SR-71 Query For My Son

[Vulcan]

Originally posted by JE.
there's no millimeters in America anymore?  i coulda sworn there are millimeter measurements on rulers you buy at the Longs or Rite-Aid or whatever

Nope, they got rid of millimeters right before those Mars Landers went missing.

[miraj]

A good little SR-71  speed check story.

 In his book, Sled Driver, SR-71 Blackbird pilot Brian Shul writes: "I will always remember a certain radio exchange that occurred one day as Walt

(my back-seater) and I were screaming across Southern California 13 miles high. We were monitoring various radio transmissions from other aircraft

as we entered Los Angeles airspace. Though they didn't really control us, they did monitor our movement across their scope.

I heard a Cessna ask for a readout of its ground speed."90 knots" Center replied. Moments later, a Twin Beech required the same. "120 knots," Center

answered. We weren't the only ones proud of our ground speed that day as almost instantly an F-18 smugly transmitted, "Ah, Center, Dusty 52 requests

ground speed readout." There was a slight pause, then the response, "525 knots on the ground, Dusty." Another silent pause.

As I was thinking to myself how ripe a situation this was, I heard a familiar click of a radio transmission coming from my back-seater. It was at that

precise moment I realized Walt and I had become a real crew, for we were both thinking in unison. "Center, Aspen 20, you got a ground speed readout

for us?" There was a longer than normal pause.... "Aspen, I show 1,742 knots" (That's about 2004.658 mph for those who don't know)

No further inquiries were heard on that frequency.

[CFYA]

I was joking about the whole millimeters thing.........making fun of the fact that America is one of the last nations to adopt the metric system.

[THOR01]

Takes up a hundred miles or so to do a 180.

[JE.]

lol i gotcha, I got really confused.. thought the world was turnin upside down on me haha !

[P47Gra]

Yeah I heard that one Miraj.  I dad told me that one.  His experience was when he was on a trip from LA to Dallas and they crossed 100 miles south of the Skunk works.  He swore he saw a SR on his right wing and climbing.  He called ATC and queried traffic.  The controller said that that traffic would not be a factor because he was 15,000 feet above him.  In 2 minutes that is amazing.

[Softail]

You can tell your son that the former CIA guy said:

Take off distance:  A long way.
Cruising Height: Very High.
Cruising Speed: Very Fast.
Max Speed: Really Fast.
Landing Distance:  Longer than the take off distance.

Pictures it took:  Priceless ;-)

Softail

[Softail]

Originally posted by CFYA
I was joking about the whole millimeters thing.........making fun of the fact that America is one of the last nations to adopt the metric system.

Why mess with a system that works?

[Xasthur]

Originally posted by Softail
Why mess with a system that works?

Because ours works better

[Xasthur]

Originally posted by mussie
MUSSIE
Grounded Indefinitely

Mate... grounded indefinitely?

What's the go!?

[Masherbrum]

Originally posted by CFYA
On other thing......wasnt this the first aircraft to use titanium as a major percentage of build material? Specifically 6AL-4V?

I have a picture somewhere of a YF-12 with buckets everywhere with JP-8(?) fuel dripping. Its a wonder the whole thing doesnt go up in smoke on the ground. They use tetraborane to light the engines (ignites spontaneously in air). Lot of neat stuff on the fuel side of that plane.

FYI-......YF-12 was CIA version of SR-71.


CFYA

Also, the US procured A LOT of the said Titanium, from "false companies" that the CIA Fronted to Import the Titanium into the US.   I've read over 100+ companies were falsely created for this purpose.

[Softail]

Originally posted by Xasthur
Because ours works better

Well at least the Brits and US still use Miles Per Hour instead of Kilometers.  So we aren't the only hold out   The US and UK vs the Metric World.  Bring it on!!!  

[HeavyH]

I was an SR-71 Crew Chief for 4 years, stationed at Beale in the mid 80's.  The Aircraft would use up about half of the runway there at Beale to take off, but of course that depended on the takeoff weight, and the density altitude.  Figure on about 5000 feet on average.  

The fuel was JP-7.  We called it "essence of seven" since we wore it all the time from being dripped on.  The fuel has such a high flash point that a match dropped into a bucket of JP-7 would just go out.  Triethyl Borane (TEB) was used to ignite the engines.  Each engine carried 16 "shots" of TEB, and placing the throttles into full afterburner would also dump a shot into the afterburner section.  We would run look at the TEB counters after a flight to see how many times they went super sonic, or at least that is what we thought we were seeing.  We would also sneek a peek at the map strips that were loaded into the cockpits just before launch to get an idea of where our airplane was going.  

An average training flight would leave Beale with 45000 lbs of fuel (6.57 lbs to the gallon), and immediately hit the tanker somewhere over Nevada.  After a top off, they would accelerate south and turn somewhere around San Diego.  They would then fly north to Seattle, then turn back to Beale.  this typical flight would be 2 hours 45 minutes total.  In that flight, they would hit the tanker twice, or occasionally three times.  Of course, they had other training routes, and we did fly HHQ "clipper" missions out of Beale to places near Florida...

It was quite an airplane, but one may be surprised at how low tech it realy was.  Considering that they were designed in the late 50's and built in the early 60's, it was way ahead of its time.  It was a maintenance nightmare compared to other airplanes in the USAF inventory, requiring an average of 2-3 days between flights to get them back to "Fully Mission Capable" status.  

Sorry... I get to rambling when I start talking about the blackbird.

[DamnedRen]

Originally posted by Major Biggles
sounds about right. they just accelerate to evade G2A missiles don't they?

Ahhhh.....no.

A lil background...A buddy swapped me a walk around of the Habu if I'd take him up in the cockpit of our 747 while we were doing some Okinawa - Clark runs. He was the spy and sat in the back seat. He was also on the plane that N. Korea fired a missle at. That was the official word. My bud said they actually had  two missels fired at them. They have to turn to avoid then since they are fired almost 100 miles before they arrive overhead. After the turn they are long gone.

We had the priviledge of watching the runup and launch of a mission while done there on the island. We led the Habu out to the end of the runway then ran down the runway to check for FOD. We pulled off the runway onto the grass at his rotation point. The commander told me to get my camera out for the pics since its was gonna be gone in about 20 seconds. He rotated about 85 feet in front of me and was out of sight and sound inside of 30 seconds.

How far down the runway? About half way... They are very light as they leak fuel on the ground and take on gas from a tanker after they got airborne.

I got the whole tour and it's still the coolest snake around.  

Ren

[NOT]

parents were stationed at kadena, okinawa when i was a kid, 82-85. we used to watch the Habu take off alot. awesome sight.



NOT