aircraft

The Blackbird

The Lockheed A-12 and YF-12A aircraft served as the basis for the development of the SR-71, also referred to as the “Blackbird”, a long-range, advanced strategic reconnaissance aircraft. 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. On January 26, the US Air Force retired its SR-71 fleet.

For almost 24 years, the SR-71 held the record for being the fastest and highest-flying operational aircraft in the world. It could cover 100,000 square miles of the Earth’s surface per hour from 80,000 feet.

Jim Shelton, the SR-71 pilot, and SR-71 RSO after flying the longest Blackbird operational sortie in history—11 hours and 19 minutes during the Yom Kippur War—Gary Coleman was awarded the 1973 Trophy for recon and crew. They had to get the Blackbird from Beale to Griffiss Air Force Base (AFB) before they took off on that long flight.

Penn State expert mistakes SR-71’s shockwave for a meteorite entering the Earth’s atmosphere

Shelton recalls in Rich Graham’s book SR-71 Blackbird: Stories, Tales, and Legends:

‘On short notice, we took off in SR-71 #979 and headed for Griffiss Air Force Base with one in-flight refueling over Nevada as we headed east at Mach 3 at 80,000 feet. Our route took us south of Chicago and north of Indianapolis. Passing south of Chicago, I said to Gary, “I can see the lights of Chicago out the left window.” The lights of Indianapolis on the right were so clear that we must have been creating quite a sonic boom that was touching the ground and disturbing many people.

‘However, it turned out to be worse than I thought, as indicated by the articles that appeared in the newspaper on October 12, 1973, when the shockwave stretched from Indiana to New York State; Jim says he laughed at the media quotes when Dr. Alexander, a Penn State Expert, said it was conceivable it could’ve been a meteorite entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

‘Do you think that we were going to tell the world that they were wrong that it was an SR-71 going to Griffith Air Force Base?’

Sonic boom complaints

Shelton concludes;

‘At Beale, there was an office that handled sonic boom complaints on a full-time basis. The office received boom complaints from everyone and anyone farmers claimed that their cows would not give milk anymore, chickens wouldn’t lay eggs.’

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 Lockheed Martin and U.S. Air Force

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

The SR-71 Blackbird

The Lockheed A-12 and YF-12A aircraft were the basis for developing the SR-71, also called the “Blackbird” or long-range, advanced strategic reconnaissance aircraft. 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. On January 26, 1990, the US Air Force retired its entire fleet of SR-71s.

For almost 24 years, the SR-71 held the record for being the fastest and highest-flying operational aircraft in the world. It could cover 100,000 square miles of the Earth’s surface per hour from 80,000 feet. Two world records for its class were set on July 28, 1976, by an SR-71: an absolute speed record of 2,193.167 mph and an absolute altitude record of 85,068.997 feet.

The fifth SR-71 crewmember to reach the 900-flying hour plateau

Six of the nine years that Colonel (Ret) James H. Shelton Jr. spent at Beale Air Force Base (AFB) passed by piloting the SR-71. He was the fifth member of the SR-71 crew to achieve the 900 flight hour plateau. Though few Habus have reached that milestone, most commercial airline pilots would consider that a paltry amount of flying time.

According to Richard H. Graham’s book SR-71 Blackbird Stories, Tales and Legends, Shelton recalls a special operational Blackbird mission that took place during his initial overseas deployment to Kadena AB in May 1969 with Major Tom Schmittou (RSO):

“The operational tasking from SAC headquarters always had maintenance personnel generating a primary and secondary aircraft. On 13 June 1969, we were in primary aircraft #979 for an operational mission over North Vietnam. It was a typical four-hour flight, consisting of a single east-to-west pass across Hanoi, air refuel over Thailand, then a west-to-east pass just south of Hanoi, returning to Kadena AB.

“The engine start, takeoff, air refueling, and acceleration to Mach 2.8 at an altitude of 77,000 feet went as planned. At the navigation checkpoint, Tom informed me that the navigation system was drifting and the mission should be aborted. Tom made the abort call, and I turned the aircraft back to Okinawa. The descent from altitude and approach for landing was normal. Moderate rain was falling, so I applied the rain remover fluid to the front windscreen, allowing me to see the runway about 2 to 3 miles out.

Cockpit fogging and drag chute deploying

“The touchdown on the runway went smoothly. However, as I retarded the throttles to idle, the cockpit began to fill up with fog (water vapor). I had forgotten to increase the cockpit temperature to 85 degrees or higher, to prevent the formation of cockpit fogging; I remembered one pilot had previously blown the canopy off on landing just to see the runway and I really didn’t want to do that! I quickly flipped the cockpit temperature switch from automatic to manual hot. This eliminated the fog in the cockpit, but did nothing to slow the aircraft down. Being so engrossed with holding the temperature switch in the full hot position (spring-loaded), thereby fixing one problem, I inadvertently created another: I forgot to deploy the drag ‘chute.

“The drag ‘chute must be deployed to slow the aircraft on landing, especially on a wet runway. In my mind, and in actuality, the aircraft was slowing enough. I applied the brakes and the antiskid started cycling like crazy, so I turned it off, but to no avail. I then shut down one engine as I saw the end of the runway coming up very, very quickly (at about 120 miles hour). Fortunately, the runway at Kadena had a cable barrier installed about 1,000 feet from the end, specifically for the SR-71.”

As Graham explains “the BAK 11/12 barrier was installed at two of our operating locations – on runway 16 at Beale and on runway 05R on Kadena. The barrier was designed to stop the plane at a maximum speed of 180 knots. Arming and disarming the barrier was controlled in the tower. At both Kadena and RAF Mildenhall, we had a crewmember in the tower during all takeoffs and landings to make sure everything went smoothly.

Only two successful SR-71 Blackbird Barrier Engagements

“When armed, the barrier was activated by the aircraft nosewheel and main gear as they rolled over pressure-sensitive switchmats located in the runway before the arresting cable. The switches energized a timing computer that caused the arresting cable to be thrown up to engage the main gear struts. On engagement, the arresting cable was pulled out with a relatively constant restraining force to stop the aircraft within 2,000 feet. This was all theoretical. In actual practice, the number of unsuccessful SR-71 engagements far outnumbered the successful ones. Besides Jim successful engagement, I know of only one other.”

Shelton continues. “The barrier is designed to pop up in front of the two main landing gear and stop the aircraft in 400 to 500 feet. The barrier unit uses the B-52 aircraft brake system to slow the aircraft and bring it to a stop (hopefully!). Boy, was I relieved that the barrier worked as advertised! There was one unsuccessful barrier engagement on 10 October 1968 at Beale, where the SR-71 (#977) was destroyed. There were only two barrier engagements recorded at the time, and fortunately, ours was the successful one.

Allowed to continue flying after one of only two successful SR-71 Barrier Engagements

“Well, I just knew my SR-71 flying days were over as I climbed out of the aircraft. This incident terminated my flying at Kadena AB for this tour. The maintenance personnel worked the rest of the day and all through the night replacing the gear doors, hydraulic lines, and electrical wires on the main landing gear damaged by the barrier cable. I owe a big thanks to those maintenance personnel, because the aircraft was ready to fly the next day. They sure saved my six o’clock position (butt).

“Since this was the second fogging incident, Lockheed designed a lever that the RSO moved to stop air from entering the cockpit before landing, eliminating any chance of fogging the cockpit as the throttles were retarded. I call that handle the “Shelton lever.” Needless to say, I was allowed to continue flying, thanks to the thorough flying evaluation the standardization crews administered to me on my return to Beale AFB.”

Photo by U.S. Air Force