‘I watched in amazement as the Vc circle [on the radar display], which told us the relative closing velocity of the target, started rapidly winding up far higher than I…
‘One of the real highlights of flying above Mach 3 and above 80,000 feet is nobody is up there with you,’ David Peters, former SR-71 Blackbird pilot The SR-71 Blackbird…
The SR-71 Blackbird pilot Brian Shul on May 20, 2023, in Reno, Nevada, unexpectedly passed away at the age of 75 due to a cardiac arrest At the age of…
No story on the SR-71 would be complete without an understanding and appreciation of just how valuable the KC-135Q model tankers and their crews were to the successful and safe…
‘“Beautiful, beautiful, come back and do another one,” the tower controller said,’ Maury Rosenberg, SR-71 Blackbird pilot The Lockheed A-12 and YF-12A aircraft served as the foundation for the development…
Members of the SR-71 Blackbird crew have reported that on occasion, they came down in search of a tanker, not so much because they were running out of gas but…
‘It was thought if the Chance Vought XF8U-3 Super Crusader where to have gone into production it would have been powered by a J58,’ Jim Goodall, former Master Sergeant at…
“In military power, we would start to fall off the boom. The solution was to light one afterburner with careful finesse,’ Brian Shul, former SR-71 Blackbird pilot The Lockheed A-12…
A-12 pilot Jim Eastham dropped the nose down a bit to see if he could at least reach Mach 3.0. Out of nowhere, Jim hit good air and in the…
Congresswoman Beverly Byron was the only female woman to have flown on the legendary SR-71 Blackbird; she did it as a VIP guest in 1985 The photos in this post…