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SR-71 Blackbird Communication to Tower

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71–75 of 75 posts

Re: SR-71 Blackbird Communication to Tower

#71
stolen from http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/423988-concorde-question-3.ht... Ancient tale.

There's this SR-71 Blackbird stooging around Cuba on a top-secret mission, at FL500+ and Mach 2+.... when they get a call requesting them to change heading "because of traffic at your altitude". Traffic at THEIR altitude ?? Anyway, they comply, and shortly, yes, there's an Air France Concorde out of Caracas (Air France flew there in the early days) slowly sailing across their flight path.

Just imagine... two guys in bonedomes and full pressure suits, in a cramped cockpit, watching something like a hundred people in shirt sleeves or summer dresses, sipping their champagne and maybe just starting on their smoked salmon hors d'oeuvres, flying at their altitude and nearly their speed....

Re: SR-71 Blackbird Communication to Tower

#73
post #23

Comic Sans MS, maroon on a beige background, this is what Readability was made for.

IMHO, I thought this was one of those occasions when the content and its delivery trumped presentation.

The content is why I googled for the Readability bookmarklet instead of just closing the browser tab.

Re: SR-71 Blackbird Communication to Tower

#75
post #4

Same pilot, different anecdote, "how slow can it go?" http://tailspinstales.blogspot.com/2010/01/slowest-blackbird...

The Blackbird is full of amazing stories. Skunkworks - Ben Rich's memoirs [1] is full of ridiculous stories, both of making the SR-71 as well as stories from pilots (as well as a lot of other projects). Not every thing in there can be taken at face value (his rant against the paint locker on the Sea Shadow for example... it's really the 'toxic solvents and chemicals locker'), but still full of gold. For example, they…

my favorite sr71 anecdote is how it leaks fuel when on the runway because all the joints were all designed to fit loosely until it reached pressure at altitude.
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