SR-71 Blackbird | Cold War icon 

It’s definitely number 2 for me. Absolutely magnificent aircraft. I would love to be an Aeronautical Engineer someday and hopefully design some beautiful aircraft.

@@shastamite2 Out of curiosity, whats #1 in yor opinion?

@@simpleman8883 Maybe the B2 Spirit?

It’s got to be Concorde!

I agree. The B1 Lancer is beautiful as well!

Enjoy that shot down lol > en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident

Work faster not harder?

Depends on which direction the missile is coming from.

Spend millions on plane that isn’t stealthy, only causes diplomatic incidents and then lie about what it found because it couldn’t find the missiles they were looking for

@@greyguy.960 i don’t think they can go as high

3 years after, we landed on the moon...

And the Sopwith was probably more fun to fly.

And 10 years later we had supersonic passenger aircraft.

And then 50 years after 1966, Boeing introduced the Boeing 737 Max.

@@spiritofthetime lmao

Comparing the SR-71 to a McLaren F1 is mind boggling but I get what you’re saying. Two designs that will never get old.

Let's get real, a McLaren is a kiddie toy compare to an XR-71. It's more akin to an engineering equivalent of Beethoven's 9th.

Wow, I love this comparison, well said IMO as the F1 is my favorite car and is a legendary vehicle itself

@@theccpisaparasite8813 when comparing them to their competitors at the time. Yes the F1 is that advanced

all the aerodynamics and design on a machine like the SR71 is designed to be the very best the mclaren must balance aerodynamics with looking cool, it's not really even near the same level of innovation in my mind that was just like marketting and top gear stuff

Haha 😂

BO 1 ?

“Sr 71 online “

Old models

Most gas is a coolant.

Bomb Allahhhh! Cool! Use it! Clean the terrror!

@@lucasrem1870 😒

So its a big 2 stroke. Nice.

But what about since then? Where are the successors?!!

A true testament to math nerds

Just goes to show you what can be done with a slide rule. I still have my dad's.

You don't need computers when you have a slide rule, a wind tunnel, schlieren mirror and just lots of money to revisit changes with good engineering manners. People really should learn to use a slide rule, as it is so credibly fast and allows to make complex things easily. Similar thing is that people should learn to use a abakus as well, because it makes so easy to make common big math.

Well... technically they did have computers, but not as we know them today. They used Calculus tables & Slide Rules :D

That's cool...

I went looking for the book, thinking I may have had that one... good lord there are a ton of books with "Warbirds" in the title, that's annoying.

Wicked 😋

…

German roots?

@Hamish Osborne Less. I am in the aerospace industry here in the US. The government customer is completely broken and without passion. Half of the government doesn’t even like the US.

@Hamish Osborne Not much. It’s been a long March through the institutions by the Left. It also occurs naturally with large organizations. Without reform or continuous improvement, the organization becomes inept, corrupt or both. The public sector is never threatened with competition and poor performance is accepted. Government run schools in the US urban areas are the worst in the Western world. This will never change. They are too big, their funding never threatened and the unions are the most powerful political actors in urban areas.

Exactly the same with the Apollo missions (and others). The technology now looks primitive in so many respects, but their feats of engineering were absolutely incredible.

@@jamesdellaneve9005 all of the government loves the US. Only their version of the US.

It's like flying a dead bird simple lol > en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident

And then for another half century, we lost the capability to fly that fast, we sacrificed speed in favour of efficiency.

The alien 👽 tech at Area 51 makes many things possible..🤫😉

If I remember right from everything I read (and she mentioned) The gaps in the aircraft that sealed shut from the heat of the plane's operation applied to everything, including the fuel tanks; had to, otherwise the tanks and such would have ripped from the strain. Once she was up in the air and operating, the gaps sealed themselves and she was good to go. the gaps meant the Blackbird leaked like a sieve; I totally believe they had to have a plane up in the air to refuel her after takeoff.

I was wrong about the fuel. On another video I was informed that the plane leaked so much fuel from the inability to seal the tanks she would take off nearly empty & needed to be refueled right away.

Yep, it's just like the British & French Concorde, it used to take off in London at 9am and arrived in New York at 8am! They both flew faster than the world could turn! I always imagine telling someone that, from the 1860s, just to gauge their reaction that in 100 years there would be machines carrying people that could fly faster than sound could travel, and faster than the bullet from a gun, and travel around the world faster than the world could rotate, arriving an hour before you left! All while eating smoked salmon, caviar, and drinking chilled Champagne. The look of wonder on his face while weaving this fantastical yarn, would be a real photograph to behold. The SR-71 (and Concorde) is indeed beautiful, and technologically marvellous, and to think that we got there just 55 years after man learned to fly, is quite honestly, awe-inspiring.

There were multiple tankers per mission (KC-135Q-a dedicated variant).

Fact is, most of the time SR-71 launched with a low fuel load as a safety factor to keep the weight down off the air-frame and off the tires and landing gear in case it had a tire blow out. It also made the tires and brakes last longer. Of course, the fuel tanks did not have fuel bladders because the fuel worked as a coolant on the aircraft and other systems that needed cooling like the environmental system and sensor bays, this action also help to preheat the fuel prior to injection to the propulsion system. The fuel leakage was basically measured by drips per minute in various areas. If it was beyond the limits, more sealant was put in the seams. All in all it really didn't matter that much, the amount of leakage was nothing compared to how much the aircraft used. The concern was primarily to help prevent a lot of fuel spilling on the ground. If you watch a video of the Blackbird launch from behind, you can see gallons of fuel pouring out the rear of the aircraft as the G-forces push it out of all the areas within the structure where it had collected. The aircraft flew "wet", it always leaked. Of course at cruise speed you could not see the fuel as it would immediately vaporize. The amount of leakage was discernible. The critical thing was range. Since it could refuel in flight, range at cruise temperature was limited by the amount of nitrogen that it could carry in order to create a positive pressure in the fuel tanks so as to purge out the oxygen and prevent combustion.

I've heard the J58 when angry and the word 'Loud' is a total understatement!

Is.... it still IS Lol!

@@JDMc2.0 I love those F4 hats. “J79s: Louder than your mom last night” 😂

The intake design wasn't brilliant... unstarts led to the loss of several aircraft, one fix was to unstart the other engine to prevent loss of control

yeah add the fact at how impressive this thing is, and jetfire becomes even cooler

And it flew around the x men!

i immediately thought of jetfire when i saw the thumbnail ahhahah

How about the fact that it is also the Cobra Night Raven in GI JOE? My favorite toy as a kid.

Glad someone knows who this jet is

Ikr it's crazy still no modern air craft to this day has beaten its speed and its design is timeless

@@nameless5678 that's surprising seeing that there's been so many advances in technology since then.

Aliens

@@nameless5678 … that we know of …. :-/

Same story with the Concorde no orther travel plane has been able to beat it

One is a plane that could outrun anything and everything yeeted at it and one is a gun with a plane built around it. What's not to love? Lol. Brrrrtttt

I grew up near Dover air force base and had a massive field behind my house. A10s and F16s flew over all the time and when they were low they'd tip their wings to us when we were out in the field.

That we know of.......hard to believe its over 50 years old

U know the a-10 in the American hangar at duxford? I wanted to touch that so bad.but I touched the blackbird and b-52

I also touched the one at Duxford. It feels so good to have connected with what’s in my opinion the best aircraft ever built.

@@wooddp73 I am amazed at the age of the plane and how advanced it still looks. Even today.

I was lucky to see it fly at mildenhall air show in the 80s a few times ,

@@laverdajota8089 I bet that was amazing to see👍

Yeah, we must have been there the same time - ('83-87). That 'fireball' of disorganized hell that belched out of those engines, quickly organized into that awesome iconic conical shaped go-fast juice, as it sped away.

I envy everyone that was able to see it fly. I've touched one a few times at Pima but would love to see one airborne.

Unfortunately evening living a few miles from mildenhall myself I am too young to remember, however my dad often talks about seeing them take off and land. Must of been an incredible bird to see fly.

@@roberthall1080 Hi CB!!!!!

@@islandcatsmith CB?

@@roberthall1080 Ooops wrong Robert Hall...I was saying hi to Cousin Bob.

If you say A10, then I'm going to guess Bentwaters/Woodbridge. We would have them flying over us occasionally where I lived near Haverhill in the 70s/80s. The Mildenhall Air Fete was a properly brilliant day out and it would seem totally normal to end up in the base, barbecues going, planes and helicopters plus gift stalls everywhere. We got VIP treatment around the static SR-71A because my Father was in the Addenbrookes old site Eye ward (Trumpington St) with a technician called Jesse from the base. He was having surgery for his eye after a baseball had hit him. Weeks later he met us and showed us around the plane, sitting in the cockpits and allsorts. That was the 1983 MAF. We also went in 84 as we didn't live all that far away across Suffolk. It's still in a class of its own and I think myself lucky to have seen both this and the Vulcan actually in service at that time (Vulcan had hit Stanley airfield a year or two previously).....

The something better was the improvements to satellite imagery making the sr-71 largely obsolete and hideously expensive. Incredibly price of brilliant engineering though. If they had been able to make one adaptable for a small nuclear bomb there would have been nothing done that could have stopped them flying right over Moscow. I think that was the unions biggest worry...

Alconbury ?

Your friend ment by " if civilians were allowed to see this now....." He meant like if its allowed to see now there must be something better than this maybe still in working because most of these military products are secret hidden from the general public.. so there's gotta be a better version of the black bird... Btw I've seen reports for the successor of black bird as the SR-72 capable of mach 6 and prolly would be non maned as mach would be a lot for human body who knows lol...

Bentwaters Rendlesham

had to be a awsome erie sight.....

didn't he break the law telling you this?

He was an RAF pilot into his sixties? Hmm...

I'm surprised the "higher ups" didn't tell them that they saw a UFO or that is was just their imagination.

Must have been quite an experience. I love the irony of the story resulting in the signing of the official secrets act, is in the comments section of RU-vid!

It was due to the ramjet design, getting the most efficiency at about Mach 3.

It is a true “marvel” cuz its….its in….X…..men😕…bad joke hu?

Yep. every time it took off, it took off with an almost empty fuel tank and had to be refilled to full in mid-air. Because the skin would stretch over 12 inches and the gas would leak out if it took off full

This was due to the J58's remarkable design, and something called KAP, which means kinetically acquired pressure differential. To a lesser extent, the Anglo-French Concorde used something similar. Whereas their aircraft used digitally controlled ramps, which would alter their profile as it moved through the transonic zone into supersonic speeds, creating a much higher pressure differential at the first stage, giving the aircraft the ability to use 25% of the thrust with no fuel.. ..the J58 used a more sophisticated system, where the front cone on the nacelle would slide back, moving the pressure wave, this had the advantage of allowing the engine to use some of this induced pressure to ignite the fuel, bypassing the turbine altogether, saving enormous amounts of fuel, and generating huge amounts of thrust in the process. By the time it reached Mach 3.08, the aircraft's engines were only using 16% of their fuel burn, with more than 80% of the thrust generated by it's velocity alone! So yes, the faster it went the less fuel it used. It is a remarkable engine, and the designers at Pratt and Whitney were very clever indeed.

@@kerbodynamicx472 And not only that, taking into account time and distance.

Bomb Allahhhhh!!! Why Russians???? Freaks, Nixon skum here!!!!!!

I remember seeing one at an air show at Edwards AFB when I was a kid. The show had ended and we were sitting in traffic leaving the base. Then an SR-71 came flying in low and slow. Everyone got out of their cars and just watched and cheered as it did several passes and turns. After a few minutes, it left. It was the highlight of the day.

@@TP-kr5dp The legendary SR-71 didn’t pass at supersonic speed and give the people at the air show a taste of its magnificent power?

@@TP-kr5dp @ an RAF Mildenhall airshow, the highlight was the SR71. It also did several slow passes over the crowd, and in one pass, the pilot (just over the crowd) was showing it off by cutting one engine. It listed to one side, then cut the other engine and listed the other way. The next pass (nice and low over crowd) the pilot went FULL AFTERBURNER and a shockwave ensued very shortly, as the SR71 sped out of view. The entire crowd hooted and applauded, thinking that this was the apex of the show display. We were all wrong. About 30 seconds had transpired as the crowd was looking for another demonstration to take off, when someone near me pointed behind us and shouted "LOOK OVER THERE!!!!" A black darting object zipped overhead going in the same direction from 30 seconds previously......and perhaps 5 seconds later - An amazing sonic "BOOOOOOOM" was both felt and heard. That pilot managed to jet away out of visual, fly half a circle out and return over us at such a speed, it boggles the mind.

Been there seen that one

one of the best quotes

In 1983, I attended an airshow at nearby Offutt AFB in Nebraska which had an SR on display. I was amazed at how difficult it was to get a clear in person understanding of it's profiles, probably due to the flat black paint. The next day, I was in the back yard of my then home of Ralston, Ne which is just a few miles north of the base and heard a gigantic roar from the region of the base and caught a glimpse of the SR climbing into the clouds nearly over my home. A rare sighting indeed.

Quality of life in San Bernadino sure took a major nosedive when they shut down March, Norton, and George Air Force Bases...🙁

I was likely at that very air show. In fact, we were pulling in in our 1987 Ford Aerostar mini van to park pulling in on the western entrance off of Tippicanoe... and it came down practically on top of us on its way to land... it was deafening... an amazing memory for an 8 year old! The take off was friggen amazing! A real human flown rocket ship!

Yeah I didn’t until I went to iwm and walked into the American hanger and saw her what a beautiful aircraft

It’s the only one on display outside the US. Great to see in person!

Great to know . Been 25 years since I've been to the museum .

@@LoochMindReader eme

My thoughts exactly,had no idea we could see one here.

His name??

I asked one of the pilots at the Farnborough Air Show one year actually how fast could the SR71 fly and his response was "There's not much time for an on-board meal between New York and London" 😊

It's a beautiful plane but have you seen what an f22 raptor does now a days ?

The top speed was based on compressor inlet temperature. The extreme cold temperatures at the edge of space varied and the fact that the air was so thin and the compressed air is what created the heat. It would be difficult to know. Titanium is flammable under certain conditions. Melting temperature of titanium is about 3034 °F. The heat shields that protected the titanium parts of the exhaust nozzles from the afterburner flame are composed of RENE 41 (same as used on Mercury Space Capsule) and Hastelloy X, exotic high temperature resistant, nickle based super alloys have a lower melting point, like 1800 °F . But the exhaust nozzle parts have a built-in cooling system in the nacelle.

Hell yeah brother

Greatest streak of all time

Huh???

Nice, I would visit it before the pandemic hit and now things are opened up again I was thinking of going back

A whole college? How was that?

@@nigelbenn4642 LOL Autocorrect fail! ......colleague.....😀

The reference that i was looking for.

Definitely a moment to live for. Mad jealous.

Satellites replaced spy planes. There's most likely no such plane and probably never will be again.

You’re probably right, but I think nowadays they’re simply called “satellites”.

No, there isn't a faster supply plane, but they're also doesn't need to be. What replaced this, was satellites. Satellites can take all the photos you want cheaper.

Designed in 1958-59 believe it or not. The offical contract to run with the project was signed in February 1960. Part of the legislation which funded the project stipulated all of the specialised tooling created to build the planes had to be destroyed after the project was complete.

Even if theres a faster plane.. i doubt it looks that damn good

Its at Duxford man! Go see it! Great place

It a shame they don't advertise it more especially with Duxford being close to RAF Mildenhall and Lakenheath. Plus it's the only SR-71 outside of the States.

"You STOLE the Blackbird????"

Was so hoping someone would have commented this. Glad I'm not the only one who watched Helsing Abridged

I was looking for this comment

Came here looking for this comment.

I was wondering how long it would take for me to find a hellsing abridged reference not very long it turns out (not that im complaining)

I was looking for this lol.

Found it!

You sure do seem to know a lot about it.

Integra: YOU sure know a lot about it... Alucard: DO YOU EVEN READ MY CHRISTMAS LIST?!

"You sure seem to know a lot about it."

….you sure do seem to know a lot about it

Sattelites.

Vertical thrusts

@@rexmundi3108 ^^^ He nailed it

Still flying (upgraded) U2s

Things as absurd as the SR-71 just aren't necessary anymore. Between satellites, the internet, and drones, things are mostly covered now.