SR-71 Blackbird Communication to Tower

Post by po » Tue, Nov 23, 2010, 12:25 AM UTC

rudyfink wrote: post #39

In reference to the uniform voice of center controllers--the "Houston Center" voice, Tom Wolfe tells a related story about pilots in "The Right Stuff." He asserts that all of the test pilots of the era copied the slow, calm, and always subtly positive delivery of Chuck Yeager as the pre-eminent pilot of the day. Other pilots in turn copied the test pilots and so Yeager's voice floated down and became the mold for all…

Post by cvg » Tue, Nov 23, 2010, 1:03 AM UTC

mdaniel wrote: post #5

Thank you again, http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ , for making my web browsing experience safe from the onslaught of backgrounds and fonts.

Post by jufemaiz » Tue, Nov 23, 2010, 2:42 AM UTC

icegreentea wrote: post #32

cstross wrote: 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…

Post by kijuhygtyujikol » Tue, Nov 23, 2010, 4:23 AM UTC

cstross wrote: post #25

kwantam wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, the other part of the killer reputation has to do with apparent design instabilities as a result of the V-tail on the x35 models. Both these and the x36 models really are beautiful planes. Another airplane with the killer epithet because of its on average high power to wisdom of pilot ratio is the Piper Malibu and its later brother the Mirage. Again, a beautiful, fast, well-designed plane that gets out i…

And of course, there's the classic Lockheed Widowmaker, the F-104 Starfighter -- in the "G" variant, purchased by the Luftwaffe, who ordered this high-speed fair weather interceptor with a whole bunch of bells and whistles bolted on, to turn it into a low-level all-weather fighter-bomber: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-104_Starfighter#Germ... "Luftwaffe losses totaled 110 pilots" -- production run: 1,122 F-1…

Post by nikcub » Tue, Nov 23, 2010, 5:27 AM UTC

davidmurphy wrote: post #56

The SR-71 Blackbird went from LA to DC in around an hour. Imagine if (when) a passenger jet could go that fast -- it would transform our country. Pop over to the East Coast for the day, head home in time for dinner.