Gordon, 238,000 miles or so...... cool. I recognize that number. Was it Apollo contracts?
Bill, the SR-71 may be old tech, but I still read everything I can get my hands on about it. What a ride it must have been.... your friends experiences must be fun to hear about.
My closet encounter with anything remotely close to a true hi-performance aircraft was a ride in one of General Dynamic's F-16s out of their Carswell plant. The burner run was unlike anything I could give as a comparison. That was one of the treats of being a controller.. I got lots of rides (and occasionally some stick time) on some neat stuff. My favorite trips were in the easy to understand and super stable Tweet (A Citation in disguise).. that was something I could actually stay ahead of.
Jim, one time I asked my friend if he ever had to deal with SAM threats. He said he had, He said the way they delt with SAM threats was generally a matter of the proper throttle position.
He had a patch on his flight jacket with plan view of an SR71, it simply read: The Highest and The Fastest.
He had a patch on his flight jacket with plan view of an SR71, it simply read: The Highest and The Fastest.
I had the pleasure of working on the Blackbird for 5 years at Beale, was one of my favorite stations. Allowable leakage was 1000gls plus per hr before takeoff. I can remember walking around on top of the plane before takeoff, and after pressuring the fuel tanks with nitrogen. Fuel would shoot up in fountains as far a 3ft in the air. Unbelievable, we would lay underneath the engine during ground engine runs and I swear you could feel your inerts ready to fly out of the old body! Oh the good old days, don't miss it abit, no sir! I remember during the Granada conflict, we sent a bird down to take pictures, it was down and back from northern CA in an hour and a half or so. Smoking!
,Pat
,Pat
Pat,
Did you know Joe Cote? He was Airforce (doesn't make him a bad pilot....probably field grade by then) and flew the SR71. He flew F4s in Vietnam. Pop-Up Photo Missions (shot down once, ZSU, I think), then flew SR71s, some times out of Beale. I do not know the years he flew the Blackbird out of Beale.
Oh by the way, are the real numbers on the SR71 still classified? Because when I asked him if 80,000' and Mach 3.5+ were actual, he just smiled.
Did you know Joe Cote? He was Airforce (doesn't make him a bad pilot....probably field grade by then) and flew the SR71. He flew F4s in Vietnam. Pop-Up Photo Missions (shot down once, ZSU, I think), then flew SR71s, some times out of Beale. I do not know the years he flew the Blackbird out of Beale.
Oh by the way, are the real numbers on the SR71 still classified? Because when I asked him if 80,000' and Mach 3.5+ were actual, he just smiled.