I was 18 stationed at Beale AFB as a Avionics Instrument Tech back in 1982. I fixed all the instruments and did the "spike schedule" on the SR-71. The spikes could move 26 inches and the fwd and aft doors would open and close at different speeds and turns. We checked the system up to 85,000 ft and topped out at 3.2 mach on the spike cart(test equipment). Each SR-71 sortie had a formal debrief with the tech reps and the mechanics. For my shop we were interested in aerodynamic disturbances or engine stalls which usually occurred when the inlet spike and or doors were out of calibration for the speed, altitude, or AOA. We had recorded MRS tapes. This was like a EKG line across a paper. The altitude topped at 85,000 feet and the speed stopped recording at 3.2 mach. I saw many tapes of 3.2 mach. The Lockheed engineers never disclosed what the absolute top speed was they did say it was limited by the spike and the fwd and aft doors. I am 60 now and I am blessed to say I wrenched on the SR-71 for the first years of my AF career. This was a awesome video, thanks for bringing back memories. God Bless 🙏
What the doors adjusted how opened and closed they were during different maneuvers? I was not aware of that I just thought they opened when they were using the engine as a ramjet for thrust as opposed to when they were using the turbines for thrust. I didn't know that the doors actually fluctuated depending on what they were doing
In the 70's the declassified top speed was over Mach 3.2. Flip those numbers and you get Mach 2.3. To which I have a question for you: What two U.S. acft, both fighters in operation today, can attain a nearly identical Mach 3.2 top speed, and perhaps greater?
@@benvaun1330 Not so much different maneuvers but for different speeds/Mach numbers. Wikipedia has some great resources on J58 operation including all the scheduling you are talking about.
Two stories about the SR-71: 1 - I met a guy that told me he worked on the engines for the SR-71. What he said was that the turbine blades were encased in a ring of graphite. The blades went so fast that they stretched and ate into the graphite to maintain the seal. This whole system had to be replaced after every flight. 2 - I also met a guy that was stationed at the Plattsburgh AFB and told me he saw an SR-71 cross his radar screen once. There were just two blips before it exited his screen.
I worked in the J-58 overhaul section 577 at P&W WPB FL for the last year of production and have seen the insides of them many times....and can say that it's an amazing engine but nothing needs to be replaced after every flight. There ARE thermal limits on various components that if exceeded will shorten their TBO and the only case of something needing replacing after a flight would likely involve a massive pilot error and the guys who flew them were absolute professionals who didn't do things like to their aircraft. For sure it's possible that somewhere sometime somebody pushed one WAY beyond the normal operating conditions which then needed repair before another flight...but that would be an exception rather than the rule I think. Every engine was test run extensively including a 33 minute 'Qualification Run' at full Military Power where fuel flow, thrust and all temperatures and pressures were carefully monitored before the engine was released out to the field. Of course this was at Sea Level and full Afterburner but not involving the compressor bypass tubes that ran straight back to the burner can which were used over Mach 2. The real engineering genius in the Blackbirds was in the inlet ducting where the Mach 3+ airflow slowed down under control to subsonic velocity to be fed to the engine. Information about the ducting and how it worked is well worth a read if you are interested in such things...the guys who designed it were from another world. Anyway....should something internal need replacing the engine would have been sent back to the plant and another installed from their spares in the field. Even working in the overhaul section things were compartmentalized and few people had free run through every system and component. I worked on the afterburners, fuel system and compressor sections and wasn't privvy to the turbine so can't comment on how or if they were sealed. For sure the compressor blades are sealed on the ends as most modern high performance turbines are today. Nothing sounded like a J-58...it's a 'Big Block' motor that doesn't spin real fast like the F-100's and F-119's do so the sound is a deep guttural ROAR that shakes you inside...just glorious and I'm very sad that nobody will ever hear one again.
My brother in-law was an Air Traffic Controller for the Navy in Jacksonville FL. He said an SR-71 passed through his airspace headed for Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. It came back through his airspace 4 hours later.
Yeah, i always laugh at these types of assertions - people are officially sworn to secrecy…yet somehow they openly make statements punishable as treason. So they’re stating the actual, exact capabilities… YEAH, SURE.
A somewhat secret plane that hasn't been in service for over 30 years now. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the real top speed were to be declassified in the next 2 decades. Then again, the USAF is quite sensitive of such things. The kept the entire existence of the unimpressive Project Mogul spy balloon (which crashed at Roswell) classified for something like 40 years *by accident.*
And that official record? At least for a longer transcontinental distance, hat was set when the 'supposedly last' plane was on its retirement flight from the west coast to Dulles airport to be given to the Smithsonian.
I had a guided tour of the Seattle Museum of Flight. The guide used to be a 71 pilot. Told some amazing stories. When he told us the "official" too speed, my father asked what the unofficial top speed was. He responded with, "Fast is all I can say."
The Blackbird was the right plane at the right time. It was a bit of a miracle that a plane like this could have been constructed before modern computers and technology. These guys were at the top of their game.
@@timobreitscheidt9382 OK but he said modern computers. And, no computers were used in the design phase, although the plan itself utilize computers (rudimentary by today's standard of course).
My dad worked on F-111s in the late 1960s somewhere near Fort Worth Texas. One day, while he and many others were working on those planes in the hangar, an SR-71 developed some kind of problem and had to land at that facility. The managers came into the hangar and told everyone to stop what they were doing and to get out of the hanger RIGHT NOW!! This was sometime between 1968 and 1970 when the SR-71 had just started flying and was still super secret. My dad and his fellow co-workers had no idea what was going on, so they went to the break room/lunch room... which had some great big windows gave them a great view of the runways and allowed them to see the SR-71 roll up into the hangar. Can you imagine the thoughts that went through their heads? They knew what jet fighters looked like and they knew what the B-52 looked like. Then, they see this plane that looks like nothing else on the planet!! A plane that looks like something out of a science fiction movie. Anywho... that is my story. I hope you like it.
President Johnson publicly announced the SR-71 in July 1964 and gave basic performance details of altitudes over 80,000 feet and speeds over 2000 MPH. The USAF publicly unveiled the A-11/YF-12A in October 1964, even going so far as to fly two of the planes over the runway at altitudes as low as 75 feet AGL, though maintaining subsonic speeds during the demos. The SR-71 had some secrecy around it still, but it was not the black project level of secrecy that you describe.
@@JarrodFratesI saw a B-2 land at our local ANG for its state name designation ceremony, probably around 1996ish. If the SR-71 was similar, it wasn't secret, but it was secure. State police on the adjoining roads, strict security into and out of the airport, and it was parked in a C-5 hanger immediately.
😂 can you imagine working on a f-111 and a sr-71 rolls into the hanger one day. They're like yeah we just flew around the world, but we needed to stop here. I need to call my boss where's the closest secured line?
I was a 19 year old Airman, stationed at RAF Mildenhall, 84 - 86. We had SR-71s there. My war time duty was Rapid Runway Repair. So I got to put on my Chem gear, and lay out by the runway, and watch them take off and land. Such a magnificent machine. Great memories.
My friend's step father was a pilot of the SR-71, and according to stories he told my friend. The pilots could not touch the windows without burning their hands. Any truth to that? Thanks!
@patwilliams7362 the windows would hit about 400 degrees F , and the surrounding areas over 600. There are many stories of sr71 pilots heating up their meals in a tube by pressing them on the window.
@@patwilliams7362 Yup. They didn't have a transparent material that could withstand the temperatures the titanium body could, so they took the best glass they had and arranged it in a two layer configuration, and then pumped fuel through the gap before sending it to the engine. Even though the SR-71 hoovered fuel like an alcoholic on payday that was, however, still not enough cooling to make the inner panel touch safe. It did improve engine performance though.
@@andersjjensen Thanks for the info! Hell of a jet. My father worked on budgets and other things he could not talk about on the SR-71. Always gave me the swag he got, so I had posters and all kinds of stuff growing up. Still my favorite jet of all time!
One of my grandfathers was a SR-71 crew chief. He told me, back in the 90s when it was being "decommissioned", that the top speed would never be disclosed because the Airforce didn't know for sure what it was and would probably never know. So the following might be the truth or just a cool story. You mentioned the manual saying the speed was more limited by the structural integrity of the airframe and air inlet more than the engines, this is true but an SR-71 that had been flying for awhile was faster than one brand new. He said that each plane had become an unique individual with slight differences in length, width and shape, and that each time they pushed that mach 3.2+ they changed a little more. The skin, frame and air inlets were being slightly alterened, reforged, by air pressure and friction heating making them "organically" reshaped to be just slightly more aerodynamic and more efficient each time, when they didn't break themselves or pieces fuse together that shouldn't. He never said how they measured these differences but that they were small, not noticeable to the eye between individual flights, but made things difficult to repair any worn or damaged surface segments with stock parts. He said that this was first noticed back in the late 60s and Lockheed was very interested in how each plane changed, he believed that the planes retired in the 90s were probably different in shape and significantly faster than when he worked on the same ones in the 60s. I have no way of verifying anything he said he was talking around NDAs and national secrets and would not give specifics for a variety of reasons, so might be true might just be a cool story.
This doesn't line up with the reality of what limits the top speed of that plane. It's not thrust or drag limited, it's safety limited. The engines had plenty of thrust to accelerate it well past its top speed, but doing so would cause them to melt. There's nothing about the shape of the aircraft or the engine intakes that could change the temperature of the intake air.
@toby1248 Something like water methanol injection could most definitely cool the air in the intake....since heat is the biggest killer of a diesel, i use a 2 nozzle spray in my diesels charge pipe before the air enters the cylinders...it atomizes before entering the cylinders and only provides a cold air, it doesn't actually burn or cause cylinder wash. So I'm sure they could use something to cool the air enough to allow more power out of it, atleast to a certain point...what that would be or how much you'd need to continue cooling the air, I have zero clue...getting enough of it on board to keep it fed may be the issue with that idea, I'm sure it sucks the fuel down, so therfore water/meth mix.
@@yamahakid450f water/meth mix... I'm sure there's a few truckers that might agree with that mix... no but seriously that is really cool to hear about and understand a bit of. thank you for sharing.
The missiles ARE in fact faster... But they still have to climb to 80,000 feet and close the gap before they run out of fuel. Even when the opposition is throwing a telephone pole at you, that's a very difficult task.
Yes. A missile launches towards a calculated intercept point, and if the aircraft accelerates, that pushes the intercept point further away because the missile has to fly to the NEW (and constantly moving-further-away, if the acceleration continues) intercept point. So the aircraft doesn't have to actually out-speed the missile; it only has to push the intercept point out-of-range of the missile. That being said, at operational speeds the SR-71 accelerated like a scalded rabbit. It couldn't pull more than about 3 G's in a turn, but its signature move was ACCELERATION. With the engines in ramjet mode, there were no turbines to spool up. More fuel was simply sprayed into the combustion chamber and the acceleration was instantaneous. It would slam the pilots back in their seats like a sports car. The rate at which the SR-71 could accelerate was in that ballpark. So it makes sense that the SR-71 would normally operate significantly BELOW its maximum speed, so that it could ACCELERATE if a missile was launched.
A funny thing about my comment, is that the post time was only a minute after Truex007. I wasn't even responding to him, but it's now going to look like I was thanks to that timing, and how well my comment just happens to work as a rebuttle. I am amused.
I worked at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft located in West Palm Beach FL in 1977. The Air Force held a customer appreciation day for the employee working on the engine. In a conference room we met two SR-71 pilots who told about some of their missions and plane details.. They showed us a film taken from the plane of two Sam missiles being launched and chasing after plane. The pilot hit the power and out ran the Sam's. You could see the Sam's falling behind the plane then their proximity fuses blowing the missiles up! I was also totally amazed at the camera systems on the plane that could track a missile from the ground up and chasing the plane. I was also told by the Pilot that the Russians had figured out away on how they could shoot a SR-71 down.
My dad worked for Sikorsky Aircraft at their facility out in the Everglades by West Palm Beach alongside the Pratt & Whitney facility from the late '70s til the early 90s. They have a huge runway out there in the swamp that they call the "USS Neversail" because it looks like an aircraft carrier from above. They had to dredge so much fill from the surrounding area to build it that it is completely surrounded by water. They could land anything that we had flying there, and I know that on several occasions, they brought in SR-71's. He could never tell me when or why they were there. Very cool!!!
Maybe they meant the way they shot down the U-2, they sent a bunch of missiles at the same time and exploded them at the same time and the shock wave brought down the U-2 .
@@anonmouse956 DO YOU MEAN THAT WHEN THE U-2 THAT GARY POWERS WAS PILOTING, IT WASN'T HIT DIRECTLY BY THE MISSLE, BUT RATHER A SHOCKWAVE CAUSED THE U-2 TO CRASH?
I'm an Aerospace engineer. When I was in college one of my professors told me that he worked on the A-12/YF-12A/SR-71 programs. He stated that the top speed of the aircraft was limited by the heat generated on the airframe. I asked him for an approximate top Mach number; he said above 3.4.
Design limit within safety regs? Sure...But ABLE to achieve....Prob substantially more. I tend to believe the "Just under 3k" stories.....For seconds at a time.
I had the chance to attend a speech made by an SR71 backseater. He said they never reached the aircraft's limits and that every time the aircraft went up, it could break every record it previously set.
I believe that to a point. There's a quote from Kelly Johnson's engineers out there stating that each time the titanium airframe went up it retempered and further hardened the metal. Not sure what that would do for speed, but I could imagine it would allow "seat feel" to push a little futher as shakes, wobbles, and squeeks would change.
I've heard this for years. In an article about the SR-71 in an aviation magazine, a pilot said that it was never flown at full power but could reach in excess of 2500 MPH.
A guy I know was manning one of the scopes in the CIC aboard a carrier back in the early nineties when he mistakenly triggered an alert for an incoming ballistic missile track. He was pretty new to the fleet and saw something dropping towards the fleet descending rapidly through 100k feet and "Way the hell faster than mach 3". He called for an alarm and it took a minute for the XO to get over there and ID it as a scheduled Blackbird flight
@@dananorth895 it actually had a radar recorder, because it would trigger radars and could record data so they could understand the rival country's radars better
What ppl need to know is the SR-71 was under a blanket of secrecy. So let the beauty of the SR-71 remain true. She preformed, she done well, she will always be loved as she is. ❤❤
The main reason it wasn't designed to cruise faster than 3.2 is because it didn't need to. Unlikely they would spend extra time/money on going beyond what was needed.
50s tech with records that still hold, as far as we know...unbelievable tech from Kelly Johnson and all the dedicated engineers who produced this masterpiece.
I love the blackbird, to think that this was designed in the 1950s with sliderules, truly shows how amazing those engineers and builders were. I DONT believe when the blackbird was retired in 1990, that it wasn't replaced by something else even faster ( Aurora etc).
It was replaced by satellites. No matter how much we love "the bird of all time", and no matter how utterly insane the engineering behind it was for it's time, there is no (rational) denying that the equally absurd trajectory of semi conductor development made it's mission profile go away. Even relatively pedestrian commercial satellites offer better resolution and perfect top-down view today over what the Blackbird could deliver. I don't even want to speculate on how good the US's most advanced spy satellites are today. I've seen some calculations say that modern synthetic aperture radar satellites could have ground resolution in the 1x1cm range. And those don't even give a fsck about clouds!
Many years ago a friend, now deceased, told me of monitoring radio reports of the last flight of the SR-71 that was donated to the Smithsonian. That flight was from LA to Washington D.C. He swore that he wrote down the time it left LA and the time it arrived in DC. He consulted a map and did some calculations. He came away with an average speed significantly higher than they would admit to at the time. And, being an average that included take off and landing, the max speed at altitude would have to higher. Somewhat later, when the Air Force reported on the flight, they gave departure and arrival times that were different than my friend had written in his notebook. He swore that the Air Force was covering up the actual max speed of the aircraft.
@@thelawngnomeslayer I read an interview once of an ATC dude that said he tracked an SR-71 coming out of Russia into Germany above 95K feet and about Mach 10.5. When I went to pull that interview up a few days later to print it. It said "web address not found"!
@@thedoorider The problem with such claims is that even if you give the SR-71 mathematically perfect aerodynamic properties (which it absolutely didn't have) speeds above Mach 6 for any more than a few seconds results in burning titanium. I would believe Mach 3.75 for VERY short stints and perhaps Mach 4 in "either the missile gets me or the plane breaks, but I'm taking my chance with the plane" type scenarios for maybe 10 seconds.
Just got to see the SR71 at McMinnville Evergreen aviation Museum in McMinnville Oregon. You can reach out and touch it. It is awesome to behold. This has been my childhood dream to see it and I got a little wound up because I got to see it and touch it and fulfill a dream. The level of technology involved to get an aircraft to move through the air so fast is testament to the dedicated men who pushed forward to the edge and beyond to make sure this country is the most dominant and most prepared to defend freedom. I am now 56 years old and an Army veteran. I hope we see more of this. I want to make sure my kids can grow up free. This plane sent a notice to those who have desires to have tyranny over the masses that we see you and you better be afraid…
I was there myself not long ago. It was awesome to see payload bays open and took roughly a zillion pictures of the technical objective cameras and spec sheets. I never expected to see that in my lifetime. As a kid in the 80s I remember reading about those cameras and their resolution that was listed in square yards. Now it's down to square inches and it's been admitted that they can read license plates.
I remember seeing an interview of an SR-71 pilot describing how they outran a surface-to-air missile. He was quoted saying, "We got up to *scary* Mach speeds..." ... Scary... for an SR-71 pilot. I don't think he was talking a measly Mach 3.2 - that wouldn't have been "scary" for an SR-71 pilot.
@@markymarknj Common soviet SAMS of the time capable of high altitude interceptions could reach mach 3.5-4 but they can't sustain that sort of speed particularly when trying to hit something at high altitude. They've only got so much fuel onboard and once it's burned then you're just relying on momentum to carry you to your target, if that target is sustaining high altitude flight at mach 3+ then unless you get very lucky with your timing there's a very low chance of hitting anything
You would think but technological developments like satelites and high speed missiles have made spy planes pretty useless and combat aicraft dont get up to those speeds since it requires making many sacrafices in the design. Hence why the SR-71 hasnt been beat. There are some 6th gen combat aircraft designs talking about speeds past mach 4 to add kinetic energy to the missiles so there might be a prototype or two flying around somewhere but no aircraft in service.
All I know is that, when Top Gun: Maverick came out, the Chinese shit a brick. Why? Because of the SR-72, aka the Darkstar, in the film, The Chinese reasoned that, if the US and Skunk Works were going public with that, then who knows what they're working on behind closed doors?
A buddy of mine worked on the dew line radar when an SR-71 was coming through. He was not allowed to track it and check the speed. He saw the blips on the radar and with an experienced estimate he knew it was going faster than advertised.
Alex -- Check the data on the SR-71 speed run from New York to London. From a reliable source (a KC135Q pilot), that SR took on fuel near the Azores. Time to refuel at the tanker's top speed, subtract that time and corresponding distance from between the timing gates, and recompute the Mach based on remaining distance divided by the remaining elapsed arrival time at the London gate -- not the landing time. It's stunning. . . and may be why NO AIRBREATHING JET has ever attempted to eclipse that record. To quote Kelky Johnson in a public interview I attended in person, ". . . we wish the (then) Soviets would match or break it (the record), because there's still a little left under the hood." Ultimately, when asked about the top speed, he replied, "No one knows except the pilots who've had her there." Things that make you go, "Hmm. . . "
I heard stories about a blackbird being shot at, which, presumably had a fairly high pucker factor no matter what plane you are in and the white knuckled pilot pushing forward the throttle until the plane was going at insane speeds. Ultimately the RSO (reconnaissance systems officer) had to tell the pilot that he could ease off buddy.
Back in 1988 I had a girlfriend who was a USAF air traffic controller. She monitored the sea of Japan. She told me that SR-71's often flew across her airspace, but did not show-up on radar. SR-71 pilot's transmitted their position using Morris code. She said it was pretty easy to calculate their speed between position fixes. They crossed her airspace at 3,000 mph. I don't think anyone believes the SR-71 could only fly 500 mph faster then a stripped-down F-15 in full after-burner.
During the Falkland War in 1982 our was at RAF Lakenheath. The SR-71 stationed there were flying recon for the Brits over the Falklands. I was working the Flight Line and saw a SR-71 takeoff and it literally made the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up ! I will never forget the breath taking power, sight and sound of the SR-71 !
They were stationed at RAF Mildenhall not Lakenheath. The F111s were stationed at Lakenheath. I spent a year supporting one of the SR71 payload systems from 1987 to 1988. We lived in West Row which was right next to the Mildenhall flightline.
they were based at Mildenhall, though only on temporary assignment in '82, they did operate out of Lakenheath during the 80s, when the runway at Mildenhall wasnt available for use, but as the RAF found out with flights to the Falklands, youd need a whole fleet of KC135s flying over the south atlantic and fuelling each other just to stay there, for any plane, let alone the SR71 to get there and back, its a 16,000 mile round trip.
In my humble opinion,the SR-71 Blackbird is one of the greatest airframes in aviation history.When you take into consideration the time frame it was designed and constructed in and the manoeuvres the CIA pulled to gather the materials needed for the construction,it truly was a magnificent achievement.
@@babyj4154the CIA formed shell companies and bought the titanium mineral from of all places,the country the SR71 was built to spy upon,the USSR.Titanium was only found in the Ukraine,which in those days was firmly entrenched behind the iron curtain of the USSR.There are numerous accounts on RU-vid that recount that fact.
@@babyj4154-RU-vid has several channels explaining what the CIA did to acquire the needed metals.I would suggest typing in the SR71 plus CIA assistance.That should do it.👌👍
@@babyj4154 The SR71 is mainly made out of titanium. The main source of that metal at that time was the USSR. I leave the remainder as an exercise for the student.
Bob Behler and I were in C9s together. One of the most competent men I've ever met. Greg Crittenden, who I flew with in the airlines, also SR-71, same. These guys were best of the best. All told, I've known 4 SR pilots and 4 astronauts.
Very interesting video - thank you. You may want to look at the max. altitude: Most reports state ~80K feet. But I have heard that there are recently declassified reports of altitude in excess of 120K feet. I heard a joke about the SR-71 - at the time the plane had just been 'declassified' (?) and the USAF admitted publicly that it 'existed'. Joke goes: SR-71 is flying over Dallas, Texas, designation 'Aspen-XXX'(I don't recall the actual numbers). For fun, the pilot calls up Dallas commercial ATC = "Dallas ATC, this is AspenXXX, requesting permission to 'go to 90 thousand feet'> Hysterical laughter can be heard through the radio as Dallas ATC staff are laughing their butts off. Finally, one ATC controller gets back to ASPEN-XXX - is a VERY sarcastic tone he says ".... yeah, sure - you go right ahead there, Aspen-XXX, and good luck!". Without a moments hesitation, Aspen replies "Roger Dallas, this a Aspen-XXX DESCENDING to 90 thousand feet". Total silence from Dallas ATC !!
I've heard this before, but you got the altitude badly wrong. ATC only controls up to Flight Level 600 (60,000 ft), above that is uncontrolled airspace. Very few commercial aircraft are capable of getting anywhere near FL600, hence ATC's doubt. The SR-71 was calling in to ATC to enter controlled airspace from above.
I met and talked to the RO on the record speed holder flight, at the Smithsonian back in 2016. I asked him how many times an emergency had to be declared with the Blackbird. He smiled, paused a minute, then proceeded to tell me that, technically about 75% of all Blackbird flights could be considered an aircraft in distress/emergency condition. This was due to the fact that the temperatures associated with going Mach 3, always caused a failure in one system or another, of varying urgency. Due to the nature of the Blackbird’s mission sets, they didn’t actually declare emergencies because it was just overall assumed that the plane was going to have issues of some sort, during and after a mission.
was at Dayton airshow about 15yrs ago and was talking with 2 pilots. they just smiled and said the sr71 could come out of retirement and blow away any speed record.
My father worked space track at Cheyenne Mountain in 1968 during the Vietnam War. After the blackbird was decommissioned he told me a few stories that indicated that the blackbird was both faster than it's official top speed and could fly higher than it's official altitude ceiling. I am certain the pilots were trained fully in the capabilities of the aircraft and never reveal it's true capabilities. You have to remember that the aircraft was designed in the late 1950's and built in the early 1960's with many upgrades to it's equipment over the course of it's close to 30 year operational life. Among the upgrades I am certain they included avionics, engines, flight controls, computers, optics, and frame modifications and coatings. This combined with public statements that the frame was stronger after 30 years of service than the day it came off of the factory floor to me infer it's capabilities far exceeded the original 1950's designed performance capabilities.
Underrated comment. Weird how the engineers knew the limits of the original but people think things never changed over decades. It's a laughable thing to believe. The F-14 is another funny one although it got slower (limited) as it aged.
40+ years ago i was stationed in okinawa, at the px i was wearing a t-shirt with the blackbird on it stating mach3+, while there a major in a flight suit (not uncommen on an airbase) when he mention my shirt telling me to add a couple of plusses, it was then i saw his patch that said Habu Driver, habu is what the locals called it
I met Brian Shul in Wichita KS at a conference and I had the privilege of being the first in line to buy his book. I asked him if they'd ever declassified the top speed to which he replied: "Oh, it was never classified, we just don't really know the top speed; it just kept getting hotter so we'd have to back off."
Now, this post is more believable than most of the others... SR 71 engines were ram jets. Ram jets...the faster it goes, the faster it wants to go... It makes all the sense in the world that its top speed was never really known!!! BTW,the original designator for the blackbird was RS 71... Lyndon Johnson turned the letters around when he first announced the aircraft!!! Top speed was never determined...
@@philhand5830 They weren't actually ramjets since all the inlet air goes through the first few stages of compression before some of it bypassing around the engine core and going off to the afterburners. Ramjets don't have any compressors. It's really a type of turbofan.
@@BooBaddyBig Pratt & Whitney J58. they where ramjets but also turbo fans in a hybrid setup. at low speeds the spike is extended and and trust comes from the turbofan. at high speed the engine spike ( the cone at the front of the engine) is retracted the suck in doors to the turbo fan are closed as well as the tertia doors being closed. all trust came from the ram jet part of the engine. And the turbo fan only provided a cool air barrior to keep the burning fuel from melting the engine casing, and in some models at vary high speeds Water/methanol was injected to provide cooling.
@@natlkjh8677 OK, I've got it now. No, not really. You need to understand that there's TWO sets of bypass. The first set is used at all speeds, and is cooling air from right after the inlet, and goes completely past the engine and all the little pipes and straight into the nozzle, bypassing the afterburner and isn't directly reheated and so isn't really a ramjet (except it may mix and burn with the other flows within the nozzle a bit.) The second comes off after the compressor in six big tubes and is variable and goes into the afterburner section. That's just an afterburning turbofan.
I was an Airman at Beale AFB. They marked the 20th anniversary of SR-71 service with a mach 1 plus flyby and boom. Scheduled for 1300 hrs We assembled outside, patiently looking skyward waiting , watching for something. Then at about 1302, boom, which cracked out surprisingly sharply, very similar to dynamite in a quarry blast. I quickly scanned the sky again and noticed a faint contrail that stretched from horizon to horizon! Was this contrail from the Blackbird? Not sure but this made me wonder if it does fly faster than stated?! Brian Shul was a very interesting man and quite an inspiration. Super positive attitude! I got to be around him a couple of times.
Mach 1 I a single SONIC BOOM for Mach 2 it is a BOOM BOOM for a double Mach triple is yes 3 booms in quick succession. USAF 1986 thru 1993, McConnell AFB KS and Edwards AFB CA. With stinst all over & undisclosed clearances 😊 I was one of two people to help in decommissioning of last active SR-71 in 1992ish (memory) they transferred 2 or 3 of them to NASA for high altitude testing. Somewhere I have a B/W pic with the other individual infront of the bird we decommissioned. Was one of the first digital cameras & about the size of a home VHS camcorder 😂😂😂
@@markmatt9174 Uh, where did you get that from? Generally you get a shockwave off the nose of the plane, off the leading edges of the wings, and off the trailing edges of the wings and tails. WIth the shockwaves producing an overpressure, then underpressure, you end up with the underpressure causing the shockwaves to coalesce into a bow shock and a tail-shock and you get either one loud bang or two loud bangs depending on the size of the plane (the length of the plane and the speed at which the two shockwaves pass you by).
Col Pinsky did a low fly by at MACH and it sounded like the sky was being ripped open. When he landed they put 956 back in the shelter, I went out to help do a post flight and the aircraft was still very hot and some of the paint had turned gray where it was turned to ash. Too fast, too low.
@@danfreeman9079 I met him as well. Cool story or should I say hot story? . I recall that he went into city government after retirement. He was said have been an F4 pilot over Vietnam . Going really fast was definitely not new to him
Back in the day, this plane wasn't just a marvel of engineering. It was a human achievement, because men piloted it and they risked their lives every time.
Man I'd worked with in the 80's came out of the Navy. Told me a story, he was on a ship off the coast of Okinawa Japan and was on radar. Saw a signal coming in and addressed his Colonel. He was ordered to erase the signal and forget what he saw. He told me it was SR-71, refused to tell me the speed. Then he claims he was in a bar with a bunch of his Navy friends and he saw some pilots sitting by themselves. He went over and said hi, introduced himself and asked if he could join them. David, was a complete geek and very approachable guy. They started talking about what they did for work and the pilot talked about flying the BlackBird and the other guy said he was on instruments. David told them he saw them on radar and they told him he didn't. David asked about the plane and they said they put their food on the glass to heat it up before they ate. The plane has a problem at speed with the engines lurching yawing the plane suddenly. "Feels like a train wreck. Slams you against one side of the cabin or other." David asked how fast it was. They wouldn't discuss this but did claim, they've never pushed the plane beyond 40%.
I think it will hold a special place in the public eye even if/when its record (probably) falls in the not too distant future. It's one of the most iconic aircraft of all time.
When I was in high school. I remember getting up to get ready for school, and hearing on the news that an SR-71 had just taken off from the west coast headed for the east coast. One hour and six minutes later it landed in Washington DC. California to DC in an hour and six minutes. That is absolutely haulin balls.
Was the footage of the SR-71 at the end of this video cruising low past Dulles Airport (@10:14) taken on that day? That was a surprise to me when it popped up ... and very COOL!!
@@patentexperts1675 Indeed. It's very impressive all the advanced technology that scientists, test pilots, etc have given decades of blood, sweat, tears, and even their very lives to develop. What's ridiculous, however, is when some summarily discredit those who've sacrificed so much by attributing such innovation to the back engineering of "E.T. technology" smh 😐
I worked at NASA at Edwards Airforce Base in the early 90's and NASA took one of the retired SR-71 Blackbirds for high altitude and speed testing for it's research. I worked in RACOM (range communications) and every time the SR-71 took off at Edwards doing it's research flights at 80,000 feet and Mac 2.5+ all of the ground instruments in the control room zero'd out. We all had clearances of at lest secret and still we weren't able to confirm anything above that altitude and speed. Every single flight was the same and very frustrating because I got to see it and touch it up close and it was a gorgeous aircraft. If it was a woman, it would be a 10+ but it did leak like a sieve on the ground because it needed to refuel in the air and then when it was at speed, it would expand and seal up and was good to go after that.
When we got word that the Blackbird was being retired....everyone on the engine program was really depressed. Then they told us to 'build every complete engine you can from all the spare parts'...so we worked OT for 6 months cranking out a whole bunch of J-58's. It was only later that we found out that a couple of the lowest time airframes had been given to NASA for 'research'. They flew for about 10 more years and finally retired them when the engine stash ran out.
I was on active duty at Edward's from 99-02. I got to see the last flight and then touch both of those birds as they set on the ramp waiting to go to a museum. 😢
I was washing my clothes in a hotel laundromat in a hotel in Singapore with a very elderly American gentleman last year. We chatted and realised we are both former aeronautical engineers and aircrew. We chatted in the small laundry for an hour until our clothes were done. Turns out he was one of the designers of the SR-71. He confided in me but wouldn’t elaborate that the Blackbird was faster than on paper and also that the U.S has aircraft we don’t know about . Funnily enough, and we laughed about it, he was born and raised in Roswell New Mexico. I never exchanged contact details. Wish I had, though this gentleman was very elderly and I reckon on one last vacation 😢.
A few years ago, I was at 39000 feet flying north off the coast of GA/SC. I looked above and to my left to the west. What I thought would be a meteorite falling into the atmosphere, white/greenish trail, that ends up falling, burning out, ended up not descending, and continued to burn, heading east out to the ocean. ATC didn't see anything on the radar. It was traveling quite fast, but hard to determine height. I asked my FO, who was a former F15 pilot, if he had ever seen anything like that. He hadn't. My logical conclusion is our government has some really impressive undisclosed aircraft.
Hey thank you for sharing this! This confirms what I've heard about the SR-71. Wow one of the actual designers! That's Amazing! Also I just heard something on the History channel about how the German (probably Jewish) scientists under the Nazis developed anti gravity drive then we, the US sequestered these scientists after WWII who helped develop our space program. I think a few of those scientists went to Groom Lake, NV!
I'm 100% convinced you met a person who designed the SR-71 exactly as you say. It's just a shame you didn't exchange contact info, I'm sure he would have broken his security clearance for some random person in a laundrymat and told you all sorts of things. And to think it's all going to the grave with the old man. Wasted opportunity. Actually, I think I'll take "Things that never happened" for 1,000, Alex.
Video from 3:20 to 7:20 is the best 4 minutes I ever listened to regarding the Blackbird. Concise, cogent and the numbers were quoted and displayed. First rate.
Glad that I was able to see a live SR-71 at an air show in Missouri in the 90’s. It’s a fantastic aircraft. The concentric rings of fire in the exhaust when the afterburners are on is exhilarating.
Thanks for sharing. Yes indeed quite a thing to witness. We were lucky to have a fly by at the Rancho Murietta airshow outside of Sacramento in the 1980s. The sound was far different than any aircraft, on approach it had a roar that was unmistakable and menacing!
The government won't devulge the performance of a lot of their stuff. My dad worked for the Navy in a high level position developing and advancing sonar. He had a top secret clearance so was privy to a lot of top level info. He came home from work one day and had something he just had to share. Under a major threat to not devulge the information to anyone he told me what the top speed submerged nuclear attack submarine was. Holy Moly. Far above what was thought. This was back in the 60's. To this day I have not shared that info with anyone.
I can attest to the top speed of US subs being faster than stated but not what speeds they can go but let's just say they can outrun there soviet counterparts.
I'm fairly sure today's subs can EASILY do 60+ knots underwater. Anti-cavitation strategies and and hull design have come a LONG way in the past 40 years.
While the phrase "top secret" is thrown around a lot, there are levels to it. I was in the Air Force monitoring radar and I had a top secret clearance. When you have access to military machinery of that kind, you usually require a clearance. But that doesn't mean I knew how it worked or they told me JFK was an inside job. Many people with a top secret clearance don't know what you think they might, but there are others who do. If he worked in a gated facility where he needed his ID checked at two stations, plus needing a passcard to get in before having his ID checked again...THAT is what a real security clearance is. The government isn't worried about the average person in the military. Defense contractors, engineers, anyone working in R&D has a clearance and are probably monitored like you wouldn't believe.
Russian su-57 flies mach 6.5 dont ya know. Its so stealth that no one has ever seen one fly over ukraine. Has a height ceiling of 95,000 ft. It even has a gun that goes pew pew pew
RF is not ethnically Slavic. Most moscovians aren't even ethnically Slavic...but we know what you meant. They like to pretend about much more than aircraft specs...
@@DaneKaiser-- just a few days ago they got a '57 off the ground to drop some big bomb on a Ukrainian target. It was "escorted" by a pair of '35s, and the big bomb it dropped missed and made a hole in an empty field.
@@lordphullautosear are you sure the 2 su-35’s weren't towing the 57? ,😂 that's good info though thank you.I'm pretty surprised that they actually flew a 57 over Ukrainian soil. They are deathly afraid of getting one of those shot down. They only have 7 partly operational 57's flying right? They've built 9 total but 2 are just for testing or prototypes
I stood next to a SR 71 Blackbird, Infact the immediate threat of violence from the Mrs was the only thing that made me move on .At Duxford England. Its a Fantastic Aeroplane, The Closest I'll ever get to a Space Craft .The Engineering is just Fantastic.
I was an engine mechanic on the B-58 Hustler. It was capable of speeds so fast that the friction with the air would burn the decals off of the skin of the aircraft.
Decals? Legend has it the SR-71 was too hot for sealants and would leak fuel like a sieve on a cold start. It was only after warming up that thermal expansion of the skins would close them up and so they would take most of their fueling in-flight
@@ExaltedDuckthat is true,the plane had to be assembled so it was loose fitting-the friction of high speed flight would close the gaps between each piece.If it wasn’t,the plane would literally break apart from the expansion while in great speed.That’s the same reason bridges have expansion joints,to allow expansion and contraction due heat and cold temps.
@@cahg3871that is true, it was also true of the crazy fast 50’s designed English Electric Lightning, interestingly the British also understated that plane’s performance and kept the real figures secret just like the Americans have with the SR71.
Just look at the numbers for the F-15 and F-22. They're similar weight machines, and (using wikipedia's numbers for expediency) the F-15's engines at full afterburner fall short of the F-22's max thrust without afterburner. And from that we're expected to believe that the F-22 has a max speed of Mach 2.2? (Wikipedia says F-15C max Mach 2.5, F-22 Mach 2.25). Alex himself has spoken a few times about the power of these newer engines and the even more absurd next gen replacements in the pipeline. Now I'm sure the Air Force doesn't want their Raptor pilots tearing their stealth skins off at Mach 4 for no reason, but basic arithmetic demonstrates that claims like a Mach speed reduction of 0.25 from F-15 to F-22 is more than a little suspicious. Then again, people still make claims about certain ground vehicles that I know from my own experiences (and info that I doubt is well guarded anymore) are just not true or even logical.
Like the top speed a Nimitz class carriers can do, or the speed and depth American nuclear subs are able to achieve. America, like a good poker player he never boasts, never tips his hand, he waits until he wrings every last dollar out of all the suckers and when all the money is on the table, he lowers the boom and is the one who walks away the winner.
@@rrob692326 Even the Iowa class battleships, 80 years old and retired, are faster than their published speeds. Same with the old Essex class carriers. When the engine room kicks them in the ass they will eek out a few extra knots of speed, and the Navy was just fine not bragging about it in public.
A friend who worked at Edwards AFB (as a senior FTE) told a story of the last official flight (the LA-NY record flight), where the plane was unable to take on a full fuel load so was unable to fly as fast as they planned. Since the plane was going to wind up in a museum after it landed, they weren’t worried about overheating the aircraft, so they were going to “show off.” The original flight plan was under an hour from LA-NY, but without a full fuel load, they had to throttle back. Even so, the plane came close to Mach 3.4 (2242mph) at one point in the trip.
I'm reminded of a comment by Maj. Brian Shul in his well-watched speech at the Lawrence Livermore Nat'l Laboratory: "I can tell you that the plane goes faster than what the book (pilot's manual) says it will go." Another time: "we were going over 2000 miles per hour and I still had 6 inches of travel on the throttle." Also, in the "LA Speed Check Story" The L.A. Tower gave him 1992 knots over the ground." A knot, is 7, but MPH is 8. So there's a 1.14 conversion factor. 1992 knots = 2270 mph. And that's what Brian and his back seat man Walter were doing on a routine training mission.
While serving in the USAF from 1976 thru mid-1980, stationed at Ellsworth AFB in SD as a jet engine troop working flightline, I had the opportunity to witness 1 of these planes land as a transit bird at our base. The SP personnel very quickly escorted the taxiing aircraft to the 90 row of docks(last row at north end of the runway)into a waiting dock that already had doors open(they would accommodate a B-52 easily)and shut the doors after the aircraft shut down. (We also had another one set down about a year or so later, same deal). I knew a couple troops in the SP squadron who were working security at night up there, they told me you have 3 minutes to go inside and look at it after scrutinizing my line badge. I did so and was amazed at the size of it, couldn't help but notice all the fuel on the floor because the SR-71 was designed that way to allow for expansion when at speed and would leak like a sieve when cool. We took our look at it and the SP people said, "You didn't see this tonight, right?" "Nope, didn't see anything....." Personnel were brought in from Beale AFB to make necessary repairs and bring start carts for it. It departed 2 days or so later, and the resultant sound/shock wave from the burners lighting off was actually much louder than a KC-135A tanker using water injection! Very cool to see this display of sheer power, that jet was at altitude and leaving a contrail inside of 5 minutes after a steep angle of attack climbout, and could still be heard loud and clear after it disappeared from sight. So cool to see one in person, and to see it fly!
@Ghost_Bear_Trader Yeah, while it's being dragged on it's belly and the pilot is still in his ejection seat 40 feet over yelling at the tow truck 🚒, "hey don't forget me! Take the whole chair, I'll just stay strapped in, I got some power bars, yee-haw! I wanna' do that again!"
My father was a mechanical engineer who worked on a lot of government projects in the 1960s and 70s. I remember very specifically the blackbird being talked about in the media when it was partially declassified and I remember him having a laughing fit when they said how fast it could go. When asked what he was laughing about, he said "Nothing! ... Absolutely nothing."
The late SR-71 pilot and author/photographer Brian Shul said they hit Mach 3.5 over Libya. Mach 3.2 was the CRUISING speed. Edit: OK, he covered that story!
Brian Shul, as much as I respect him, was known around the Blackbird community as "lyin' Brian" because of his penchant for embellishment, and has become persona non grata amongst his former peers.
@@shannonchurchill4556 Consider that the community might take it's promise to conceal the speeds seriously enough to discount Shul's tales whether or not there are nuggets of truth in them.
@@mfree80286 >> Brian didn’t give many details in his books. It’s pretty well-known that the cruising speed of the SR was Mach 3.2, though. He was a heck of a brilliant photographer.
My neighbor (recently deceased) designed the Pitot tube at the front of the SR-71. He had a great story about discussions during testing and how he determined they were running ridiculous speeds based on thermal induced discoloration of the Pitot tubes metal.
my dad (a master tool and die maker) made the pitot tube for the X15 at JPL .He also welded on the X15 inside a giant tent filled with Argon or Helium. In the early 60's welding titanium was done that way and he wore a suit like a deep sea diver might use with oxygen hose for breathing..
I was working on a roof in SoCal (San Fernando Valley) when the SR-71 did it's final flight. It circled the entire SF Valley with an unmatched sound then just went straight up and disappeared...very awesome to witness
This isn't about the SR-71 but about how the USAF downplays the listed top speed of their aircraft. My father worked on the B-58 Hustlers before the SR-71's entered service. From Lubbock, TX, with a reconnaissance pod, a B-58 flew to Alaska, during that earthquake in 1964 and to DC, and had developed films in 6 hours. That was an average cruising speed of Mach 4, per my calculations. He refused to tell me the top speed as it was still classified.
The SR-71 was flying in what? 1958 and early 60's. Now if you had said the blackbird had made that flight I would be inclined to believe you. As it probably did.
@@zd1322 This is before satellites. The US didn't know if the Soviet Union launched a nuclear attack on us. The Pentagon needed info as fast as possible. The B-58 with the reconnaissance pod was the fastest plane in the inventory with a camera.
The maximum takeoff weight of the SR71 was 170,000 lbs and the B-58, 163,000 lbs. The max thrust of the SR71 is 65,000 lbs and the B-58 62,400 lbs. The SR-71 is painted and the B-58 is not. I believe the B-58 can fly as fast as the SR-71, based on the metrics.
What a great video. Thanks. I did a TDY where the F-4s and SR-71s played some games and also worked in a squadron with F-15s, 16's, 3's, and A10s in an operational test and evaluation squadron from 1980-Dec 82. What a great group that was and I miss my old AF days every minute of the day. The smell of JP4 was great.
There is an SR-71 Blackbird on display at the air museum in Portage, Michigan. I used to go there just to see the SR-71. It was a century ahead of it's time and arguably the most beautiful jet ever built !
This area was SR-71 Blackbird's path near Detroit, Michigan 1960's I saw the streaks in the sky at 3 years old and the thing is is that that's not normal God. I knew that.
My dad was a B-52 pilot who flew two tours in Vietnam. Once he was flying, he was assigned to SAC headquarters in LGM. He eventually was promoted and went to the top of LGM. The designated speed per the manual was Mach 3.2. My dad noted that if the plane flew suborbital, which it was capable of, the speed was estimated to be Mach 5 due to the lack of atmosphere. Only the airframe, the engine's need for airflow, and its systems (compressor) kept the plane below Mach 3. The current x plane lacks all of those deleterious issues.
So, your dad was a B-52 pilot who then worked for a laser guided missile department, but somehow had access to SR-71 documents? This doesn't make a lot of sense. Although, I've noticed in the comments how many people suddenly have firsthand knowledge of the SR-71, and it's truly mind blowing how many times these secrets got out. /s
I had an uncle who was in the AirForce and was at Kadena Air Force base and he told me a story of when one time the SR-71 was fling a mission over China and some migs started getting close. The pilot told him that they went from 85,000 feet and Mach 3 to 120,000 feet and Mach 3.7. I don’t know if that was true but I do know he had a lot of time with those guys.
@@zd1322True enough. The rocket boosted F-104 that went to these altitudes to test reaction control thrusters for spacecraft and I think the X-15, needed them. The aerodynamic surfaces didn’t have enough bite to control the aircraft, although that was the point. Edit: It was the NF-104A, and was used to train X-15 pilots.
I was stationed in Okinawa when the Habu's were retired and flown back to Beale. I was called to a loud noise complaint at the Officer's BOQ. Upon arrival, a bunch of the SR-71 pilots were having a party before leaving. It was no big deal, and they weren't "trashed", they didn't realize things had gotten a little too loud. All were cool about it. After I explained what I was there for to the ranking pilot, we just started BS'ing a little, and I happened to ask, just how fast "really" was the Habu. He told me he didn't really know. Anytime "the enemy" sent a SAM, if it looked like it was going to get close, they just increased the throttle a little bit until the SAM ran out of gas, then backed the throttle down. We both laughed, I handed his ID back to him and told him to have a good night. I did notice that our Shift Commander's wife was in the room partying with the pilots (and she was trying very hard not to be seen) ... but that wasn't my business.
Got there just after you left. 89-91. PCS'd to Minot. One of my better assignments. If I had to rank my assignments ... 1. Clark AB, PI; 2. Kadena, OK; 3. Minot AFB, ND; 4. RAF Welford, UK, 5. Nellis AFB, NV, 6. Kunsan AB, ROK; and 7. Cannon AFB, NM.
@clarenceobert5860 Kool. I was wondering if I would get a reply. Thank you! A lot of people don't know this but, it was the tanker Navs that ran ALL of the air refueling rendezvous...I never missed an A/R... Oh boy, do I have a lot of stories. The best one is when in the late 1970s the SR flew round trip out of Beale and return, he flew about a 12 hour sortie that day!! I believe that was the longest mission the sled flew.....Anybody out there know of any others? Thanks for the reply.
@@user-fs3um5vq1t during 6 days war in 73 a BB came to my base on east coast... it was secretly housed in old WWII hanger... it would fly over Israel and neighboring areas for obvious reasons... it would depart before sunup and not return until after dark... so, figure daylight in Oct and then you'll know how much flying time was envolved...
When I worked as an air traffic controller we had one call us from above controlled airspace over Pensacola Florida declaring an emergency. He wanted us to be aware that he may need a lower altitude since he had an engine out. When asked where he wanted to land, he said he was going back to his base in California.
There is an old tale where an SR71 pilot radioed the tower asking for permission to enter flight level 70. The tower laughed and asked "How the hell do you plan on getting your aircraft to flight level 70?". The pilot answered "By descending."
Hahahahaha that's a gigantic leap for a plane in an emergency...imagine if every plane on the planet could do that,it would be the perfect world with no accidents
My dad was in the Air Force temporarily assigned in the UK and overheard a U2 declare emergency (flame out) as it was passing over England on its way out of Europe headed towards the US. The controller asked if the U2 wanted them to scramble the Azores? Pilot’s response: naaa, I’ll just glide it back to Edwards… so, the plan, with the engine not running and powering the plane is to glide all the way across the Atlantic ocean and then all the way across the continental United States… The machines (and many of the men operating them) of that era seem so much better than what we appear to have today.
this dosent surprise me at all, While the Russians tend to exaggerate their weapons' capabilities for propaganda, the US has a reputation for downplaying theirs. I wouldn't be taken aback if the SR-71 could actually hit a top speed of Mach 4.5, though I'm uncertain if they had the necessary technology to manage the heat issue.
There was one on record interview that stated that the top speed was in fact Mach 4.4 - I don't remember who said it. I'll see if I can find it again and toss it in here.
@@DavCro I brought up the concern regarding temperature, but I'm also curious about the source of your information that indicates the wing can't withstand such speeds. Additionally Major Brian Shul reported exceeding Mach 3.5, indicating that an undisclosed speed of Mach 4.5 might be plausible.
Alex, I just love how excited you get just doing your job! You’re a lucky man, doing what you love - good for you, brother. And thank you for contributing yet another Blackbird episode to my ‘Blackbird’ playlist collection; there are never too many. And thank you, EVERYONE, who leaves comments about technical details and especially prior experiences with this entire program. There are currently over 1200 comments, and I will go through the entire list. I ESPECIALLY appreciate reading from the people who worked on the design, manufacture, maintenance, and overhaul of the airframe, avionics, fluids, and the J58. It’s great to have watched so many pilot interviews, but there’s just not enough written about and by the folks that made the ‘Bird and kept it flying.
I met an uncle of a friend who was a USAF inertial navigation technician on the SR71. He was still held to TS requirements even being out of USAF for 15 years. He said their top speed was above Mach 4.5. He would only confirm it was faster. He saw the exact speed when processing post flight navigation system.
According to Mach rules this is is impossible as Plane would have its wings destroyed by turbulent flow, nothing to do with cooling. Even if you go at 80K feet or above and calculate Mach speed at speed of sound at that Hight. (which is not done, since we use universal at sea level matrix) The plane would only reach Mach 4 which is the same as MACH 3.5 at sea level.
Now Skunk works is in what used to be called Building 85, I believe. That's where they built the TriStar and some components of the C-5 B small among other projects like the P3, AWAKS
@@EdWeibe I don't know at what point but AA missiles achieved MACH 7+. It's possible that even at that speed they might miss, unless stealth enough the plane wouldn't detect them in time, if flying high enough and limited range of the missiles.
@@uncrunch398 yes a SAM would eventually catch up. but keep in mind they were designed to shoot down jets going MAYBE Mach 1.5 at the time. so a SAM trying to catch a plane going a "possible:" MACH 3.3 or faster means even if the SAM is catching up it would probably run out of fuel before it got close to the SR-71.
1970 Viet Nam, I use to track these on missions over N Viet Nam, and they were WICKED fast! ! ! NVA didn't have much time to shoot at them. Kadena AB, Okinawa, swoop in over N Nam and back home again...no time for an inflight movie.
I had the opportunity to talk to the test pilot who set the "speed record" in the blackbird. He told me his orders were to keep it believable. I asked how fast it would go and he replied that first of all that was top secret and second, he was never allowed to open the throttles to find out.
AIR & SPACE MAGAZINE Keeper of the Blackbirds Don Campbell was the go-to guy for fixing SR-71s. Diane Tedeschi September 2017 An expert on maintenance of the Lockheed SR-71 Mach 3 reconnaissance aircraft, Don Campbell was the SR-71 Superintendent at both Kadena Air Base in Okinawa and later at Beale Air Force Base in California in the 1970s. He spoke with senior associate editor Diane Tedeschi in July. Air & Space: Do you remember the first time you saw an SR-71? Campbell: When I was selected for the program in 1964, I was working on the B-58 program, and the first four pilots selected for the SR-71 were B-58 pilots, and they’re the ones that got me to go. They showed me a black-and-white picture of an airplane, and that’s the first time I saw what I call a Blackbird: It happened to be a YF-12. They asked me if I’d like to go work on an exciting program, and they showed me that picture, and I said sure. My first actual sight of an SR-71 didn’t come until early 1965, when I was sent to Palmdale, California, to follow the production. Was what you saw then a fully assembled Blackbird? Yes. I got to see some more later. I spent a total of about eight months between Palmdale and Burbank [where Lockheed’s Advanced Development Projects division, also known as the Skunk Works, was located], so I got to meet with all the engineers and meet Kelly Johnson [then vice president of Advanced Development Projects]...
I one knew a guy who said he worked on radar systems during the initial testing of what he believes was the Blackbird SR71. The rate at which he said it entered and exited his airspace had him thinking his equipment had malfunctioned. He never disclosed how fast it was going, but when I said “Mach 6?” He was like, “No, we’re talking much FASTER than that…” The stuff they share with us is light years behind what’s actually in use, quietly protecting us every day. ⬛️🇺🇸⬛️
Durning the Grenada operation, SR-71 were operating out of Pattick AFB, Florida. They would open the hangar door, the plane would roll out and immediately take off (To minimize time on the ground for OPSEC). SR-71s would roll down the runway just long enough to lift off slightly, then point the nose almost vertical and hit the gas.... out of sight in less than 15 seconds... unbelievable.
SR71's couldn't lift their noses anywhere near vertical on take off or they'd break right where it's neck meets the wings according to the pilots, I forget what their limit was the pilots say in interviews but as I recall it wasn't even 45°. And they didn't get to the end of the runway and leave immediately, it took at the minimum 2 minutes of them sitting there for the pilot and back seater to do what they had to do and for the celestial navigation system to lock onto the 3 stars it was programmed to use as reference points for that particular mission, even in broad daylight it could see them, they didn't hang out at the end of the runway for too long but it took them at least that amount of time to get ready. As far as this click bait video goes the SR71 couldn't fly "much faster" than what the Air Force admits, first off there's no reason for them to lie about an aircraft that's retired and will never fly again, and the guy's who flew them have all been cleared to talk about it's performance parameters by the Air Force, the only thing they don't want them talking about it's electronic warfare capabilities since some of the equipment is still used in the U2 which continues to operate, but when it comes to how high, how fast and everything else in that regard they're allowed to say anything they know, and they'll all tell you that the listed speed is considered it's top speed, it's capable of flying faster but not by much and there's no real reason to do it plus any pilot who did so would probably lose his job because of all the additional maintenance and most likely engine replacement that would be a result of doing so, at it's listed top speed which is where they flew their mission's the metallurgy of the engine's is designed to handle the heat, any faster and the heat increases to the point where the aircraft would have to be taken out of the flight rotation schedule due to all the different inspections that'd be required from getting the engine's that hot, another aircraft and it's crew would have to be brought in from another base that houses them to cover for that one, the list of headaches and problems from doing it would cause heartburn with all the wrong people and it'd be the last time that crew saw the inside of one for the rest of their lives, also the way speed is measured with aircraft any speed an SR would have hit in a nose down attitude doesn't count. As pointed out by the creator of this video which also shows that it's title is malarkey the small amount of speed over it's listed top speed that a few SR's are rumored to have hit certainly isn't "much faster" than what's listed so all the hoopla over it is just dumb and pointless, it's not like it can actually go mach 4.7 which would be something worth getting excited over and would prove they were hiding something about it, people's imaginations just go crazy over those things and there's no point behind it, there's no secrets about it, it's a retired aircraft that the Air Force and the pilots who flew it have given full disclosure about it's performance, there are no secrets about it with the exception of it's electronic warfare capabilities the Air Force doesn't want talked about because they're still in use, and no one cares about it anyway, top speeds of aircraft are no longer an issue, China, Russia and no one else cares about anything like that which is why all the hubbub over someone at Boeing accidentally misspeaking about the F15's top speed is just silly, stealth capabilities and weapons capabilities are what they're concerned over, our potential enemies could care less whether or not the F15 can actually fly 200 MPH faster than what's listed, the only people it keeps awake at night is aviation fanboys and their vivid imaginations.
My bro-in-law (since retired) was a USAF Lt Col… Early in his career, when he was in the missile silos, he would listen to Salt Lake control, and he actually heard one of the SR-71’s “descending to FL 800” messages. *I have a picture of him in a spacesuit at an undisclosed altitude in a U2 spy plane. The windows were mostly iced over, but the sky was BLACK, and you can see the curvature of the earth out the window.*
I spent my career "riding" in the back of an E-3, and it was always fun to track SR's out west (usually associated with Red/Green Flag Exercises). The "vector stick" on our computer displays are proportional to the ground speed of the a/c, and no other a/c could grow one as long as an SR! It also was fun to watch it turn 180 degrees back to the west while on an east bound leg over Nevada, since the ground track required to complete the turn would take it up to the middle of Utah! :)
I’m a private pilot and a plane nerd. Though my vision kept me from flying in the military, so I went in the Army. But a buddy I used to work with was an F-15 crew chief in the late 90’s. He told me years ago sometimes the pilots would push Mach 3 and then they’d have to go through some extra inspections. And those were C’s and D’s. I’d be shocked if an EX couldn’t do at least 2.9 on the regular.
Not that it will burst your bubble too much - but the airframe on display in Huntsville is actually not an SR-71, it's an A-12 - which in my opinion is a better aircraft though less popularized. That particular ship is airframe #7 of 12 built for the CIA. I also agree it's a beautful machine up close!
They didn't lie, it's called keeping your enemies in the dark. The ceiling and speed were both 'rated' for a certain amount, but I guarantee you that they were Much higher than ever openly stated.
toI was a KC-135Q Tanker Task Force Navigator in Kadena AB during the mid 1980s and personally clocked the Sr-71 at above 3.5 Mach! We were airborne skirting the Russian border to air refuel the HABU on a post strike A/R and our jet was at FL330 and we saw a contrail above us, so I turned on my ranging equipment
The issue of increasing SR-71's speed from say 3.2, for the purpose of this discussion, to 3.5+ is managing the positional stability of the shockwave created by each engine's Air Inlet Control System (AICS) spike and aft of spike pressure control system valves called "doors", within the interior shape of the nacelle at speed. The spike you see at the front of each engine's nacelle hydraulically moves aft in a range of around two feet, controlled by the Air Inlet Control System (AICS) as speed and altitude increase per the accel envelope. It's a carefully choreographed process of accel and decel to keep the beast in it's flight envelope. At 3.2 and thereabouts, the stability of the shockwave is very critical within a small range of motion/pressure fluctuation. The challenge is managing that system. The AICS on paper and real life can exceed 3.2M but for mission purposes 3.2 (+/- a bit) is good enough mix of getting to the target, spending minimum time over target and getting away safely and reliably. The AICS is something of a supercharging system that uses the shockwave in the nacelle to radically slow the speed of air in the intake nacelle, which conserves energy by radically increasing pressure of the air in the nacelle aft of the shockwave, resulting in very high density of O2 per cubic centimeter of air fed to the engines... So the engine produces more thrust at the same RPM as as the aircraft accelerates. The engine burns O2 and the AICS increases the amount of O2 per unit of air fed into the engines as speed and altitude increase. Brilliant system. The fuel/air/power efficiency at mission speed was higher than that of achieving mission speed...
Good answer and there are other limitations. One that is well known is the max inlet air temp of 427C. There's also the additional Shockwave at the tip of the spike...the angle of deflection increases with speed. At 3.2 I believe it is 18 degrees, which angles out past the wings. However at around 3.5 the angel is such that the Shockwave would interfere with the wings and create substantial drag. There are also temp considerations for the engine components but I can't find precise data for this.
1. You are listing 1st airframe factory new capabilities while ignoring decades of technological advancements that would have been available and used. 2. All supersonic AV have a system of controlling the shockwaves passing into and near the inlet. It is not a supercharge anything but a necessary evil. 3. You appear to be confusing the concept on inlet thrust with 'supercharging'. High mach AV tend to get more thrust from the engine sucking in air than from the expulsion of the exhaust. Counter intuitive, sure, but also reality. 4. Compressible fluid dynamics is a very rare skill set. So is combustion chemistry. You appear to have neither.
If you have the original VHS version of Great Planes for the SR-71 which I do. There is a snippet of radio traffic between a tanker crew and a SR-71 pilot in the program. In all the up to date versions the pilot says "proceeding to mach 3" which matches closed captioning. If you have the original VHS he clearly says "proceeding to mach 5." They did a very good job of altering all the modern copies, but played side by side you can tell the difference and the original is quite clearly not mach 3.
Or the pilot was just fkng around. You think any might have ever said “proceeding to warp speed” as a corny joke? I’d say everyone would know he was kidding, but after reading a bunch of these total bs comments, now I’m not so sure about that.
I was stationed at Hickam AFB '77-'81, returning from a JC-130 training flight taxied past a Blackbird on the tarmac. The heat shimmering effect was amazing...
Hi, I'm a former aircraft mechanic for the former (not this new crap, wheels falling off, engine on fire, off the runway UAL) United Airlines and I worked alongside a former in flight refueler for the SR-71. He told a story of how during a refueling operation where he's in visual contact with the pilot, he asked the pilot how fast the "Blackbird" could actually go. He said the pilot responded over the radio with "I can't tell you it's classified.". Then in a remarkable display of "pulling back the curtain" the pilot held up his hand and showed the refueler all five fingers as if to state an actual speed of mach 5! Now here's something people rarely state when mentioning Mach: Mach at altitude, that is, above 30,000ft is 652 mph and at sea level it's 752 mph. This is because mach is a speed of sound measurement which varies with density. In less dense atmosphere mach is slower which is the case at higher altitude. In outer space Mach is zero. These things need mentioning when throwing around Mach numbers. So, with that in mind, Skunk Works may have been playing a little game by publishing low altitude mach Numbers to throw looky-loos off of their trail! Mach 3.2 at sea level is 2,407 mph approx. At altitude it's only 2,087 mph approx. They know that the Russians would have been thinking 3.2 is an "at altitude" speed. If they really mean that the speed is 2,407 mph and the craft actually flies that speed at altitude then it's relevant Mach number is actually 3.69. Now if the 71 flew at mach 5 at attitude like my coworker stated then it would actually achieve a speed of 3,260mph which is very close to what another commenter said here about the plane regularly flying at 3,000mph. That speed's mach number drops to 4.3 at sea level. Back in the early '90's I spoke with an SR-71 pilot at fleet week in San Francisco and he told me the limiting factor of speed wasn't the engines because they are ramjet engines, but it was the limit of the aircraft material capabilities. He said the leading edges would heat up to 900 deg F. Funny though, he didn't say they couldn't get hotter and maintain their temper! He also didn't say what speed or altitude the craft was flying at when they got that hot. It seems to me that they speak to people stating specs in an ambiguous way knowing that we will assume they mean one thing when they didn't actually state it. When I hear stories like this and I look at all of it from the 30,000 foot view it all comes within the realm of possibility! When all is said and done, I really don't know, they're just stories until I can actually verify it all! Peace out!
@@FUTURECONFLICTCHANNEL Wow! That would be Mach 5.37! Other commenters in this post were saying that as well and a couple were saying it could fly as fast as 6 to 7,000mph! Have you heard of the X35 (I think)? It was the lifting body aircraft developed back in 2005 to 2010 or thereabouts that was achieving 12 to 13,000mph with a new engine called a SCRAM jet. That stands for Supersonic Combustion Ramjet. Interestingly enough that aircraft could take the heat. Also even in the 1960's the Atlas rockets could take the heat generated at 17,000mph which is their entry into orbit speed. I say this because thermal limits are always mentioned about the 71. I'm not so sure that's an actual issue!
I would not question for a second whether the SR-71 is / was Mach 5 capable. The issue really is the fact that the poor bird has to take off. If the airframe was dropped at 30k feet and 300-450 mph, the restrictors which allow its power plant to go dual mode would be lifted and it could likely maintain stability well past five fingers. It's all about compressor stall. For the time, the intake design is an absolute amazing breakthrough. That was how many decades ago? Dual-mode means compromises. Maybe there's a "third mode" setting no one every admitted to already built in. (Likely would have been in the mid 80s.) I'm guessing the last 5 were tested and capable of blowing past at least 3.8 without mods, with a freshly designed 25 years newer inlet system? nothing wrong with the airframe going for more sky.
The Airforce should make a modern tribute version of the SR71 Blackbird with all the updated equiptments. But with a very similar profile to update it to the higher speed tolerences... And let her loose! ^.^ { She's my all time fav plane growing up } ... It would be quite fitting when the updated version breaks her own record ^.^
I volunteer at the National Museum of the Air Force where we have an SR-71 and an AF-12. The info in this video will make for some interesting conversations when showing and discussing these aircraft with our visitors! Thanks for sharing your research!
*A KC-135 boom operator friend of mine that refueled them and was stationed in Oki in the 70s told me the Habu would routinely do Mach 6 like the X-15 but only in restricted areas where they couldn't be clocked by radar...He also said the 135 would be shaking at max speed while the Blackbird was near stalling during the entire refueling process.*
@Ghost_Bear_Trader Given the neighboring countries, I somehow doubt they entered PRC airspace from due west, so more likely somewhere on the southern border (somewhere east of Tibet) with a (more or less) continuous curve out to sea just south of Shanghai straight to Okinawa. That will take some distance (and so some speed) out of the equation.
Mach 6 (and controlled flight) just isn't possible in this plane. At Mach 6 the shock cone angle from the nose spike would be 9.6 degrees either side of centerline putting the shock cone onto the tail, wings and engine inlets. Mach 3.6 is where the shock cone angle hits the front tines, engine inlets, tail and wing tips simultaneously and is where that plane would be aerodynamically limited too. They would need an extended nose spike to push that shock cone out to go any faster (which they probably had as I know they had a few different noses for the plane depending on mission) but that would only give them a bit more. That spike extension would have to be 35 feet long to push that shock cone out past the plane at Mach 6.
@@wally7856 *Too many times I've heard Narcissists claim for various reasons they like to fire their **_"Derringer"_** Pistol **_"Both Barrels"_** at the same time. But a Gunsmith or even just an avid Pistolero will quickly dispel any myth such as that as even possible with their knowledge and know-how of the legendary Piece of Western History. The way I understand it at Mach 3+ the Ram Jets Bypasses supply 80% of the Habu's thrust. And 80% of that is from the "Spikes." So, that figures. hahaha Thanks for the Comment. KUTGW*
There’s a YF-12 on display at Wright Patterson AFB. When it was delivered to the base it was put on display for base brass and dignitaries. My buddy and I snuck in with our ROTC Uniforms and looked in the cockpit. The seat was gone but the Air Speed indicator went to Mach 10.
For those who are unfamiliar with our military, every plane, tank, gun , and every weapon we have flies faster, shoots farther, or does whatever it is designed to do better than they tell us. That is why we are the best!
I met and spoke with a retired Lockheed plant manager who was over the skunkworks for a few years….i told him i knew he couldnt tell me anything, but that i always believed the air force was always about 20 years ahead of where we even think they are ahead…like ifmthe tech is twenty years ahead of today, they are really 40. He just smiled and said “thats a pretty good assumption.
The Blackbird was flying as a prototype 50 years after the first EVER flight, which was less distance than the wingspan of a 747!!! It was designed without real computing power, and to me, remains an incredible and under estimated achievement. It is also my second favourite aircraft behind the Spitfire.
Decades ago, Aviation Week and Space Technology claimed that their research indicated that the SR71 could do close to 3,000 mph at 125,000' altitude. A little later a retired (now deceased) AF colonel told me "that was a little conservative" ! Absolutely mind boggling.
in the 70's, I remember a pilot home on leave talk about a ship he test flew and at top speed if he got his gloved hand close to the canopy, he'd get burnt through his glove! In 2016 he admitted it was a "blackbird" said top speed was still "classified"!
I grew up in between Springfield and Dayton. My best friend’s father was a project manager for Rockwell on the Bone. It was a regular occurrence to have F-15’s buzz by VERY low at serious speeds over the farms. One day, my friends father calls my dad and gives him a time to get his son and I over to Wright Patt with a special pass. We went through security and we’re directed straight to a hanger where we met my friend’s dad. We went out to the flight line, sure enough, about 10-15 minutes later in comes an SR-71. Lands, refuels, the pilots go out looking like astronauts with their little AC units. They loaded back up with fuel leaking and took back off. Shy of a Saturn V or a shuttle launch, I’m not sure I’ve heard or FELT anything like that. They ended up doing a pass at full afterburner with the whole base watching. Never forget that memory.
I had a friend that was a Lockheed SR71 test pilot. He told me the limiting speed factor was the windshield temp limit. Which he usually saw at around Mach 3.3. But he noted that at that windshield temp limit, he was only at about 1/2 power lever travel.
Interesting but I've never heard about that limitation. The obvious limitation, among others, is inlet max air temp of 427C. And at 3.6 Mach the cone shape of the spike tip shockwave would cause enormous drag and stress on the wings, tail and other regions.
I like an interview with a SR-71 pilot. He said they were flying over Libia, and a surface to air was headed their way. He said “ I pushed the throttle forward and out ran the missle. I can’t tell you how fast I was going but I didn’t think it could go that fast”
@Ghost_Bear_Trader In this context though "out ran the missile" doesn't necessarily mean they went faster. It just means that the missile couldn't close the distance before it ran out of fuel.
I think that happened with North Korea as well. The KPA (North Korean army) fired a missile at it, so the pilot just throttled up until the missile went off course or ran out of fuel. It's understandable why this plane just drove the Commie Bloc CRAZY.
In the early 1980’s, my flight instructor, just retired from the Air Force as an Lt as an aerospace engineer, told me he worked on one of the first laser tracking systems. During one of the tests, he tracked the SR-71 at over Mach 4. He excitedly said this to the his Captain. The Captain told he did not. But he said back, Yes I did!! Captain said once again, No you didn’t. That’s when he got it. I don’t know if his recounting of the story was true, but he was one of the smartest engineers I’ve ever known.
I knew an AP who was in good with some of the SR-71 aircrew and maintenance personnel during the Vietnam era; he said they were always over 3.8 and quite a few were well north of 4 (4.2-4.5; idre). They used a special paint on the inside of the airframe that changed color according to temperature; correlated to speed, it gave the maintainers & reviewers indisputable evidence - not that a SR-71 crew would ever “sandbag.”
