The Black Bird was bad ass

[Z06killinsbf]

^^ Very cool

[JimD]

Personal pics? KC-135Q, dont see much of those anymore

Didn't read the Wiki, but this thing had to have its own fleet of tankers to support it. Couldn't use the regular KC-135/KC-10s that were out there already for its JP-7.


About JP-7


And a little about the tankers


I wouldn't mind being a nav on one of those. Not a bad base for any of them

Yes they are scans of 35mm pics i took when i was in the USAF, You are wrong about the tankers tho, we were flying in a KC-10A.
The SR-71 was no doubt a cool jet, but a pain in our asses to support. Major bitch to prep the KC-10 to hold/deliver the JP-7, none of it could be mixed with the 10s wing tank fuel, all the manifolds all the way to the boom had to be completely drained, fuel tanks flushed, then a couple trucks of JP-7 added, followed by a flash check(sample taken to a lab). If all was good fill the tanker up to the fuel load. Then...we had to take flash checks every 12 hrs until flight and another within 2 hrs of takeoff. And, it was possible to transfer the wing fuel to the body tank so if some anus pushed the wrong button... you are fucked for atleast another 12 hrs to completely defuel the plane and start over.

Heres a couple more, one of the 135Q that was up there that day with us.

[Ratt]

WARNING! you could fuck a few hours off on this website if you are not careful. This guy built an amazing model of a blackbird from scratch with turbine engines and with incredible detail. Just click on the dates on the left side of the screen to see progress over the years.

http://www.mmrca.org/lance/sledframe.html

I fucking hate you.

[Ratt]

how much fuel does it have in its tanks prior to takeoff. Ive heard that when the plane is on the ground it isnt fueled cause it leaks but when its in the air the leaks seal up.

That's been covered. There was no material that could handle the temperatures of the acceleration process to get fast enough to stretch the metal to seal the tanks. There still isn't. They had to fill it completely full of fuel so that it would have enough time to take off, fly to the supertanker in the sky, and refuel.

[inline 6]

WARNING! you could fuck a few hours off on this website if you are not careful. This guy built an amazing model of a blackbird from scratch with turbine engines and with incredible detail. Just click on the dates on the left side of the screen to see progress over the years.

http://www.mmrca.org/lance/sledframe.html

[71chevellejohn]

One of my favorites, grew up on Beale AFB. Watching a Black Bird under full after burner wasn't an unusual sight but still something that made most people stop what they were doing for a few minutes. Especially at night or in the evening.

This.

<-- grew up on Mildenhall, and my dad was a firefighter/firechief so we got to hang out at the station, right on the flightline.

[Shemmy]

[Ncrowe]

One of my favorites, grew up on Beale AFB. Watching a Black Bird under full after burner wasn't an unusual sight but still something that made most people stop what they were doing for a few minutes. Especially at night or in the evening.

[bottlerocket]

Not just the speed. The altitude was a factor as well. The SR-71 boasts of fl8000, and 3m. The mig25 was made to match the speed of the Blackbird but not the altitude.

They would take a high speed run at the SR-71 to max altitude(dam neer coffin corner stall their planes!) and then fire missiles (air to air). The air to air was indeed way faster then the SR-71,combined with the speed of the MIG-25 made the Blackbird vulnerable for the first time.
One of my previous airlines I worked for, we had a D.O. (Director of Operations) Ross S. that was a sled driver and this was told to a few of us over scotch one evening.

There were fewer SR-71 pilots than astronauts!

R

Service ceiling for the later 25's was FL800

...but it still came after the specification was developed for a Mach 3 intercontinental bomber.

Yep thats correct. 4 years after the specs for the XB-70 were drafted, the requirements for the new Soviet interceptor were laid out.a

[pHILSANITY07]

i see now, thanks for the info

[71chevellejohn]

Basically they were filled with enough to get them in the air and refueled completely.

Note the stain on the ground around the plane:

[pHILSANITY07]

how much fuel does it have in its tanks prior to takeoff. Ive heard that when the plane is on the ground it isnt fueled cause it leaks but when its in the air the leaks seal up.

[RWhite]

..........The problem with the SR-71 is they never wanted to retrofit the aircraft for live data transmission. The SR-71 still relied on film, which had to return to base, be extracted, developed, and distributed to commanders.

Many SR-71's carried much more than just optic devices for intelligence gathering. On many occasions, a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) was carried in the nose, also a ground mapping radar was used from time to time. Mission specific electronic equipment was carried on-board such as assemblies that would identify and store electronic signatures of Russian search and SAM radars identified during their flights. Many flights had these boxes that were built specifically for that one mission. As other missions required different information, these boxes were either reconfigured for the information required or totally new, one time use boxes for special missions were rapidly built for the various customer needs.

[Taylor]

This thread is full of win.

[stevo]

Common misconception. Satellites are easy to avoid, they can be timed, and usually they can only photograph one location 1 maybe 2 times a day for a short span. ....

I watched a documentary a couple of weeks ago about the SR-71 that said, when they were testing the radar signature of the plane with a half sized model, they had a schedule of the Russian spy satellites fly-over times and would disassemble the model, bring into the building, then take it back out, and reassemble it after the fly-overs to continue testing. It said they had to do it several times during the day. They even went as far as painting the ground with dark paint (to make hot spots) shaped like some other plane since the Russian satellites used thermal-imaging, and the shadow of the radar test model would leave a cool spot on the ground shaped like the plane. Cool shit.

Stevo