SR-71 Blackbird

[Jarink]

As for the nose kink, some had them:

Some did not.


SR-71 family portrait:

[gamary]

ok so it's a robot plane!!!!! no cockpit.

You mean people actually flew them? I have to go back to my research on these things. I thought they were big UAVs.

Jarink is right about the nose kink. Some do, some don't.

I'll add the cockpit asap, john.

[Otterkins2]

Goddammit! Would you guys stop talking about potato chips? I've gone through 4 bags now! Great job GM. I love the shape of the AC.

[Vacajun]

Aw man! Beautiful work, GM

Sure would be great if someone comes up with arangements to show both top and side views together.

Looking forward to this baby!

[AGNT_Matt]

I love the shape of the AC.

yeah she's a beauty, hard to believe that this thing was happy at high altitude where it couldn't be seen, with blackbird... even if a Mig-25 'Foxbat' was coming head on with a missile locked on, the blackbird was immune, there was no way the missile could compute with a closing speed of mach 6+, at sea level thats roughly..... 4500MPH! thats 75 miles per minute! she held the worlds highest flight for an aircraft for a while, until Foxbat had a go (theres another great looking plane).

as for how she looks in your profile... erm wheres the smiley thats searching for its eyeballs on the floor? great work keep it up..

[gamary]

Thanks Joe and Matt.

I'm as impressed as you are, Matt, that this 1950s piece of technology is still unrivaled. The MiG-25 could only do better in record attempts. As far as operational performances are concerned, it never even came close to the SR-71. IIRC, the best the MiG-25 ever did was Mach 2.6 when trying to run away from IAF Phantoms, but that shot the engines and airframe to pieces. Aircraft w/o.

In contrast, the standard evasive maneuver for the Blackbird was... just push the throttle forward a bit more and leave the threat behind. Who need ECM?

Joe: I will be making prints with top and side views, don't worry.

[JMSmith]

hi GM,

don't get taken in by the hype, the SR71 was much slower in service life than was quoted, now the A11/12 was even faster when tested than the SR71 when it was breaking records.

[AGNT_Matt]

yeah mind you nothings been as fast as Hyper-X (X-43) has recently..... mach 6.83 thats more than twice as fast as the SR-71 here is hyper-x ready for drop....

^ note that the white piece is just a booster, the little black bit on front is the Hyper-X, her next flight they want to modify it with solid fins and get it up to mach 10. heres a pic that really throws it into scale....



tiny bugger eh? admittedly it is unmanned but if this research keeps up.... well the planets gonna get a whole lot smaller lol. c'mon guys whats the famous SR-71 motto?.... SR-71 was a nightmare to fly as if the engine 'burped' you'd be on your back headed earthwards very quickly, she'd first yaw violently then the bank would build and before you realise you're on your back... with the urgent need to punch out. YA-12 and A-11 now they're the same in essence.... A12 is what was modified into SR-71 i believe...

A12's.... Spot the Twin Tub

^ YF-12, remember here this is the weird bit, like the F-117 in a way, Y is a prefix code for prototype, and F is a fighter... so what we have here is a Prototype Fighter, i think not this is similar to when the YF-117 was in development at its Have Blue stage and after Tacit Blue. but that kept its F prefix, same throughout history, before the F prefix the US had 'P' for Pursuit i believe, the F-80 changed that its prefix was YPF - prototype Pursuit Fighter, which then just became F (Eventually)...

sorry to throw it off track a bit but just though i'd share a bit of knolwedge with you all, and possibly inspire some further aircraft types to profile.... myself... it's classified, like the 'B-Bird' was. Sorry GM just have a love for these ex-classified aircraft.

[gamary]

You're right, John. But that is also true of... every fighter or military aircraft that has existed. When you look at most aircraft performance figures, it turns out theynever flew that quickly under operational conditions.

One figure that struck me was one given by the USAF after the Vietnam War. Something like 99.2% of combat flight time was subsonic, with supersonic speeds being only marginal. Also, most of the supersonic speeds reached in combat were slightly above Mach 1 and almost never in the Mach 2 region.

But even then, the Blackbird was much faster than the rest. I've read a few things about the engine stalls and resulting problems. Let's just say it wasn't an aircraft you could fly casually.

But then, it was probably better than flying over Murmansk in a U-2.

[JMSmith]

hey GM,

at least the U2 could glide, mind you it had a problem of keeping all the parts together after a sam strike
talking of SR71 engines, anyone ever see one at Mildenhall airshow do a low flypast putting the burners on each engine in turn, absolutely mind boggling watching flames as long as the plane first shoot out of one engine then the next, then back to the other engine for a repeat performance, never seen this done more than twice on each engine.
good old days.