71–80 of 141 posts
So I've heard other great stories from this book before, and I was curious how much it cost to actually get the book. The book in it's latest incarnation is $295. What on earth?
I find these stories hard to believe. An expensive top secret spy plane that is hard to fly, requires boatloads of fuel and maintenance allowed to make a detour for a joy ride flyby?
New York Times story about the announcement: https://archive.md/oFO9J
Earlier quoted context omitted.
apparently some air traffic controllers disagree with this story being possible: https://old.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fbt4rq/la_speed_che...
The dude on Reddit says: > They could hear ATC but not other aircraft, because civilian aircraft are on VHF frequencies, military on UHF, and anybody above 60,000 feet (like the SR-71's) were on a separate, center-wide UHF frequency so they wouldn't have to switch frequencies constantly. So the SR-71 and F-18 pilots couldn't have heard those other aircraft requesting groundspeed, or heard each other for that matter.…
I often think about life using aviation analogies. You need to have enough airspeed, for instance, to maintain lift: one must keep moving to survive. Don't stall your wing with too much angle of attack = don't bite off more than you can chew. Etc etc...
>one must keep moving to survive Sharks?
You can read anything you want about the SR-71, but nothing compares to actually seeing it in person. It is my single favorite engineered object. It's in the Dulles Air and Space museum. Go see it, if you can. You won't regret it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A similar thing happens with boats --- the rudder only has an effect when water is moving past it, so it's more difficult to maneuver when moving slowly.
Maneuvering a regular (stern) driven boat without a bow screw at low speeds is super hard. There is this 10 year old kid at a marina near where I live that handles all of the rental boats, I've seen them do this in absolutely impossible situations with a grace and skill that really blows my mind, it's like the boat is on rails and does exactly what they want it to do. Even the box shaped 'party boats', and those are…
But steerage at slow speed is a tricky subject. I had a trawler I was terrified of at slow speed, because it was absolutely massive, and the rudder did nothing at low speed. Plus the transmission was iffy so putting it in reverse would take from 5-50 seconds. Plus being single screw her rear-end would pull to port in reverse. Never again! (A sail-boat with a big keel and big rudder, and much less beam and mass? No problem!)
You can read anything you want about the SR-71, but nothing compares to actually seeing it in person. It is my single favorite engineered object. It's in the Dulles Air and Space museum. Go see it, if you can. You won't regret it.
You can read anything you want about the SR-71, but nothing compares to actually seeing it in person. It is my single favorite engineered object. It's in the Dulles Air and Space museum. Go see it, if you can. You won't regret it.
Here’s another fun flyby story: http://www.usafa68.org/History/ch5.htm
SR-71 speed check One time we were going fast a small plane got on the radio and said "how fast am i going" the tower said "you are going fast" and then a bigger plane got on the radio and said "haha i think i am going faster how fast am i going" and the tower said "you are going a little faster" and then a jet fighter was going really fast and talked like a really cool guy and said "hey there, I sound like a cool gu…
"There were a lot of things we couldn't do in a Cessna 172, but we were some of the slowest guys on the block and loved reminding our fellow aviators of this fact." https://www.reddit.com/r/copypasta/comments/e6r7gv/
"in mere hours we'd be out of the sector" rofl