Sir, I served in the Royal Swedish Air Force during the 80:s. Every second day we saw the Blackbird on our radar screens. Flying in from Scotland and over the Baltic Sea. At one occasion we sent up two J37 Viggen planes just to see if we could lock our weapon systems radar on the Blackbird. We managed to do it and subsequently recieved a congratulations telegram from USAF Wiesbaden! I want to thank you for posting this video. It really brings back some beautiful memories.
This is truely an amazing Jet... My Dad worked on this project with creator Kelly Johnson... He was an engineer at "Skunk Works", I remember growing up he would be up at Edwards AFB during the week days, & bring some of the pilots down to our home for the weekend... It was very cool!!! David
soon as you put gas in that baby it's gotta be under power, it leaks fuel until it gets up to speed and pressure. They refuel after take off because it literally leaks out of the wings.
I've been watching these clips and one thing has occurred to me: IF this is the fastest aircraft, do they have any pictures at cruising speed of the aircraft? I have to assume that the vast majority of the video is taken by slower aircraft. It would be real interesting to see pictures of the SR-71 at speed in IR. I also noticed what looked like shock diamonds in the exhaust. I've only seen them on rockets as there each diamond represents a mach number of the exhaust.
@Tiffanip1202 No they don't.. Be cool if they did tho. However due to perspective, distance, and flight path, an aircraft such as the Blackbird can appear to be hovering.. especially at night when there aren't as many visual cues for the brain to process.
if it takes so much fuel to get up why don't the start it like the bell x-1 on the first flights? it would make senseXD just that it is a bit heavier^^
