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So have I - but I love that story. |
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YES! DITTO! I'm sick and tired of all these pussy-UAV's... The .gov is DUE to reveal a new cool "top secret"/"black project" aircraft now: 60's/70's = SR-71 Blackbird 80's = F-117 Nighthawk 90's = B-2 Spirit ... 00's = <Aurora? Blackstar? B-3? X-men jet?> |
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SR-71 video:
easylink.playstream.com/flighttv/SR-71/2006-6-6_sr-71_ny-to-london_farnborough1.wvx Video: Existence of secret 'Aurora' hypersonic sucessor to SR-71 Blackbird 'revealed' in UK defence ministry UFO report By Justin Wastnage in London Followers of the much-speculated US Aurora hypersonic military jet received a boost today thanks to closer reading of a recently declassified UK defence ministry report into unidentified flying objects (UFOs). UK broadcaster BBC picked through the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Air Defence Region report, written between 1996-2000 by a Ministry of Defence intelligence expert and kept secret until last month. The broadcaster's showcase television news analysis programme Newsnight claims that although released under the country's freedom of information act, parts that remain censored lend credibility to claims that the US military has developed a cryogenic fuel-powered successor to the SR-71 Blackbird supersonic jet. A triangular jet with top speeds of Mach 6, thought to have been dubbed Aurora at one time, has long been believed to have been developed as part of the USA's Special Access, or "black" programmes. The Aurora is likely to be have been developed by Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works for Special Access programmes, located in Groom Lake, Nevada. Many sightings of UFOs have been spotted over Groom Lake, leading enthusiasts to identify their spottings as alien spacecraft rather than super-advanced aircraft. The Groom Lake military range is also known as Area 51. Several sightings of the Aurora (an airtist's impression of which is pictured above) have been reported among UFO enthusiasts in the UK's sector of the North Sea, as the Special Access project team is believed to have tested the aircraft over the North Atlantic to avoid the hypersonic boom, or skyquakes, heard over the Californian Pacific coast off Los Angeles as the aircraft headed home after test sorties. The UK government has censored what appears to be a reference to these sightings from the newly-released report. US officials have never acknowledged the existence of the programme and the UK government has routinely denied any prior knowledge of US black projects. However Newsnight found two omissions to the censor's pen, buried deep in the UFO report, which stated that the US Air Force plans to produce "highly supersonic vehicles at M4-6" as well as hypersonic unmanned air vehicles. It also reports a USAF priority plan to produce an air-breathing aircraft with a M8-12 capability. Two photographs have been blacked out on the public version of the once-top secret report and several paragraphs of text also been crossed through Aurora's predecessor, the SR-71, performed a series of record-setting flights in the mid-1970s including New York to London and London to Los Angeles, a distance of 8,795km (4,754nm), which the aircraft flew in 3h47min. The following video, from Lockheed Martin, shows the aircraft on public display at the 1974 Farnborough air show ahead of the flights as well as the record-breaking sortie. |
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Operational ability over denied areas. |
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Holy shit!! New desktop! I've heard the first story before. These SR71 threads are great. I'd so love to find a resonably priced copy of Sled Driver. Paul Crickmore's first book on the SR71 had a story about Skunkworks having problems finding colored paint (for the USAF and star and bar markings - required by internation law) that would take the high heat. It all burned off during each flight. Finally one frustrated engineer blurted out in a meeting "Why bother? Who's going to be that high up to see who it is?" |
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+1. New desktop as of right now. |
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Back in the 80s I was working on Perkin-Elmer mainframe computers. One of my coworkers was an ex-Air Force crypto tech, stationed mostly in Germany. He used to talk about his duty station which was this giant blockhouse of a building that required you to go through three seperate vault doors to get the the main room. Once inside it looked like a large gymnasium, totally open, rows and rows of machines, with catwalks up high all around the room that were always manned by guards armed with M16s. When he first arrived he felt like it was the safest place to be stationed in Cold War Europe with all those armed guards around to protect him. He soon found out that in case the facility was overrun the guard's primary mission was to make sure none of the crypto techs fell into enemy hands by shooting them all. One day we were talking about the SR71 and he mentioned that he used to see a lot of the mission reports that were filed after flights over Russia and Eastern Europe. Then he made the comment "Oh, and you know how they claim it'll do Mach 3? From the reports I saw it'll easily do twice that." |
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Actually, the B-2 was revealed in 1988 IIRC. The F-117 was a 70s project. |
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You slapped him for that right? Just because you stop working with classified material doesn't mean it stops being classified. |
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True, both the B-2 and F-117 were revealed publicly in the 80's. My mistake on the B-2. |
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I don't think we revealed anything in the 90s. The ATF program originated in the 80s and was public pretty much the whole time. Kinda disappointing. |
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which turned out to be no where on earth. |
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Yeah, me too. They gave up on the SR-71 without so much as a peep. When did you ever hear of any big mil system being shut down without a bunch of howling about it unless there was something replacing it? |
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I don't have the tech specs that the rest of you have, but my first model rocket was in the shape of a SR-71 and there is a beauty parked right down the street at Eglin A.F.B museum. It is just dead sexy.....................The love affair continues.
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They got one of these down the road from me in the Air and Space Annex Mueseum over by Dulles, in Northern VA.
Right next to the Space Shuttle Enterprise. |
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But, these go to eleven... It goes higher... Highest that I will admit to seeing is FL800 on a scope... |
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Clinton era Air Force politics, plain and simple. |
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I see that beauty when we go to Ft. Walton Beach. We also have one up here at the Huntsville Space and Rocket Center. Edited for spelling. |
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I heard they'll do Mach 6 as well. A person posted how some SR-71 pilots used to wear caps that had the number 6 on them. |
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When I was a kid my dad took me to a local Air show where we were lucky enough to see one fly.The one thing I remembered when it flew was how LOUD that sucker was.It was twice as loud as the regular military jets.Also when it flew it did a few passes for the crowd and at the end it did a full after burner run and pulled straight up into the sky until we couldnt see it no more.The commentator said he was off to catch a tanker and after that we never did get to see one fly again.This was back in 1984-85 I think.
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COBRA!!! |
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What do you think was the ceiling for the SR? The books say "90+"...
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Taken from: Blackbirds.net * So how fast does the SR-71 really go.......? The fastest published speed of the SR is Mach 3.5. There are several factors that limit the speed of the SR, one is the shock waves generated by various parts of the plane, at around Mach 3.6- 3.8 the shock wave off the nose of the aircraft narrows enough to go into the engine, while there is the inlet spike (which slows the air to subsonic before it enters the engine), the shock wave bypasses the spike and causes the engine to unstart. Second is the heat generated by the plane moving through the atmosphere, even titanium has it's limits, and the heat generated by the SR brings the fuselage to the brink. Just recently I found out that during a Lockheed Skunk Works study to see how much money and development it would take to get the SR to go faster than it's designed top speed 3.2- 3.5, the designers discovered (among other things) that the metal divider between the windshield was heating up so much above mach 3.5 that it was affecting the integrity of the windshield, and at that point they had stretched the glass technology to the max! So Mach 3.2 to a max of 3.5. Now according to Richard Graham: "The design Mach number of the SR-71 is 3.2 Mach. When authorized by the Commander, speeds up to Mach 3.3 may be flown if the CIT limit of 427 degrees C. is not exceeded. I have heard of crews reaching 3.5 Mach inadvertently, but that is the absolute maximum I am aware of." * How high does the SR really fly, and do the Pilot and RSO get astronaut wings after flying the SR? The SR doesn't fly quite that high, the highest altitude I've heard attributed to the SR was 100,00 ft (18.93 miles), all the Air Force and Lockheed admit to is above 80,000 ft. To get astronaut wings you have to fly at least 264,000 ft (50 miles). Which the SR (even though it's a fantastic aircraft) doesn't get close to that altitude! Richard Graham contributes: The SR-71s engines require a sufficient quantity of air in order to operate. The maximum altitude limit is 85,000 feet unless a higher altitude is specifically authorized. Again, I have heard of crews inadvertently reaching 87,000 feet, but no higher. * So what does it cost to fly the SR-71? There are lots of numbers floating around about how much it costs to fly the SR, I've heard figures over $100,000 an hour to fly the SR-71, and a $1,000,000 a picture. The figures are all over the place, it's especially hard, because you can figure it so many different ways....do you include Tanker support, flight proficiency ops (SR "B" model and T-38), and numerous other expenses. I like to figure it as what it actually costs to fly the airplane itself, no training, tanker support, etc. So with that said.....The numbers that I've been told by people that know is $38,000 per flying hour. The costs can be lower to a rock bottom price of $27,000 per hour if the annual flying time gets above 300 hours total. So the actual cost is probably somewhere in between 38 and 27 thousand an hour. Well after the latest Wings episode "Spyplanes" on recently, some interesting errors! Well here goes.... * "The SR takes off with almost dry tanks" Well not exactly empty, the SRs tanks hold 80,000 lbs. of fuel, the SR-71 usually takes off with 45,000 lbs. of fuel on board. Not what I call almost dry! The SR takes off with either 45,000 lbs., 55,000 lbs., or 65,000 lbs. of fuel. Almost all flights are refueled by KC-135Q's (now "T"), there are a few exceptions though... one was called the "Rocket Ride", which were flown from Kadena AB, Okinawa and then on to Northern Korea, on 65,000 lbs of fuel. The only SRs that launched with a full fuel load were the test flights from Palmdale, CA. Is it an accurate debunking of the myths/legends surrounding the Habu? Who knows. BC |
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Since the SR-71's capabilities are STILL classified, I do not believe what this fellow is saying. |
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That was just one of about 4-8 stories I got in an email from my father-in-law either this week or last.
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Well, it all depends on what he was yapping about. If all he said was that he was a crypto-tech, it's all good. I was a COMSEC tech & repairman on my first enlistment, and that's no state secret. I just can't tell any more details than that.... And that clearance is how I got the job I hold today. |
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My Dad worked for Lockheed as a parts inspection and QC manager, and in the mid 80's he spent about 4 weeks a year in CA on some work with Skunkworks. He took the classified status of the info seriously, and didn't say much about it, but some of the stuff he did tell me was extremely cool (most of which has already been posted... not including the 6+ stuff. He told me that one of the pilots said that he had seen several sunrises/sunsets in one work "day", I want to say 5 but I can't remember for sure. Unfortunately I can't ask as he's not with us anymore.
ETA: I don't mean to say that they did 5 "laps" in a day, but that their path was such that the were back and forth over the sunrise point several times. I'm no mathematician but I feel safe in saying that the idea of 5 "laps" is out of the question. |
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The version I've heard of that one is when asked what they did the BUFF guy replies... took a crap, read the newspaper, had lunch and put a pot of coffee on. |
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I read a book (Rich's "Skunk Works") in which a story is told about problems the SR pilots had with violent engine flameouts and restarts. In one incident, an SR-71 had both engines flame out, lost serious altitude, and managed to restart its engine a few thousand feet above the ground. Apparently, the shockwave from the engine restart knocked over an industrial smokestack and killed a guy.
"Skunk Works" from Amazon: ($10, and a cool book): www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316743003/sr=8-1/qid=1150611932/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-0830919-1745500?%5Fencoding=UTF8 Edited to add: Holy Crow! The official SR-71 flight manual is available online (1,052 pages): www.sr-71.org/blackbird/manual/ |
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This was taken shortly after it's arrival in Richmond. |
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Yeah, at Edwards AFB, I think they were the NASA ones though. I thought I was the only one to notice. |
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Awesome I just found my night raven earlier today cleaning out the garage. Still in great condition! |
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Other funny pilot stories:
----------------------------------------- In another famous SR-71 story, Los Angeles Center reported receiving a request for clearance to FL 600 (60,000ft). The incredulous controller, with some disdain in his voice, asked, "How do you plan to get up to 60,000 feet? The pilot (obviously a sled driver), responded, "We don't plan to go up to it; we plan to go down to it." He was cleared. ---------------------- The pilot was sitting in his seat and pulled out a .38 revolver. He placed it on top of the instrument panel, and then asked the navigator, "Do you know what I use this for?" The navigator replied timidly, "No, what's it for?" The pilot responded, "I use this on navigators who get me lost!" The navigator proceeded to pull out a .45 and place it on his chart table. The pilot asked, "What's that for?" "To be honest sir," the navigator replied, "I'll know we're lost before you will." ----------------------------------------- When Hillary Clinton visited Iraq last month the Army Blackhawk helicopter used to transport the Senator was given the call sign "Broomstick One". And they say the Army has no sense of humor! ----------------------------------------- Tower: "Delta 351, you have traffic at 10 o'clock, 6 miles!" Delta 351:"Give us another hint! We have digital watches!" ----------------------------------------- One day the pilot of a Cherokee 180 was told by the tower to hold short of the runway while a MD80 landed. The MD80 landed, rolled out, turned around, and taxied back past the Cherokee. Some quick-witted comedian in the MD80 crew got on the radio and said, "What a cute little plane. Did you make it all by yourself?" Our hero the Cherokee pilot, not about to let the insult go by, came back with: "I made it out of MD80 parts. Another landing like that and I'll have enough parts for another one." ----------------------------------------- There's a story about the military pilot calling for a priority landing because his single-engine jet fighter was running "a bit peaked." Air Traffic Control told the fighter jock that he was number two behind a B-52 that had one engine shut down. "Ah," the pilot remarked, "the dreaded seven-engine approach." ----------------------------------------- A student became lost during a solo cross-country flight. While attempting to locate the aircraft on radar, ATC asked, "What was your last known position?" Student: "When I was number one for takeoff." ----------------------------------------- Taxiing down the tarmac, the 757 abruptly stopped, turned around and returned to the gate. After an hour-long wait, it finally took off. A concerned passenger asked the flight attendant, "What was the problem?" "The pilot was bothered by a noise he heard in the engine," explained the flight attendant," and it took us a while to find a new pilot." ----------------------------------------- "Flight 2341, for noise abatement, turn right 45 degrees." "But Center, we are at 35,000 feet. How much noise can we make up here?" "Sir, have you ever heard the noise a 747 makes when it hits a 727? |
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/\ LMFAO!!!!
Owned! |
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I had the pleasure of visiting Beale AFB back in 1999 as part of the CAP National Flight Academy. I had a blast at Beale, and I had a chance to to within touching distance of an SR-71 and Drone ( on static display ). I'd jump at another chance to go again.
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I've heard several claims on the top speed of the -71, but the one I've heard the most is around 3.8. Its one of my favorite air planes!
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iirc, USAF cancelled program congress voted to allocate funding and THE USAF TURNED DOWN THE $$$$ that was proof enough of aurora to me |
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There is a thread in the Military forum of Keyhole (Google Earth), where all of the BBs on display were accounted for. It was an overlay, so you could downloaded it and they would all show up. I think there were 20+ found.
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Umm...it was G.H.W. Bush who canceled the SR-71 program, just in time for the Gulf War. Now was it replaced by something new and better and faster? I don't know. But remember that Bush I was formerly a CIA Director and the CIA really seems to believe in satellites. I find it plausible that the plane was axed without a replacement. |
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I wonder it the Soviets had anything remotely equivalent to do their recon.
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The state of Alabama has more Blackbirds than any other state except for California; three total. One each in Huntsville, Birmingham and Mobile. None of them are SR-71's though.
Another funny story, from Kelly Johnson's book: When Kelly was designing the BB, he needed a high temp hydraulic oil. He called a supplier for some and they said, yeah we got some that will meet those temps, want a sample? Kelly asked for a sample and it arrived a week later - in a 50 lb sack. It was solid at room temperature. Developing high temp hydraulic oil was another technoligical feat that the Skunk Works had to overcome. Another: My old lead on AWACS used to work in S Cal on the B-70 project for Rockwell/North American. He said that while manufacturing titanium parts for the B-70, they would mysteriously disappear. He said it wasn't 20 years later, he found out that they were actually going to the BB program. Merlin |
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No, that's the C-130 / C-141 / C-5 / C-17 pilot. |
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No, The USSR was too afraid of their pilots defecting they could not conceive of flying a plane like that. |
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