Some of the pricier plastic mold model kits come with a separate j58 on a stand and starter cart
"How The SR-71 Blackbird Works," by Animagraffs
- Thread starter James Snover
- Start date
Thats prolly my fav part about the whole program...built with russion ore lol.
The engine tech was outta control on this thing. Just imagine today.
And it was a US Naval engine for a never built Mach 3 interceptor to protect carriers from long range nuclear capable bombers. And so it just happen these engines was built and so was available for Project Ox Cart.
Love these posts James.
Saw this bad boy at Paine Field in Everett back in the 80s as a little boy.
Favorite jet of all time.
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Last time I was there they had the cockpit open and you could sit in it. Wish I could do that again because it was long enough ago that I didn't know all the details that I do now.
I was thinking about this video as I posted it a while back but couldn't remember where.
I want to say I read an article that said the fuel was also run through the leading edges to cool them off and preheat the fuel for combustion.
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Holds the transcontinental record:
Los Angeles, California, to Washington, D.C., distance 2,299.7 miles, average speed 2,144.8 miles per hour, and an elapsed time of 64 minutes 20 seconds.
Los Angeles, California, to Washington, D.C., distance 2,299.7 miles, average speed 2,144.8 miles per hour, and an elapsed time of 64 minutes 20 seconds.
Sorry I replied to the wrong comment
It might be worth it to go knock on his door someday. He would be fun to talk to.
Typically I like to leave people alone but if I find out you've flown the SR71 I'm going to be that annoying **** with 10 million questions
Friend of mine knows I'm an F-14 nut. Last weekend he was playing golf and got paired up with someone that was an F-14 pilot and apparently a Top Gun instructor in a past life. (no, it wasn't Maverick) He made sure to text me after he was done so I couldn't blow his phone up with questions.
It could cause problems if there were pinholes in the ceiling of the hanger. They'd initialize it, and the system would lock on to the pinholes because it thought they were stars!
They had procedures to re-boot it, and a good thing, too. At Mach 3.2, if you get 1 degree off course, pretty soon your talking about hundreds of miles out of place. And while several pilots did have to fly the bird manually, it was only for short periods, and was utterly exhausting.
The materials played a part, but most of the stealth is from the shape. The rear tails angle inward, the fuselage has no sharp corners between any two sections, so the radar can't get a good return. And the inlet spikes shielded the engines, which was good, because spinning compressor fans generate really, really good returns, bad for stealth!
The paint, which I thinmkw as labeled "Midnight Indigo Blue," was heavily impregnated with iron "shaving," to further absorb, not reflect, intercepting radar.
There's a section in Ben Rich's book about the problems they had when learning to live with Titanium. They found that in the summer, when local municipalities put lots of chlorine in the water to suppress algae, it attacked the titanium! An engineer drew a line on a panel with a fountain pen. A minute or two later, it fell off, and it looked as though it had been cut. Had to formulate some new alloys of Titanium.
Yep, you had to be married. And they interviewed you, your wife, and your kids and immediate family. If you passed that, you had to go and spend two weeks with some pilots and crews, just to see if you were the kind of guy who could get along with others, or if you were one of those assholes who wrecks everything they get into by turning people against each other.
The other neat thing: most Blackbird pilots were not fighter pilots! There were some, yes. But they found that most fighter pilot's mentalities did not fit with the program's needs. They needed guys who could think ahead, plan, and execute a plan. In the end, a lot of the pilots were taken from transport and heavy hauler pilots.
The other wild thing: The Blackbird was the mission. If something went wrong and could not be resolved, they turned around and brought it back, or diverted. In most military activities, the mission is the important thing. Lives and equipment can be sacrificed to achieve the mission. Unless you were flying the Blackbird. The plane was the mission, and had to be protected and preserved over everything else.
At the time, the Buick Nailheads were the torque kings of GM's engine lineup.
Here is my little story regarding the SR-71. My dad served 30 years in the Air Force, he got stationed at Beale AFB in northern CA in the mid 80s. Being a 12 year old kid and really into airplanes made this super cool. At the time, Beale had the SR-71, U2/TR-1, T38 and KC-135Q models (specifically for refueling SR-71s since they don't take regular jet fuel). It was great seeing all these planes flying around on a regular basis. I went to school with a bunch of guys whose dads flew the SRs and U2s. Being a kid on Beale was awesome. The base is located about an hour north of Sacramento, but very isolated and near the foothills of the Sierras. There was lots of hiking, fishing, exploring, riding our BMX bikes for days.
One of my most memorable experiences was seeing a SR-71 J58 put through its paces on an engine stand after being overhauled. They actually let service members bring their families to watch, I highly doubt they would ever do this today. We went one night and there were probably 100 people there, you are given industrial strength ear protection and stand behind a chain link fence with the engine about 100 feet in front of you. The ground shakes, flames shoot about 50 feet out of the engine and you can feel the intense heat. This is something I will never forget and feel very privileged to have witnessed. Here is a youtube video of a test at Beale, circa 1986...maybe this is the one I saw.
One of my most memorable experiences was seeing a SR-71 J58 put through its paces on an engine stand after being overhauled. They actually let service members bring their families to watch, I highly doubt they would ever do this today. We went one night and there were probably 100 people there, you are given industrial strength ear protection and stand behind a chain link fence with the engine about 100 feet in front of you. The ground shakes, flames shoot about 50 feet out of the engine and you can feel the intense heat. This is something I will never forget and feel very privileged to have witnessed. Here is a youtube video of a test at Beale, circa 1986...maybe this is the one I saw.
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