Mach 3.5 Over Libya in an SR-71 Blackbird

> At that speed, the engines are assumed to have been scraped after each flight. > One could make assumptions that the ram-jet elements of an SR-71's J-58s could allow for a few minutes...far beyond that

I would expect the SR-71 to stay at speed longer and for the engines to be capable of higher power (assuming the airframe and intake can handle it). US engines were generally higher quality, while Soviet engines were expected to be replaced very quickly relatively. However, this was a conscious decision on the part of the USSR: instead of making expensive engines with good maintainability in the field, they chose to make cheap engines that were easy to replace. As a result, while a MiG-25 may have only been able to maintain Mach 3 for a few minutes and ruin the engine in the process, they built 1,186 of them, with probably >5,000 Mach 3 capable engines.

Not particularly relevant, but always interesting to discuss how different people think

Short of God, an engineer with a slide rule is the most powerful thing in the universe.

Indeed, Mach 3.5 is the declared top speed in this story, but higher speeds are implied.

     The Mach eases to 3.5 as we crest 80,000 feet... Screaming past Tripoli, our phenomenal speed continues to rise... I realize that I still have my left hand full-forward and we're continuing to rocket along in maximum afterburner... The TDI now shows us Mach numbers, not only new to our experience but flat out scary.

He mentions unusually cool temperatures allowing higher speeds than usual, and the aircraft is performing better than ever. So who knows. 3.6? Did a perfect set of circumstances, mixed with a rather urgent need to depart, take them closer to 3.7?

It's truly incredible that the A12/SR-71 aircraft was designed without the benefit of modern computing. In Ben Rich's book "Skunk Works" I recall there a bit about a comment that somebody once made regarding Kelly Johnson, something like "That Swede can see air". Truly a compliment to Johnson's almost uncanny ability to design aircraft for a specification. The U2 was another example of such ability.

The dates in the story are confusing me.

> My first encounter with the SR-71 came when I was 10 years old in the form of molded black plastic in a Revell kit.

> Twenty-nine years later, I stood awe-struck in a Beale Air Force Base hangar, staring at the very real SR-71 before me.

> In 1962, the first Blackbird successfully flew, and in 1966, the same year I graduated from high school, the Air Force began flying operational SR-71 missions.

> I came to the program in 1983

So the author was born in 1944 if they were 39 (29+ 10) in 1983.

1966 then puts them graduating at 22 (was high school longer back then? I wouldn’t have thought so and he’s supposed to have a stellar record and 22 feels a little old for joining the military) and playing with the SR-71 model in 1952 before it was even conceived in 1960.

What am I missing?

>satellite imagery

"This one cool trick makes spy agencies hate him"

https://www.harborfreight.com/tarps