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Blackbird SR-71 Flight Manual (2010)

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Re: Blackbird SR-71 Flight Manual (2010)

#131

Post by oasisbob »

duxup wrote: post #26
codr7 wrote: post #18

I once got around two thirds through a certificate for flying ultralight planes. It sort of stopped making sense to me when we were practicing emergency landings over forest and I was told to aim for trees with thinner trunks. This is sitting inside a cramped metal can with the engine in your lap and propeller in your face. There are so many ways to die in that situation that focusing on the diameter of tree trunks w…

I would think you'd want a good clump of green tree canopy to hopefully take the impact "slowly" and stop the plane without the sudden smashing associated with crashing. Such as: http://www.fox5ny.com/news/plane-stuck-in-tree-idaho

That rescue is truly remarkable.

Not only did the plane remain stable in the tree, one of the volunteer first-responders had the appropriate tree climbing experience and equipment to reach the accident site.

That experience could have easily gone to waste - arborist climbing techniques and standards are very different from what is used for vertical rescue.

The fact that the rescuers made the pragmatic decision to go ahead with borrowed techniques is very unusual.

Re: Blackbird SR-71 Flight Manual (2010)

#132

Post by dotancohen »

java-man wrote: post #113
yutyut wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Airlines_Flight_102

the video of that crash is just hear breaking. you see how the pilots try to recover, did everything right, but it was an impossible task.

Here is a video of the crash from a dashcam. This is probably the most detailed view of the stages of a plane crash I've ever seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLAvN4IUzoI

Re: Blackbird SR-71 Flight Manual (2010)

#133

Post by Gravityloss »

VLM wrote: post #93
collinf wrote: post #31

Posting this here hoping that someone with more knowledge can enlighten me about this. After going down a bit of the rabbit hole, I see that the SR-71's first flight was in 1964. It has held the record for fastest air-breathing manned aircraft[0] since 1976. What is the reason that given all of the technological advances that record hasn't been broken? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_airspeed_record

No one has answered why; only answers have been "no marketable product". There are several technical reasons why, none of which have been been subject to any technological advances in half a century. 1) There's a buffer factor where burning fuel adds a thousand degrees (or whatever) to temp of the air in the engine and steel / titanium / classified will melt several hundreds of degrees above that. Most all jet engine…

There are relatively simple ramjets that fly at around Mach 4 speeds. They are unmanned and are accelerated to speed by solid rockets. Probably the ramjet can't even start below Mach 1 or so.

Designing an air breathing propulsion system for a wide speed range is difficult.

Rockets are much easier after a certain point. McDonnell Douglas and Paul Czysz had interesting projects. If you want manned reconnaissance, a Mach 6 air launched liquid rocket powered lifting body would probably be the next logical step from the Blackbird and would not even be super hard. With rockets you don't have the inlet problem at all and they have excellent thrust to weight ratio.

Re: Blackbird SR-71 Flight Manual (2010)

#134

Post by closeparen »

stevetursi wrote: post #109
ColinWright wrote: post #4

A comment[0] by ehnus[1] from last time this was submitted[2] said: > My favorite section is emergency procedures which contains gems like this: > "If both the A and B hydraulic systems fail as indicated by illumination of the A HYD and B HYD warning lights and confirmed by loss of A and B hydraulic pressure and deteriorating control effectiveness: > 1. Eject" ======== [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1338777…

This is almost as good: WARNING Do not pull the secondary ejection T-handle with the canopy still in place. https://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/manual/1/1-199.php

>Foot Retention System

Re: Blackbird SR-71 Flight Manual (2010)

#135

Post by rbanffy »

rangibaby wrote: post #117
souprock wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is a helicopter? Ejection seats have been done for those. Explosive bolts release the blades, and then everything proceeds as normal. Here is one such helicopter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamov_Ka-50

I believe that was literally the first helicopter with working ejection and is newer than the grandparent’s example (Apache)

You can always go B-52 and eject downwards.

Re: Blackbird SR-71 Flight Manual (2010)

#136

Post by rbanffy »

dmitrygr wrote: post #42
codr7 wrote: post #18

I once got around two thirds through a certificate for flying ultralight planes. It sort of stopped making sense to me when we were practicing emergency landings over forest and I was told to aim for trees with thinner trunks. This is sitting inside a cramped metal can with the engine in your lap and propeller in your face. There are so many ways to die in that situation that focusing on the diameter of tree trunks w…

Landing on top of a dense forest is surprisingly survivable. It is actually more so than landing on top of suburbia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varig_Flight_254 is an interesting story.

Re: Blackbird SR-71 Flight Manual (2010)

#137

Post by hef19898 »

alex_suzuki wrote: post #45
zackbloom wrote: post #17

Skunkworks [1] is a really great book by the designer of the propulsion system (and subsequently the first stealth airplane). I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know how many drill bits you burn through trying to build a titanium airplane. 1- https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/skunk-works_ben-r-rich_leo-jan...

I‘d like to second that recommendation. The book certainly won‘t win any literature prizes, but it does tell a fascinating story and gives a glimpse into the „wild west“ engineering culture that created the Blackbird.

Skunkworks is a legend in aerospace, and rightly so. Shows what's possible if give brilliant people a common goal, some resources and leave them otherwise alone. The fact that the F-117 was developed in time and within budget says a lot. As usual nobody drew the right lessons from it.

I got my fingers on a report about the F-16 development from the eighties from the budget office. Funny to read it, especially the questioning of staggering spare part needs today when you know that Skunkworks "sourced" the F-117 material from the F-16 and F-15 programs.

Re: Blackbird SR-71 Flight Manual (2010)

#138

Post by hef19898 »

kmstout wrote: post #100
bojo wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I recall correctly the plane was built to stretch at high speeds, so the panels were designed to be loose, and the plane would leak a lot of fuel until it reached optimal speeds.

Q: How do you know there's fuel in the Blackbird? A: It's leaking.

Same goes for oil in old Land Rovers!

Re: Blackbird SR-71 Flight Manual (2010)

#139

Post by PappaPatat »

DalekBaldwin wrote: post #112

I once took a filmmaking class from Robert Mehnert who directed a documentary about the SR-71 at a time when its production was at risk of being discontinued. At first only a few hundred people in Congress saw it, but based on the size of the order for new planes, he called the highest-grossing opening weekend of all time. (I haven't been able to find the film online anywhere.)

I tried too, but since the documentary is simply called "SR-71 Blackbird", it makes it hard. The subtitle "To keep the peace they fly alone... unarmed... into the unknown" ist cool but yields one result: an auction of the movie poster [0]

In turn, the movie poster however let me to a reverence to the movie in the book "SR-71 revealed the inside story" by Richard H. Graham, Col. USAF (Ret).

0: http://auctions.emovieposter.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detai...

Re: Blackbird SR-71 Flight Manual (2010)

#140

Post by noworld »

mongol wrote: post #128
danaliv wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I flew an L-39 with inoperative ejection rockets. The bailout procedure was: 1. Roll inverted. 2. Trim full nose down. (Down = skyward at this point.) 3. Blow canopy. 4. Fall out.

What about seatbelts?

Crap, you're right. We'd better revise the manual.
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