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What Made the SR-71 Blackbird Such a Badass Plane (2015)

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Re: What Made the SR-71 Blackbird Such a Badass Plane (2015)

#131

Post by autokad »

SllX wrote: post #67
badosu wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America, f\ \ k yeah! ... Sarcasm aside, wouldn't this be a severe case of violation of sovereignity? I find it hard to believe such a stupid act could have been performed without making news or retaliations. (By stupid act I mean entering unpermitted airspace, the pilot's actions are irrelevant)

I have never served in the military, but I like to believe I live in a world in which military commanders are often stuck in a position of having to manage a load of testosterone-fueled lads out doing crazy shit that has the potential to be a "diplomatic incident" and are thus, sympathetic to the commanders in other countries that are often stuck dealing with the same type of lads. So when a French commander calls up…

i heard a story were a group of rookies in a jeep lost their bearings in the fog, and plowed through a barb wire barricade and got their jeep stuck in some sort of ravine on the wrong side of Germany.

the other side, instead of shooting or arresting them, they helped them get the jeep out. they laughed at them and made fun of them, but they still helped

Re: What Made the SR-71 Blackbird Such a Badass Plane (2015)

#132

Post by scrooched_moose »

mikeokner wrote: post #3

My favorite story about the SR-71 being badass: http://oppositelock.kinja.com/favorite-sr-71-story-107912704...

My favorite fact: If a surface-to-air missile launch was detected, the standard evasive action was simply to accelerate and outfly the missile.

Re: What Made the SR-71 Blackbird Such a Badass Plane (2015)

#133

Post by mikeash »

sytelus wrote: post #118

One of the most amazing fact I'd learned was that invisibility to radars was not mostly due to the absorbing material but rather a specific geometry of the plane! The materials certainly enhanced it but it was still like 25% or so contribution. Even more amazing fact was that this possibility was first discussed in a Russian research paper but that was never followed through because it was too complex to compute such…

Unfortunately they didn't quite count on the radar reflectivity of the exhaust plume, which apparently made it a pretty big target in the end: https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/sr-71.htm

Re: What Made the SR-71 Blackbird Such a Badass Plane (2015)

#134

Post by ethbro »

Fnoord wrote: post #126
eesmith wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think it's odd that the Soviet government knew we were sending planes through their airspace for surveillance purposes, and the US government knew that the Soviet government knew, but the US government decided that the US population shouldn't know. When Powers was shot down, the US started with the cover story that it was a weather research aircraft. Then Khrushchev was able to embarrass the US by revealing that…

(I assume NATO knew about this.) There's no such thing as telling your own people. Once you inform your own population about it, the enemy knows about it as well. The same as is true with regards secret service such as CIA and NSA. As you say, that doesn't fly here, since the Soviet government knew, and the US government knew the Soviet government knew. Why you don't want to talk about that could be because its an el…

> public discussion

That's the reason in my opinion.

(A) If the Soviets publicize US penetrations of their airspace, they look militarily weak.

(B) If the US publicizes their penetrations, then (A) as the Soviet public possibly finds out, any fatalities (and there were some) now become part of public debate, and additional parties in the US are now involved in the discussion as to whether or not these should happen.

(C) If either party publicizes their own or the other, then the opposing party is likely to publicize in retaliation. Given that both parties were conducting penetrations to assess air defense systems, this was the PR equivalent of MAD.

Barring a scenario where the president needed a clear "victory" to buttress public opinion, there was no win to be had in the public being informed.

Add in the fact that deep in the Cold War most of the media outlets were still self-censoring "for the country" and there was no one with incentive to disclose.

Re: What Made the SR-71 Blackbird Such a Badass Plane (2015)

#135

Post by badosu »

Fnoord wrote: post #127
badosu wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America, f\ \ k yeah! ... Sarcasm aside, wouldn't this be a severe case of violation of sovereignity? I find it hard to believe such a stupid act could have been performed without making news or retaliations. (By stupid act I mean entering unpermitted airspace, the pilot's actions are irrelevant)

> (By stupid act I mean entering unpermitted airspace, the pilot's actions are irrelevant) > America, f\\k yeah! (I'm European, not French, but was pro-US during the Cold War.) Yeah, my response was the same, until I read the context which the original quote lacks [1]. These 2 quotes are to me the most relevant from the story for the context of the original quote. Feel free to read the story in its entirety. "The Fre…

> The earlier quoted story lacks these nuances. Sure, you might still find it rude but for me it made a big difference that they weren't just invading French aerospace for no valid reason.

Makes a lot of sense, thanks for sharing!

Re: What Made the SR-71 Blackbird Such a Badass Plane (2015)

#136

Post by greenhouse_gas »

WalterBright wrote: post #99
wallace_f wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, note the Vanguard rocket. We lost the space race due to politics. We had the people who knew how to build it--who later built the Saturn V--and after they did, were promptly kicked out. The Soviets had childish, despicable politics of their own going on, with important rocket engineers like Korolev being accused by his colleague Glushko of treason, sending Korolev to the gulag for Glushko's professional advanta…

The way I read it, there was some question that orbiting spacecraft would violate airspace, and with itchy fingers on the launch button, Eisenhower was unwilling to provoke the Soviet Union. He delayed the space program until the Soviets launched Sputnik, which settled the issue. If that's true, it was a good, pragmatic decision.

>there was some question that orbiting spacecraft would violate airspace

Almost. He didn't want to avoid launching satellites, he wanted to avoid launching _military_ satellites, which is why they had to use Vanguard (which was a civilian rocket). Once Sputnik launched on an R-7, there was no more need.

Re: What Made the SR-71 Blackbird Such a Badass Plane (2015)

#137

Post by botskonet »

cyberferret wrote: post #20
mikeokner wrote: post #3

My favorite story about the SR-71 being badass: http://oppositelock.kinja.com/favorite-sr-71-story-107912704...

That story is out of Brian Schul's book (he used to be an SR-71 pilot). I am lucky enough that years ago, a girl who had a crush on me bought me that book. Its out of print now, and I've seen copies on eBay for > $1000. Next to Ben Rich's "Skunk Works", it is one of the best books on the SR-71 that I have ever read.

I have it on my Amazon wishlist. It's going for close to $500 right now.

Re: What Made the SR-71 Blackbird Such a Badass Plane (2015)

#138

Post by Uhhrrr »

ajmurmann wrote: post #73
Uhhrrr wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second this book recommendation. Reading one of Boyd's more epic slide decks might be interesting to some: http://www.ausairpower.net/JRB/poc.pdf The priority placed on tight OODA loops jibes well with the Lean Startup doctrine, I think. Of course, since there's always an aggressive competitor for resources in Boyd's field, he emphasizes messing up their OODA loop as well.

There is a great book that translates Boyd's philosophy to business: https://www.amazon.com/Certain-Win-Strategy-Applied-Business... I generally love reading about how other fields do what we call Agile. It allows you to set the principles behind the implementations.

Could you give an example of how it helped you figure out something in business?

Re: What Made the SR-71 Blackbird Such a Badass Plane (2015)

#139

Post by toomuchtodo »

rory096 wrote: post #92
toomuchtodo wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be willing to lend one out to be scanned for the Internet Archive? I have no relation other than finding books to be digitized and paying for/coordinating the scanning. I’m willing to provide insurance and proof of my identity to ensure your property is respected.

I have a scan. Email is rory at (either) domain in profile. It only came out in 1991 though — does Internet Archive host books that aren't public domain?

I will be in touch.

> It only came out in 1991 though — does Internet Archive host books that aren't public domain?

Yes. https://openlibrary.org/

Re: What Made the SR-71 Blackbird Such a Badass Plane (2015)

#140

Post by toomuchtodo »

msds wrote: post #98
toomuchtodo wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be willing to lend one out to be scanned for the Internet Archive? I have no relation other than finding books to be digitized and paying for/coordinating the scanning. I’m willing to provide insurance and proof of my identity to ensure your property is respected.

How does one go about doing this? I have access to some obscure technical books that really should be scanned and archived, but don't know anything about the field...

https://archive.org/scanning

http://blog.archive.org/donation-faqs/

I have temporarily added contact info to my HN profile. Please get in touch if you would like me to help facilitate the shipping, scanning, and return of your book donation.

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