The Thrill of Flying the SR-71 Blackbird

[Bouncer]

"In April 1986, following an attack on American soldiers in a Berlin disco, President Reagan ordered the bombing of Muammar Qaddafi's terrorist camps in Libya. My duty was to fly over Libya and take photos recording the damage our F-111's had inflicted. Qaddafi had established a 'line of death,' a territorial marking across the Gulf of Sidra , swearing to shoot down any intruder that crossed the boundary. On the morning of April 15, I rocketed past the line at 2,125 mph."

Full Article The Thrill of Flying the SR-71 Blackbird - Blackbird - Gizmodo

[dna9488]

The plane was flying a mile every 1.6 seconds, well above our Mach 3.2 limit.

That is unreal man.

[Konitz]

64 to minutes to blast across the country; that is great.

[blm]

When I was doing some consulting in VA last year I did work for one of the original engineers from Skunk Works (the project for the Blackbird). He was a really cool old man. He gave me one of his coffee cups with the Skunk Works logo on it. I cherish that coffee cup like it's my own little piece of history, lol.

[Mr I]

When I was a boy I wanted to be a pilot and I used to collect magazines etc on military aircraft, I would fantasise about flying one of those things, reminds me of firefox.

They used titanium on those things which at the time was revolutionary, there's a record somewhere of how many heatseeking missiles, surface to air etc had been set off after the SR21, they never caught up with it.

The sad thing is these birds are being slowley decommissioned, with satellite imaging and stealth bombers the military need for them is fading. Its a real shame since there's nothing like flying over enemy lines at 85,000 ft (which these fuckers could do) or at 2189mph and they know your there but there is fuck all they can do lol!

Without question probably among a handful of the greatest aviation feats was the production of these beauties. Others being jump jet and fly by wire