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Mach 3.5 Over Libya in an SR-71 Blackbird

thesr71blackbird.com

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Re: Mach 3.5 Over Libya in an SR-71 Blackbird

#111

Some interesting trivia: The SR-71 began as the YF-12, and was originally supposed to be RS-71 (Reconnaissance/Surveillance), but somebody thought SR sounded better. The YF prefix on the original aircraft is often referred to as "Yankee Fire", a caveat that is still in use.

legend is that president johnson got it confused in a press conference and called it the sr-71 so instead of correcting him they just changed the name. "skunk works" is a great read. i'm almost done with "area 51" by annie jacobsen and it's quite the interesting read as well, though it does get dry at times. https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15839422W/Area_51

The correct part of the legend is that the speech he was reading off of said SR-71, because someone thought it sounded better, and getting it spoken by the President was easier than doing it the "Right" way.

Re: Mach 3.5 Over Libya in an SR-71 Blackbird

#112
post #98
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does winter mean at 80 000 ft and Mach 3? The jet stream is insanely fast at that altitude mixing the air, and at Mach 3 the surface weather changes in fractions of a minute.

Winter means that your nearest pole is tilted away from the sun. Your half of the planet is cooler, especially towards the poles.

For instance the James Webb telescope gets clearer pictures in summer because in winter the astronauts breath can fog up the lens.

Re: Mach 3.5 Over Libya in an SR-71 Blackbird

#113
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world hates that the US is the world police, but then constantly demands the US be the world police.

>but then constantly demands the US be the world police Que?

Europe isn't even willing to fund their own militaries.

Re: Mach 3.5 Over Libya in an SR-71 Blackbird

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, nobody presented evidence that Libya was behind the La Belle bombing. If you think that some shady arm of US intelligence isn't capable of such a heinous false flag operation, I urge you to read more history. Now I'm not saying it was one, I'm saying we have no idea who was behind it.

Because real life isn't a TV show. That isn't how national security agencies work. They don't dump raw intelligence to the public. The US knew it was Libya obviously, and the data released since then has proved that. Hell even the Stasi & the soviets knew it was Libya. Again this isn't a TV show. No country needs permission to react to an attack against them by another state like Libya.

Oh, so your advice is to blindly trust whatever they shovel into the public's mouths ?

I totally trust US three letter organisations, and cannot see what could possibly go wrong as they have never shown signs of incompetence and malice in the past.

The fact that the stasi thought it was the Libyans could very well mean that it was a very successful false flag operation. This is the problem with the intelligence apparatus. It is war against the truth.

Re: Mach 3.5 Over Libya in an SR-71 Blackbird

#115
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't hold my breath... The US launched an airstrike in an illegally-occupied (Syria) nation less than a week ago. https://news.antiwar.com/2023/03/25/us-carries-out-airstrike...

Illegally occupied according to who?

mmm... to anyone who could read?

I mean, could you say why us troops are in Syrian oil fields stealing oil?

Re: Mach 3.5 Over Libya in an SR-71 Blackbird

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That said, it did require computers retrofitted to the engines to make the plane safe. http://www.enginehistory.org/Convention/2014/SR-71Inlts/SR-7... .

That task could have probably been done by a mechanical or analogue computer. Not sure I'd call that control system a full-fledged computer.

Aerospace computers don't get any respect. The SR-71's DAFICS (Digital Automatic Flight and Inlet Control System) is a digital computer system with triple-redundancy. I bet your computer doesn't have that :-)

https://doi.org/10.4271/851977

Re: Mach 3.5 Over Libya in an SR-71 Blackbird

#117
post #86

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 u…

> It's truly incredible that the A12/SR-71 aircraft was designed without the benefit of modern computing. One of the huge things that computers give us is the ability to simulate where the design limits actually are - you can "relatively" easily design a device that needs to do "at least X" but once you're done, you don't really know how far past X you can go - computer simulations can help discover where and what ex…

"Any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an (computer assisted?) engineer to build a bridge that barely stands"

Re: Mach 3.5 Over Libya in an SR-71 Blackbird

#118

I love stories about America violating sovreign airspace, especially when they use such a cool plane. The entire world is truly their own backyard!

There is no international law (or agreement) defining the vertical boundary of a nation’s sovereign territory/airspace, but I guarantee no Libyans were up at 80,000'.

Re: Mach 3.5 Over Libya in an SR-71 Blackbird

#119
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's truly incredible that the A12/SR-71 aircraft was designed without the benefit of modern computing. One of the huge things that computers give us is the ability to simulate where the design limits actually are - you can "relatively" easily design a device that needs to do "at least X" but once you're done, you don't really know how far past X you can go - computer simulations can help discover where and what ex…

"Any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an (computer assisted?) engineer to build a bridge that barely stands"

It's actually an interesting problem from a "total effort" viewpoint.

There's zero reason to design a kitchen to last 100 years if the average one will be remodeled in 7 and even the oldest won't go past 20.

But other things can be designed to last significantly longer, and be used way past their "original expected lifespan" - many of the buildings in Europe, for example, have lasted centuries.

Re: Mach 3.5 Over Libya in an SR-71 Blackbird

#120
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt they were absolutely convinced it was real, but still pretty hilarious. https://www.businessinsider.com/bruckheimer-china-moved-sate...

“The Navy told us that a Chinese satellite turned and headed on a different route to photograph that plane.” I can only assume that China publish their targeting on some Twitter account? What ludicrous statement.

Is this a reference of the USA doing just that? https://www.npr.org/2022/11/18/1137474748/trump-tweeted-an-i...
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