At the height of the Cold War in 1964, President Johnson announced a new aircraft dedicated to strategic reconnaissance. The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird spy plane flew more than three-and-a-half times the speed of sound, so fast that no other aircraft could catch it. Above 80,000 feet, its pilots had to wear full-pressure flight suits similar to what was used aboard the space shuttle. Developed by the renowned Lockheed Skunk Works, the SR-71 was an awesome aircraft in every respect, and it took the world by storm. The SR-71 was in service with the U.S. Air Force from 1964 to 1998, when it was withdrawn from use, superseded by satellite technology. Twelve of the thirty-two aircraft were destroyed in accidents, but none were ever lost to enemy action. Throughout its thirty-four-year career, the SR-71 was the world’s fastest and highest-flying operational manned aircraft. It set world records for altitude and speed: an absolute altitude record of 85,069 feet on July 28, 1974, and an absolute speed record of 2,193.2 miles per hour on the same day. On September 1, 1974, it set a speed and time record over a recognized course between New York and London (3,508 miles) of 1,435.587 miles per hour and an elapsed time of 1 hour, 54 minutes, 56.4 seconds. SR-71 covers every aspect of the SR-71’s development, manufacture, modification, and active service from the insider’s perspective of one its pilots and is lavishly illustrated with more than 200 photos.
... 178, 179 Lockheed Corporation, 9, 10, 12, 15, 20, 29, 53, 133, 235 Lockheed Field Service (LSR), 178 Lockheed Martin, 112, 248 Loignon, Phil, 103, 145 Lovelace Clinic, 20 Luloff, Gil, 252, 253 F-4, 75, 102, 106 F-14, 152, 154 F-15, ...
Lockheed's SR-71 Blackbird is one of the most iconic and famous jets ever built.
Captioned photos, illustrations, and brief text describe the design, development, and uses of the American reconnaissance aircraft.
And if they are fired head-on, their guidance systems cannot adjust quickly enough to the high closing speed. Many Habus flew Tomcat Chase and Eagle Bait training sorties against our best fighters, the Navy's F-14 and the Air Force's ...
SR-71 Revealed: The Untold Story
On March 24 , 1954 , a British engineer by the name of Randolph Rae hand carried to the Air Force's New Developments offices at Wright Field a proposal he had drafted calling for the development of an aircraft powered by a ...
Fighting that fifty-pound pressure suit and the workload of flying the Blackbird for the second time allowed me about three minutes of consciousness from the moment I climbed through about twelve thousand feet.
I was scheduled for my “ astronaut " physical at the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque , New Mexico . This is the same facility where the original astronauts received their medical evaluations , and it was the medical facility for the ...
DECEMBER 1962 there were two A-12 Blackbirds being flight-tested over Nevada, one with two of the older J75 engines and the other with one J75 and one J58. So far Mach 2 had barely been exceeded and the aircraft had reached a mere ...
Thereafter Ishmael checked out a second NASA pilot – Rogers Smith, who in turn flew Marta Meyer and her husband Robert on an orientation flight, as they became the two test engineers on the program. The most ambitious project to be ...