I'm gonna be busy ...

[James Snover]

Thanks to member slo984now, I'm going to be tied up for the next few weeks. Because now I've got something for which I have been searching forever: the flight manual for the SR-71!


File this under: Understatement of the Century

Opening sentence of the Introduction to the SR-71 Flight Manual, Section VI

"SR-71 aircraft operate in an exceptionally large Mach and altitude envelope, but the equivalent airspeed, angle of attack, and load factor envelope is narrow."

Which is a polite way of saying,"Watch how you fly this one. The speed is all over the map, but the limits are narrow, sharply defined, and unforgiving."

The link to the whole thing, again, courtesy of slo984now:

SR-71 Online - SR-71 Flight Manual

 

[SID297]

You should just buy one from a gov auction Jim.

 

[James Snover]

You should just buy one from a gov auction Jim.

Not a bad idea, there ...

 

[RedVenom48]

@James Snover I wonder if the USAF ever had a few nuclear ready. I know they had an A-12 in development.

Can you imagine this beast trying to get to Moscow in the event our country ever needed a quick retaliatory strike?

 

[PhoenixM3]

@James Snover I wonder if the USAF ever had a few nuclear ready. I know they had an A-12 in development.

Can you imagine this beast trying to get to Moscow in the event our country ever needed a quick retaliatory strike?

That’s what submarines are for.....

 

[James Snover]

@James Snover I wonder if the USAF ever had a few nuclear ready. I know they had an A-12 in development.

Can you imagine this beast trying to get to Moscow in the event our country ever needed a quick retaliatory strike?

There were several nuclear propulsion studies, back in the day. Strategic Air Command dreamed of having something like an aircraft carrier that flew and didn't have to land for extended periods. Those died on the drawing board.

But one cruise missile that was powered and propelled by a nuke went so far as to have several of its nuclear-reactor engines tested on land in a series of tests. Project Pluto. It would have been a supersonic cruise missile. It was scrapped because it had no conventional shielding, to save weight, so in operation it was radioactive as hell, and the exhaust spewed radioactive fallout.

An interesting little bit of trivia:

To make it light enough, the reactor was made of a ceramic material. The company that made it was the Adolf Coors company. When Coors came to the US, his family was also big in glass and ceramic production.

 

[Double"O"]

I wonder if any of the Pilots ever quoted Al Shepard as he strapped into the mighty Saturn V..."please O Lord don't let me **** this up"

 

[RedVenom48]

There were several nuclear propulsion studies, back in the day. Strategic Air Command dreamed of having something like an aircraft carrier that flew and didn't have to land for extended periods. Those died on the drawing board.

But one cruise missile that was powered and propelled by a nuke went so far as to have several of its nuclear-reactor engines tested on land in a series of tests. Project Pluto. It would have been a supersonic cruise missile. It was scrapped because it had no conventional shielding, to save weight, so in operation it was radioactive as hell, and the exhaust spewed radioactive fallout.

An interesting little bit of trivia:

To make it light enough, the reactor was made of a ceramic material. The company that made it was the Adolf Coors company. When Coors came to the US, his family was also big in glass and ceramic production.

That would have been very interesting!

though, I meant as a nuclear delivery device! Of course, as I typed all that out I realized it was obsolete as soon as ICBMs became a reliable delivery method.

 

[musclefan21]

My favorite plane ever! Can you imagine, they used the speed of this airplane to simply outrun the missiles fired at them lol.