"What was the slowest you ever flew the Blackbird?"Brian Shul, Retired SR-71 Pilot, via Plane and Pilot MagazineAs a former SR-71 pilot, and a professional keynote speaker, thequestion I'm most often asked is "How fast would that SR-71 fly?" I canbe assured of hearing that question several times at any event I attend.It's an interesting question, given the aircraft's proclivity for speed,but there really isn't one number to give, as the jet would always giveyou a little more speed if you wanted it to. It was common to see 35miles a minute. Because we flew a programmed Mach number on mostmissions, and never wanted to harm the plane in any way, we never let itrun out to any limits of temperature or speed. Thus, each SR-71 pilothad his own individual high speed that he saw at some point on somemission. I saw mine over Libya when Khadafy fired two missiles my way,and max power was in order. Let's just say that the plane truly lovedspeed, and effortlessly took us to Mach numbers we hadn't previouslyseen.So it was with great surprise, when, at the end of one of mypresentations, someone asked: What was the slowest you ever flew theBlackbird? This was a first. After giving it some thought, I wasreminded of a story I had never shared before, and relayed thefollowing:I was flying the SR-71 out of RAF Mildenhall, England, with myback-seater, Walt Watson; we were returning from a mission over Europeand the Iron Curtain, when we received a radio transmission from homebase. As we scooted across Denmark in three minutes, we learned that asmall RAF base in the English countryside had requested an SR-71fly-past. The air cadet commander there was a former Blackbird pilot,and thought it would be a motivating moment for the young lads to seethe mighty SR-71 perform a low approach. No problem; we were happy to doit. After a quick aerial refueling over the North Sea, we proceeded tofind the small airfield.Walter had a myriad of sophisticated navigation equipment in the backseat, and began to vector me toward the field. Descending to subsonicspeeds, we found ourselves over a densely wooded area in a slight haze.Like most former WWII British airfields, the one we were looking for hada small tower and little surrounding infrastructure. Walter told me wewere close, and that I should be able to see the field, but I sawnothing. Nothing but trees as far as I could see in the haze. We got alittle lower, and I pulled the throttles back from the 325 knots we were at.With the gear up, anything under 275 was just uncomfortable. Walt saidwe were practically over the field, yet there was nothing in mywindscreen. I banked the jet and started a gentle circling maneuver inhopes of picking up anything that looked like a field. Meanwhile,below, the cadet commander had taken the cadets up on the catwalk of thetower, in order to get a prime view of the fly-past. It was a quiet,still day, with no wind and partial gray overcast. Walter continued togive me indications that the field should be below us, but, in theovercast and haze, I couldn't see it. The longer we continued to peerout the window and circle, the slower we got. With our power back, theawaiting cadets heard nothing. I must have had good instructors in myflying career, as something told me I better cross-check the gauges. AsI noticed the airspeed indicator slide below 160 knots, my heartstopped, and my adrenalin-filled left hand pushed two throttles fullforward. At this point, we weren't really flying, but were falling in aslight bank. Just at the moment, both afterburners lit with athunderous roar of flame (and what a joyous feeling that was), and theaircraft fell into full view of the shocked observers on the tower.Shattering the still quiet of that morning, they now had 107 feet offire-breathing titanium in their face, as the plane leveled andaccelerated, in full burner, on the tower side of the infield, closerthan expected, maintaining what could only be described as some sort ofultimate knife-edge pass.Quickly reaching the field boundary, we proceeded back to Mildenhallwithout incident. We didn't say a word for those next 14 minutes.After landing, our commander greeted us, and we were both certain he wasreaching for our wings. Instead, he heartily shook our hands and saidthe commander had told him it was the greatest SR-71 fly-past he hadever seen, especially how we had surprised them with such a precisemaneuver that could only be described as breathtaking. He said thatsome of the cadets' hats were blown off, and the sight of the plan formof the plane in full afterburner, dropping right in front of them, wasunbelievable. Walt and I both understood the concept of breathtakingvery well, that morning, and sheepishly replied that they were justexcited to see our low approach.As we retired to the equipment room to change from space suits to flightsuits, we just sat there: We hadn't spoken a word since the pass.Finally, Walter looked at me and said, "One hundred fifty-six knots.What did you see?" Trying to find my voice, I stammered, "One hundredfifty-two." We sat in silence for a moment. Then Walt said, "Don'tever do that to me again!" And I never did.A year later, Walter and I were having lunch in the Mildenhall Officers'club, and overheard an officer talking to some cadets about an SR-71fly-past that he had seen, one day. Of course, by now the storyincluded kids falling off the tower, and screaming as the heat of the jetsinged their eyebrows. Noticing our Habu patches, as we stood there withlunch trays in our hands, he asked us to verify to the cadets that sucha thing had occurred. Walt just shook his head and said, "It wasprobably just a routine low approach; they're pretty impressive in thatplane". Impressive indeed.Little did I realize, after relaying this experience to my audience thatday, that it would become one of the most popular and most requestedstories. It's ironic that people are interested in how slow the world'sfastest jet can fly. Regardless of your speed, however, it's always agood idea to keep that cross-check up -- and keep your Mach up, too.
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awesome story...thank you for sharing that...only one i ever got to see was parked getting maintenance work done in the hangar.
Too bad no one got that on film.
"It eats up a lot of gas wide open" Who can guess which movie that little gem came from?-Penguin
Actually the SR-71 eats up less gas the higher and faster it goes at altitude. In this case the Chalenge/VOSS theory actually does work.
