This is funny.... Part of a SR-71 story

[Paul Taylor]

Someone sent me a story about the SR71. Here is a snip it from the email.

I'm sure a few of you have seen this before, but I laugh every time I read it....



SR71 Pilot and his back seat Ops guy Walt....

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.

[Louis Rankin]

Last time this went around the internet I laughed so hard I fell off my dinosaur.

[Glenn (Gravitywell) Reach]

It may be an old story, after all the SR-71 is an old plane, but its the first time I've heard it and its funny!

[Joseph Patterson]

     Same here, its new to me. My brother used to fuel them when they would fly in to Jacksonville, Ark.  Sometimes they would depart full throttle vertical at field perimeter and keep in it to well beyond sight. He never saw any fighter that could climb like an SR. This was in the mid-70's.
     Doug      

[Steve Helmick]

My brother was a USAF Capt./R&D engineer at Edwards AFB, but on TDY to Holloman AFB, NM. One cloudless day (duh!), an SR-71 dropped in with mechanical difficulties. They wheeled it into a vacant hanger and called my brother. The boss said "Helmick, you're from Edwards, so you're in charge of this plane and the crew."  He arranged a security detail (armed guards) and a driver/vehicle to take the crew to the OC for chow and VOQ for the night. Edwards scrambled a C-130 with ground equipment, mechanics, parts, and I suppose a tanker with fuel, 'cause I'm sure most of it would have leaked out of the seams.    Steve

[Brian Massey]

    Same here, its new to me. My brother used to fuel them when they would fly in to Jacksonville, Ark.  Sometimes they would depart full throttle vertical at field perimeter and keep in it to well beyond sight. He never saw any fighter that could climb like an SR. This was in the mid-70's.
     Doug      

I was at an air show in San Bernardino in the late 70's or perhaps the early 80's. An SR 71 was on static display, but had to depart the show about 3pm on Sunday to go back to Beale AFB. The pilot took off and made one circle to pass back over the runway. About a quarter way down the runway he pushed the throttle forward, pulled the nose straight up and I felt the ground shake well past being able to see him. Most awesome thing I've ever seen.

I have a picture of my wife's '67 Firebird parked in front of the SR-71 on display at the Castle Air Museum in Atwater, CA. Really love that photo.

Brian

[afml]

Open cockpit night at NMUSAF.









"Tight Lines!"

Wes

[john e. holliday]

I have seen that story several times also.   Also was sent a story of a mission of an SR-71 on a short mission.  Imagine covering several thousand miles in just a couple of hours.  They also had a very narrow stall speed at altitude.   No sleeping in the cockpit while flying this bird.

[Sean McEntee]

Looking at that picture, I see room for a couple more instruments in there...       

[Clancy Arnold]

Paul

Here is my favorite SR-71 story.

Clancy

Copied from GIZMODO:

I was piloting the SR-71 spy plane, the world's fastest jet, accompanied by Maj Walter Watson, the aircraft's reconnaissance systems officer (RSO). We had crossed into Libya and were approaching our final turn over the bleak desert landscape when Walter 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,' Walter 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.

[Brian Massey]

I've heard that before Clancy, but it's a great story worth retelling. Just after the Blackbird was retired I heard an Airforce Colonel interviewed on the air; he was asked "what will happen if someone builds a plane that can take the speed record away?" His comment, said with a slight chuckell, was classic . . . "we'll just take one out of mothballs and go get it back". I wonder if anyone really knows the absolute top speed the 71 is capable of reaching.

Brian

[Brett Buck]

I've heard that before Clancy, but it's a great story worth retelling. Just after the Blackbird was retired I heard an Airforce Colonel interviewed on the air; he was asked "what will happen if someone builds a plane that can take the speed record away?" His comment, said with a slight chuckell, was classic . . . "we'll just take one out of mothballs and go get it back". I wonder if anyone really knows the absolute top speed the 71 is capable of reaching.

    The highest mach number they ever actually recorded was an A-12, not a SR-71, and it was mach 3.56. The SR usually flew missions at 2.8, and the 3.2 number quoted above was indeed the prescribed maximum.

    Brett

[jim gevay]

If your really interested in the SR-71 and it's pilots, then go find copy of "Sled Driver" by Brian Shul. He was one of the Blackbird pilots and probably wrote those earlier quotes. He wrote a fascinating story of the SR-71 and it's day to day operations and missions, all told from the pilots perspective.
It's a very expensive book, so look for it at your local library.

[Brian Hampton]

    The highest mach number they ever actually recorded was an A-12, not a SR-71, and it was mach 3.56. The SR usually flew missions at 2.8, and the 3.2 number quoted above was indeed the prescribed maximum.

Strangely the F-111 wasn't all that much slower (relatively speaking ) because a few American pilots recall going very close to Mach 3. I remember one of our Aussie aircrew saying they'd just gone to Mach 2.7 in our F-111C which had the least powerful of the engines used in the various models. I've been to almost Mach 2.4 on an engine test flight and it was still accelerating hard when the pilot pulled the throttles back although a test flight really only required going to Mach 2.2. What really limited the F-111 for sustained high speed was the alloy skin which would start to overheat so there was a skin temp gauge which showed the allowable minutes remaining although I don't recall now at what speed it began to register.

[Steve Thomas]

What really limited the F-111 for sustained high speed was the alloy skin which would start to overheat so there was a skin temp gauge which showed the allowable minutes remaining although I don't recall now at what speed it began to register.

Hi Brian, from memory you got an amber caution light at 153 C total temperature; the 300 second countdown also started then.  If you reached a total temperature of 214 C a big red 'Reduce Speed' warning light came on.  Someone reckoned that the two temperatures equated to M2.2 and M2.5 at high altitude, but from my experience that wasn't the case. A colleague managed to set off the caution light and countdown while flying on the deck. He was doing about 850 kts (M1.3) - which was interesting given that at sea level, the 'barbers pole' was at 800 kts.

[Although our F-111s had the least-powerful engines (at least until we re-engined them in the '90s), they also had smaller intakes which were a lot less draggy - so they were still pretty slippery at high speed.]

[Chris McMillin]

I think the difference is the M3.2 at 80,000 plus compared with wherever the F-111 did Mach 2.whatever7. Big difference.
Chris...

[Steve Thomas]

I think the difference is the M3.2 at 80,000 plus compared with wherever the F-111 did Mach 2.whatever7. Big difference.
Chris...

Agreed Chris - no comparison.

[david beazley]

If your really interested in the SR-71 and it's pilots, then go find copy of "Sled Driver" by Brian Shul. He was one of the Blackbird pilots and probably wrote those earlier quotes. He wrote a fascinating story of the SR-71 and it's day to day operations and missions, all told from the pilots perspective.
It's a very expensive book, so look for it at your local library.

Boy, you're not kidding about expensive!  Anywhere from $2495.95 to $1173.00 at Amazon!  What's the deal?  Is it printed on titanium from leftover airframe parts?