The Blackbird
The Lockheed A-12 and YF-12A aircraft were the basis for the long-range, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft known as the SR-71, or “Blackbird,” as it was unofficially called.
The 4200th (later 9th) Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base, California, received the first SR-71 to begin service in January 1966. The first SR-71 flight occurred on December 22, 1964.
Everything that had come before the Blackbird was not comparable. “Everything had to be invented. Everything,” renowned aircraft designer Kelly Johnson of Skunk Works remembered in an interesting post that appeared on the Lockheed Martin website.
The SR-71 flew at over 2,000 miles per hour. Theoretically, other aircraft of that era could reach that speed, but only in brief bursts powered by afterburners. The Blackbird maintained a record-setting speed for hours at a time. Friction with the atmosphere at such a speed produces temperatures that would melt a traditional airframe.
Two Buick Nailhead V8 engines to start the SR-71 Mach 3+ plane
When Kelly Johnson was designing the A-12/YF-12 /M-21 and SR-71 he didn’t want the weight to be added for a starter on the airplane. According to him, the more it weighs, the more fuel it will need. It was decided that the job could be accomplished by two Buick Nailhead V8 engines.
As you can hear in the video below, starting the fastest aircraft in the world, the Blackbird, was amazing, but it also sounded like the Indianapolis 500 was getting ready the SR-71 for takeoff with its two V8 engines.
Autoevolution claims that two of the aforementioned Nailhead V8 engines were fused together for this specific usage only, using a common drive shaft and transmission. The combined engines were then housed in a metal container with four wheels and a trailer hitch, which was given the name AG330 “start cart.” The two engines of the Blackbird were directly connected to the resultant Chimera. The two V8s spun the turbines until they could sustain compression on their own by using the combined drive shaft. SR-71 and its cousins, the A-12 Archangel and the YF-12 fighter, used nailhead V8s as impromptu starter motors until at least 1970, when most of them were swapped out for Chevy 454 V8s.
Phased out
When a new, quieter pneumatic system was put in place to perform the same function as the start cart at the majority of US airbases where the Blackbird and company were stationed, these were also phased out. A few continued to serve longer at auxiliary bases abroad, some of them with the original Buick Nailheads, until the Blackbird and all of its variants were retired in 1999.
Check out Habubrats SR-71‘s Twitter profile and Born into the Wilde Blue Yonder Habubrats‘s Facebook page for further Blackbird photos and stories.
Photo by John Freedman and User:Jaydec via Wikipedia