Talk:Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird/Archive 1

message: I'm just wondering why no one has mentioned how the Blackbird was tested at Groom along with other jets such as Have Blue, and the U-2. It is kind of important and if you look under the Groom Lake article in Wikipedia there is a mention about it, given the amount of construction that the base underwent to prepare for it. Another this that is never mentioned is how it could not really turn at all. While you mention the standard prcedure to dodge missles was to speed up, it is not mentioned that it was ahrd for the plane to dive. 
===Comments re. the last two sentences above===
The Blackbird turned very smoothly and well. Standard turns were made at 30 degrees of bank ( with a nominal radius of turn of 74 nm at mach 3.0 cruise ) and at times higher when mission constraints required tighter turns to stay out of politically sensitive areas not planned for coverage on a particular sortie. Turns however used more fuel and the rule of thumb was for every degree of turn you lost one nautical mile of range. Thus, turning was not a desired evasive action tactic. By entering a "target area" at mach 3.0 and then accelerating to mach 3.2 and climbing if a missile was launched compounded the SAM Guidance problems. Now the missile had to follow a changing "pursuit curve" which created more drag and use of missile propellent. The result was the missile would be behind the Blackbird and often "out of fuel" before it reached a correct interception altitude. Tracking cameras on board the Blackbird would show the missile contrails coming up and falling back and behind well below the Blackbird. We crewmembers "loved" seeing those pictures after a sorties film was developed and viewed.
David Dempster 01:53, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing info? 

message: The Blackbird turned very smoothly and well. Standard turns were made at 30 degrees of bank ( with a nominal radius of turn of 74 nm at mach 3.0 cruise ) and at times higher when mission constraints required tighter turns to stay out of politically sensitive areas not planned for coverage on a particular sortie. Turns however used more fuel and the rule of thumb was for every degree of turn you lost one nautical mile of range. Thus, turning was not a desired evasive action tactic. By entering a "target area" at mach 3.0 and then accelerating to mach 3.2 and climbing if a missile was launched compounded the SAM Guidance problems. Now the missile had to follow a changing "pursuit curve" which created more drag and use of missile propellent. The result was the missile would be behind the Blackbird and often "out of fuel" before it reached a correct interception altitude. Tracking cameras on board the Blackbird would show the missile contrails coming up and falling back and behind well below the Blackbird. We crewmembers "loved" seeing those pictures after a sorties film was developed and viewed.
David Dempster 01:53, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments re. the last two sentences above

message: I disagree with this recent addition to the page: "Note that while never intended for the bomber role, the -71 designation comes from the sequence used for bombers pre-1962, perhaps as a disinformation strategy". It is known that for a long time the US was working on a bomber variant of the SR-71, and that's probably why the -71 designation was used. This page has some info : . It also clears up another question - namely that the A-12 was a predeccessor to the SR-71. However, as it is classed as a different aircraft, I would reccomend leaving the first flight date unchanged (possibly create another page for the A-12?)
-lommer 21:17, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Designation confusion 

message: A friend of mine who worked as a maintenance crewman at England AFB, LA told me the following:
In 71' a Blackbird made an emergency landing at England AFB. The plane was quickly taxied into a sealed maintenance hangar. THREE spacesuited officers emerged out of THREE seperate compartments with doors that hinged up. Two were Majors and one was a
Colonel. My friend said he went up the stairs to the cockpits to get a look inside, he again confirmed THREE seats, the third being just in front of the mid-air refueling intake.
:I was the pilot of the mission that landed at England Air Force Base.  The only other crewmember with me was "Red" Mc Neer, my RSO.  There was no 3rd seat...and never was.  At that time, I was the SR-71/YF-12A Test Director at Edwards AFB.  "Red" and I were over the Gulf of Mexico, enroute to the Eglin Range for a test mission when the accessory drive on one engine failed and caused the failure of one electrical system, one flight control hydraulic system and one utility hydraulic system.  The emergency procedure required that we land ASAP and England AFB was the nearest suitable place to land.  Only TWO spacesuited officers emerged out of TWO separate compartments...TRUST ME!  Lt. General Bill Campbell
Noone mentions a 3-seater Blackbird anywhere, all models were 2-seaters. But the YF-12C was mentioned as the prototype for the SR-71A, and as having a second cockpit added, which plus the RSO cockpit would make three cockpits no? NASA obtained the YF-12C from the Air Force in 72' at which time again only 2 cockpits were present, i believe that by this time, the 3rd cockpit had been replaced with electronics and the star tracker navigation system.
--Gunter 22:35, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I once saw some footage on the Discovery Channel of an SR-71 that had what I can only describe as a "piggy-back cockpit," and it was quite possibly one of the ugliest birds I've ever seen, ruined the legendary Blackbird Aesthetic. I could have sworn it was still a two-seater, but I may be wrong. It may have been an earlier prototype or a decoy of some kind. I'm not even entirely sure that that model was ever operational. And I looked up the coordinates of Beale Air Force Base, and from the satellite photos it just looked like a bunch of houses. It may be a combination decoy base/administrative & disinformation center for 9th Recon. My dad was an X-Ray tech at Beale, and we lived on base, and I never saw any planes there, not even the usual decorative pieces like the ones I saw at other AFBs like Lackland AFB in San Antonio. I remember my dad telling me they flew spy planes at Beale, but I never saw one in person, and neither did my dad. TheTizzleator 05:47, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Was it the trainer version of A-12 Oxcart? Triddle 00:16, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

text: VIP flights? Were they simply demo flights to give VIPs a ride in a cool plane or was the SR-71 actually used as a super-fast single-person transport plane? Has an SR-71 ever been called Air Force One? -Lommer | talk 21:34, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  3-seater version? 

message: 200px|right
I replaced this photograph with a new photograph of the flight instrumentation from the SR-71 in the Evergreen Aviation Museum. I thought it would be wise to leave a link to the photograph here because it was not referenced from anywhere else. Triddle 04:29, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Replaced photograph 

message: Does anyone else think the COBRA Night Raven, with detachable, autonomous drone, was a knock-off of the MD-21?  The Night Raven toy photos make it look much more angular, and the Night Raven was chiefly a fighter, but the overall shape has some similarities.  -- Ventura 18:46, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)
yes, just like the rattlers are knockoffs of a-10s
-Lordraydens 04:43, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  SR-71 in fiction: [[G.I. Joe]] 

message: The "Myth and Lore" section talks about a small group of people who think the SR-71 could acheive speeds of up to Mach 5. I have heard similar rumours, but not speed specific to any speed. What was specific was the the D-21 "drone" was in fact a third engine to enable such speeds to be achieved. Whether there was a specially modified D-21 for this purpose, or whether the D-21 really existed at all as a drone I do not know.
:Nevermind the fact the the drone would have to be absolute hell on aerodynamics, hey? - Anon.  August 7th, 2005
I have heard that only one person have managed to get a lock on a Blackbird with a SAM. It was a Swedish conscript who did it when a Blackbird requested a flight path over Sweden so they knew it was comming. // Liftarn
:I don't think that is consistant with our sources. Most indicate that SAM locks were regularly achieved on the blackbird, and that it simply outran the missiles. This includes comments from former SR-71 flight crew member David Dempster that posts here. -Lommer | talk 22:27, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Myth and Lore 

message: Astronaut wings are awarded only to aviators who reach or exceed 50 miles high ( 264,000 feet for statute miles ). X-15 pilots who did this received these wings as did the Space Ship One pilot who reached 50 miles. The Blackbird "typically" cruised between 78,000 feet to 83,500 feet ( slowly climbing as it burned fuel ). While there may have been higher SR-71 and A-12 altitude excursions, no Blackbird ever went to 50 miles. I have deleted the statement that "Astronaut Wings were awarded to SR-71 pilots".
David Dempster 23:15, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: DELETION OF ASTRONAUT WINGS

message: This is an excellent article.  Has it ever been a featured article ?  If not, I would like to recommend it. StuRat 05:05, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, this article is not, and has never been featured. To become a featured article, it needs to satisfy the criteria listed here, some of which this article doesn't satisfy (mostly the sourcing/referencing criteria). Then it needs to undergo peer review before being subjected to a vote. The steps are all laid out on the page I linked to above — it takes quite a bit of work to produce a featured article as you can see. -Lommer | talk 23:20, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Featured article ?

message: The image at the top of the page is photoshopped. Badly. I direct you rattention to the fact that parts of the wing are completely transparent; the starboard turbine is entirely detached from the plane. -- A. Nony Mouse
: Are you sure?  I see something similar to what you describe adjacent to the port turbine, but I had assumed it was oil, or condensation, or something that had otherwise rendered the surface reflective, which would explain why it does not respect the edge of the shadow.  It is obvious that the surface is not completely transparent as it shares texture with other parts of the wing. 128.84.98.150 15:25, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Image at the top

message: The lead paragraph states, "The SR-71 is the only aircraft in the United States Air Force inventory that was never lost in its entire service run, although a M-21 (version of a fore-runner, see below) was lost in a fatal crash in 1966."  I know this to be untrue.  In fact numerous aircraft were lost during it's time in service.  See here for example- 
http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/losses.php
I can't vouch for the accuracy of this page but a google search reveals there are many other pages like this detailing aircraft losses.
:Thanks, I've added that to the article. --Guinnog 22:02, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Intro paragraph

message: Are we entirely sure that the Blackbird was never shot down? Our local military information buff happens to claim that one was SAM'ed over Russia. Someone care to look into that?
:Yes, and no, in that order. If your local military information buff can come up with anything verifiable, we'd be delighted to hear it though. --Guinnog 00:49, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Depends what you mean by shot down.  "No Aircraft Damaged by Hostile Action.  Was Shot Down Only Once by Gen Larry Welch then C5 USAF..." Senior Crown Program  - and of course depends whether that can be corroborated. Hakluyt bean 15:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That just refers to him cancelling the program, not to an actual aircraft loss. Rmhermen 22:58, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm inclined to agree.  However, if the Russians (who else!?) had shot one down, you would think that they would have made a big propaganda campaign out of it.  At least we would see some bits of SR-71 paraded on russian TV?  Just a thought...Mumby 18:01, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Never Shot Down?

message: What was the time period the Blackbird was used?
:The article pretty clearly indicates that it was used from 1964 until 1990. -User:Lommer | talk 20:26, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Question

message: Even if it was never shot down, I know that several fighters suceeded in locking air-to-air-missiles on it. I think i have somewhere read that a Swedish Saab JA37 Viggen was the first to do it. Does soneone know anything more about it?
Ok, I´ve found some more about it: Swedish semi-official magazine Värnpliktsnytt ("National Service News") says that in 1983 Per-Olof Eldh in division "Martin Blue" of airbase F13 as the first in the world radarlocks a missile on a SR-71, with a JA 37 Viggen. The US planes were regulary flying over Sweden the, as US didn´t think Viggen could reach that high. After this the planes went a longer route around Sweden instead. The magazine also mentions a postcard later sent from Edwards AFB to F13 saying "OK boys, u got us".
In the magazine "Insats & Försvar" ("Intervention(??) & Defence") issued by the Swedish Armed Forces, also mentions the said encounters where JA 37 Viggen pilots locked air-to-air missiles on SR-71:s. I guess they they like to tell this story :). It also goes on saying that in mission debrief and evalutaion they belived that they could have shot down the SR-71:s if requierd to do so on those occations. It says that it was risky due to the high altidue and high speed to go after them though.
// Kakis
:Regarding the above comment, it would have been risky because of the extreme angle of attack that would be encountered at such high altitudes required to get a decent position for missle launch against a blackbird.
:: F-101, F-102, and F-106 pilots routinely practiced intercepts against SR-71 seeing if they could get a firing solution while coasting over the top of the zoom climb. Don't know how many were successful. - Emt147 Burninate! 06:09, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missiles locked 

message: The page currently list the following performance figures:
Maximum speed: Mach 3.35 at 80,000 ft (24,285 m) 
Maximum speed: 2,193 knots (4,062 km/h) 
Maximum speed: 2,522 m.p.h.
By my basic reckoning 2193 knots at 80,000 would equate to about mach 3.75 - only at sea level would mach 3.35 be close to 2193 knots. There is no way it could reach such speeds at low level. I'm guessing knots have been assigned to a figure in mph and the the other figures calculated from it. Can anyone confirm one way or the other? --LiamE 01:06, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The speed is incorect. The maximum speed is 2,193.16 MPH set on July, 28th, 1976. Interestingly, I just found out, early SR-71s were equiped to carry a 1-Megaton nuclear payload. I am going to fix the article now. --Ctrl build 06:17, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, you're not quite right on that point.  The 2,193.16 mph was not the absolute top speed set between two radar gates.  It was the top speed sustained on a closed course speed run.  In the 1990 coast-to-cost run, the SR-71 was reported in the newspapers as reaching 2,242 mph (Mach 3.39) between two of the radar gates.  There is no reason to believe the plane could not sustain that speed.  Indeed, the Air Force was quoted as saying that with somewhat different parameters, the SR-71 could have done the coast-coast flight even faster. 
I'm adding a "citation needed" to the plane buff speculation, for a couple of reasons:  The inlet temperature issue is important, though there's insufficient validation of the limit.  Second, the fuselage itself and engines (on other grounds) could easily sustain higher speeds (and some air buffs I've met have told me the plane could travel Mach 4).   So which set of air buffs is right?  I don't know.  I will try to hunt down the articles for that 1990 speed run and double-check the numbers.  The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the time elapsed was 68 minutes, not 64 minutes.
By the way, this Wikipedia article is very nice, very well written and edited.  Kudos to those who did a lot of hard work on it. 20:22, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Performance figures 

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thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Columbia SEAS.GIF