Blackbird--SR71

 
 
 
From: Subject: Fw: Blackbird...Bye Bye
 
I have seen something like this before but good stuff.
 


              Blackbird...Bye  Bye
Quote from Soviet pilot about Kelly Johnson’s accomplishment  with the SR-71:
   Soviet Mig Pilot Belinko Recalls:
   Chasing the SR-71 along the   Siberian   Coast in  a Mig-25, I could not match it's speed.
   One flight in the Mig-25 and we had to change our engines. I  could not believe that such technologies existed.
 
     
  FROM AN SR-71  PILOT.... Very interesting  read..... SR-71  Blackbird




In  April 1986, following an attack on American
soldiers in a     Berlin disco,  President Reagan
ordered the bombing of Muammar  Qaddafi's
terrorist camps in    Libya My  duty was to fly
over   Libya and  take photos recording the
damage our F-111's had  inflicted.. Qaddafi
had established a 'line of death,' a  territorial
marking across the  Gulf of Sidra ,  swearing
to shoot down any intruder that crossed  the
boundary. On the morning of April 15,
I rocketed  past the line at 2,125 mph.


I  was piloting the SR-71 spy plane, the world's
fastest jet,  accompanied by a Marine Major (Walt),
the aircraft's  reconnaissance systems officer (RSO).
We had crossed into  Libya and were approaching
our final turn over the bleak  desert landscape when
Walt informed me that he was  receiving missile
launch signals. I quickly increased our  speed,
calculating the time it would take for  the
weapons-most likely SA-2 and SA-4  surface-to-air
missiles capable of Mach 5 - to reach our  altitude.
I estimated that we could beat the  rocket-powered
missiles to the turn and stayed our course,  betting
our lives on the plane's  performance.


After  several agonizingly long seconds, we made
the turn and  blasted toward the Mediterranean .
'You might want to pull  it back,' Walt suggested.
It was then that I noticed I  still had the throttles
full forward. The plane was flying  a mile every 1.6
seconds, well above our Mach 3.2 limit. It  was
the fastest we would ever fly. I pulled the  throttles
to idle just south of  Sicily , but we still  overran
the refueling tanker awaiting us over   Gibraltar ....


Scores  of significant aircraft have been produced
in the 100 years  of flight, following the achievements
of the Wright  brothers, which we celebrate in
December. Aircraft such as  the Boeing 707,
the F-86 Sabre Jet, and the P-51 Mustang  are
among the important machines that have flown
our  skies. But the SR-71, also known as the
Blackbird, stands  alone as a significant contributor
to Cold War victory and  as the fastest plane
ever-and only 93 Air Force pilots ever  steered
the 'sled,' as we called our  aircraft.

The  SR-71 was the brainchild of Kelly Johnson,
the famed  Lockheed designer who created the
P-38, the F-104  Starfighter, and the U-2. After
the Soviets shot down Gary  Powers' U-2 in 1960,
Johnson began to develop an aircraft  that would
fly three miles higher and five times faster  than
the spy plane-and still be capable of  photographing
your license plate. However, flying at 2,000  mph
would create intense heat on the aircraft's  skin.
Lockheed engineers used a titanium alloy  to
construct more than 90 percent of the SR-71,
creating  special tools and manufacturing
procedures to hand-build  each of the 40 planes.
Special heat-resistant fuel, oil,  and hydraulic
fluids that would function at 85,000 feet  and
higher also had to be developed.


In  1962, the first Blackbird successfully flew, and
in 1966,  the same year I graduated from high school,
the Air Force  began flying operational SR-71 missions.
I came to the  program in 1983 with a sterling record
and a recommendation  from my commander,
completing the weeklong interview and  meeting
Walt, my partner for the next four years He  would
ride four feet behind me, working all the  cameras,
radios, and electronic jamming equipment. I  joked
that if we were ever captured, he was the spy  and
I was just the driver. He told me to keep the  pointy
end forward.

We trained for a year, flying  out of Beale AFB in
California , Kadena Airbase in Okinawa  , and RAF
Mildenhall in England . On a typical training  mission,
we would take off near  Sacramento , refuel  over
Nevada , accelerate into Montana , obtain high  Mach
over Colorado , turn right over New Mexico ,  speed
across the Los Angeles Basin , run up the West  Coast,
turn right at Seattle , then return to Beale. Total  flight
time : two hours and 40 minutes.

One day,  high above  Arizona , we were monitoring
the radio  traffic of all the mortal airplanes below us.
First, a  Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers
to check his  ground speed. 'Ninety knots,' ATC replied.
A Bonanza soon  made the same request.
'One-twenty on the ground,' was the  reply. To our
surprise, a navy F-18 came over the radio  with a
ground speed check. I knew exactly what he  was
doing. Of course, he had a ground speed indicator
in  his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the
bug-smashers in  the valley know what real speed
was 'Dusty 52, we show you  at 620 on the ground,'
ATC  responded.

The  situation was too ripe. I heard
the click of Walt's mike  button in the rear seat.
In his most innocent voice, Walt  startled the
controller by asking for a ground speed  check
from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled  airspace.
In a cool, professional voice, the controller  replied,
'Aspen 20, I show you at 1,982 knots on the  ground.'
We did not hear another transmission on  that
frequency all the way to the  coast.


The  Blackbird always showed us something new,
each aircraft  possessing its own unique personality.
In time, we realized  we were flying a national
treasure. When we taxied out of  our revetments
for takeoff, people took notice. Traffic  congregated
near the airfield fences, because everyone  wanted
to see and hear the mighty SR-71 You could not  be
a part of this program and not come to love  the
airplane. Slowly, she revealed her secrets to us  as
we earned her trust.

One moonless night, while  flying a routine training
mission over the Pacific, I  wondered what the sky
would look like from 84,000 feet if  the cockpit lighting
were dark. While heading home on a  straight course,
I slowly turned down all of the lighting,  reducing the
glare and revealing the night  sky.

Within  seconds, I  turned the lights back up, fearful that the jet would
know  and somehow punish me. But my desire to see
the sky  overruled my caution, I dimmed the lighting
again. To my  amazement, I saw a bright light outside
my window. As my  eyes adjusted to the view, I
realized that the brilliance  was the broad expanse
of the Milky Way, now a gleaming  stripe across the
sky.

Where  dark spaces in the sky had usually
existed, there were now  dense clusters of sparkling
stars. Shooting stars flashed  across the canvas every
few seconds. It was like a  fireworks display with no
sound.

I  knew I had to get my eyes back on the
instruments, and  reluctantly I brought my attention
back inside. To my  surprise, with the cockpit lighting
still off, I could see  every gauge, lit by starlight. In
the plane's mirrors, I  could see the eerie shine of
my gold spacesuit  incandescently illuminated in a
celestial glow. I stole one  last glance out the window.
Despite our speed, we seemed  still before the
heavens, humbled in the radiance of a much  greater
power.. For those few moments, I felt a part  of
something far more significant than anything we
were  doing in the plane. The sharp sound of Walt's
voice on the  radio brought me back to the tasks at
hand as I prepared  for our descent.


San  Diego Aerospace Museum
The  SR-71 was an expensive aircraft to operate.
The most  significant cost was tanker support, and
in 1990,  confronted with budget cutbacks, the Air
Force retired the  SR-71.
�
The  SR-71 served six presidents, protecting America
for a  quarter of a century. Unbeknownst to most
of the country,  the plane flew over North Vietnam ,
Red China , North Korea  , the  Middle East , South
Africa, Cuba , Nicaragua ,  Iran , Libya and the
Falkland Islands . On a weekly basis,  the SR-71
kept watch over every Soviet nuclear  submarine
and mobile missile site, and all of their  troop
movements. It was a key factor in winning the
Cold  War.

I am proud to say I flew about 500 hours in  this
aircraft. I knew her well. She gave way to no  plane,
proudly dragging her sonic boom through  enemy
backyards with great impunity. She defeated  every
missile, outran every MiG, and always brought  us
home. In the first 100 years of manned flight,  no
aircraft was more remarkable.
�
The  Blackbird had outrun nearly 4,000 missiles,
not once taking  a scratch from enemy fire.

On her final flight, the  Blackbird, destined for
the Smithsonian National Air and  Space
Museum, sped from Los Angeles to Washington
in 64  minutes, averaging 2,145 mph and setting four speed  records.