the UAV's cover most of that ground. Notice that we are still using the U2/TR1 though and last time I heard, NASA still had an active SR71 or two in service.
 
Don't know if this was posted, but if I recall correctly, the SR-71 would leak quite a bit of fuel before takeoff because of the pressurization that was needed at the altitude they flew.

Confusing statement....

The tanks would have to expand a lot upon pressurization. The expansion was a lot more because of the altitude they acheived. Therefore they had to make the tanks not quite watertight on the ground. Makes sense to me being an A/C mechanic, but don't know if it's 100% correct.
 
When I was in Seattle at the Boeing museum one of the things I noticed was the position of the Blackbird. It was directly in front of the sliding doors. I wondered if they needed one, how long would it take to get it in the air?

As for expense, how many maintenance hours were required per flight hour?
 
coletrane811 said:
Don't know if this was posted, but if I recall correctly, the SR-71 would leak quite a bit of fuel before takeoff because of the pressurization that was needed at the altitude they flew.

Confusing statement....

The tanks would have to expand a lot upon pressurization. The expansion was a lot more because of the altitude they acheived. Therefore they had to make the tanks not quite watertight on the ground. Makes sense to me being an A/C mechanic, but don't know if it's 100% correct.
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it allegedly leaked because the titanium expanded and sealed everything up when it heated up during flight. My parents told me that on the Concorde, you could but your hand on the wall or window and feel some of the heat coming though from the skin of the plane at Mach 2. The SR71 went half again as fast.
 
jdm61 said:
it allegedly leaked because the titanium expanded and sealed everything up when it heated up during flight. My parents told me that on the Concorde, you could but your hand on the wall or window and feel some of the heat coming though from the skin of the plane at Mach 2. The SR71 went half again as fast.
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It did leak on the ground.
It was the heat that caused it to expand and seal.
It took off with a partial load of fuel and hooked up with a tanker at 30,000 ft before leaving the area.
 
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