“We had no viable emergency airfields, and I did not want to be a no-notice, no–flight plan, single-engine emergency arrival at David Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, especially since the…
While the SR-71 was operational, several pilots flew the Blackbird faster than the official record but not during sanctioned record attempts The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird Mach 3 strategic reconnaissance aircraft…
“I came away with one observation—the more recommendations an applicant had from general officers, the less likely were his chances of getting into the SR-71 program. Flying skills rather than…
“Everything seemed to unfold in slow motion. I learned later the time from event onset to catastrophic departure from controlled flight was only 2-3 sec. Still trying to communicate with…
“You haven’t been lost till you’ve been lost at Mach 3 because for every minute that you don’t know where you are, you’re 35 miles further away from where you…
“My call sign was ‘Belmont 86’ and my transmissions to approach control were something like this: ‘Bodø Approach, Belmont 86, six-zero miles west, declaring an in-flight emergency, request straight-in approach…
“The termination of the SR-71 Blackbird was a grave mistake and could place our nation at a serious disadvantage in the event of a future crisis,” Senator John Glenn The Lockheed…
Maj. Maury Rosenberg, the SR-71 pilot, and Maj. E. D. McKim, the RSO, were heading southwest on their final pass over the DMZ when North Korea launched two Soviet SA-2…
“On take off, shortly after rotation and beyond the take-off abort point, the SR-71 left engine surged, followed by progressive failure of the second stage turbine wheel…” Colonel Thomas S.…
All was calm halfway over the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), but Graham suddenly observed a big object over North Korea that was astonishingly higher than his SR-71 Blackbird actually was Performances…