A great boating pond, welcoming members and some magnificent models await you!

A Really interesting article from a former pilot of the SR-71 Blackbird - Enjoy.

This  was once a highly sensitive program at Norton AFB. The SR-71  Blackbird

One is on display at the AF museum in Dayton and another at Pima Air Museum in Tucson.

In  April 1986, following an attack on American soldiers in  a  Berlin  disco,  President Reagan ordered the bombing of Muammar Qaddafi's  terrorist camps in  Libya .   

 

My duty was to fly over Libya and take photos recording the damage our F-111's had inflicted.  

Qaddafi had established a 'line of death,' a territorial marking across the Gulf of Sidra, swearing to shoot down any intruder that crossed the boundary.    On the morning of April 15,I rocketed past the line at 2,125 mph.

 

I  was piloting the SR-71 spy plane, the world's fastest jet, accompanied by a Marine Major (Walt),the aircraft's  reconnaissance systems officer (RSO).  We had crossed into Libya and were approaching our final turn over the bleak desert landscape when Walt informed me that he was receiving missile launch  signals. I quickly increased our speed, calculating the time it would take for the weapons, most likely SA-2 and SA-4 surface-to-air missiles capable of Mach 5, to reach  our altitude. I estimated that we could beat the rocket-powered missiles to the turn and stayed our course, betting our lives on the plane's performance. After several agonizingly long seconds, we made the turn and blasted  toward the Mediterranean. ' You might want  to pull it back,' Walt suggested. It was then that I noticed I still had the throttles full forward.  The plane was flying a mile every 1.6 seconds, well above our Mach 3.2 limit.  
It  was the fastest we would ever fly.  I pulled the throttles to idle just south of   Sicily , but we still  overran the refuelling tanker awaiting us over  Gibraltar .....

 

Scores of significant aircraft have been produced in the 100 years of flight, following the achievements of the Wright brothers,  which we celebrate in December.   Aircraft such as the Boeing 707, the F-86 Sabre Jet, and the P-51 Mustang are  among the important machines that have flown our skies.    But the SR-71, also known as the Blackbird, stands alone as a significant contributor to Cold War victory and as the  fastest plane ever, and only 93 Air Force pilots ever  steered the 'sled,' as we called our  aircraft.

 

The  SR-71 was the brainchild of Kelly Johnson, the famed Lockheed  designer who created the P-38, the F-104 Starfighter, and the  U-2.  After the Soviets shot down Gary Powers' U-2 in 1960, Johnson began to develop an aircraft that  would fly three miles higher and five times faster  than the spy plane, and still be capable of photographing  your license plate. However, flying at 2,000 mph would create intense heat on the aircraft's  skin.

Lockheed engineers used a titanium alloy to construct more than 90 percent of the SR-71, creating special tools and  manufacturing procedures to hand-build each of the 40  planes. Special heat-resistant fuel, oil, and hydraulic fluids that would function at 85,000 feet and higher also had to be developed.

 

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 with a sterling record and a  recommendation from my commander,  completing the weeklong interview and meeting Walt, my partner  for the next four  years.  He would ride four feet behind me, working all the cameras, radios, and electronic jamming  equipment.  I joked that if we were ever captured, he was the spy and I was just  the driver.  He told me to keep the pointy end forward.

We trained for a year, flying out of Beale AFB in California, Kadena Airbase in  Okinawa, and RAF Mildenhall in England .  On a typical training mission, we would take off  near Sacramento, refuel over Nevada, accelerate into Montana , obtain high Mach over Colorado , turn  right over  New Mexico , speed across  the  Los Angeles Basin, run up the West Coast, turn right at  Seattle , then return to Beale. Total flight time: two hours and 40 minutes.

One day, high above Arizona , we were monitoring  the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes  below us.  First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers to check his ground speed. 'Ninety knots,' ATC replied.  A Bonanza soon made the same request. 'One-twenty on the ground,' was  the reply.  To our surprise, a navy F-18 came over  the
radio  requesting a ground speed check.   I knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, he had a  ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all  the bug-smashers in the valley  know what real speed was � �we show you at 620 knots on the  ground,' ATC responded. 

The situation was too ripe.  I heard the click of Walt's mike button in the rear  seat. In his most innocent voice, Walt startled the controller by asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace.  In a cool, professional voice, the  controller replied, ' I  show you at 1,982 knots on the ground.' We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the  coast.

The Blackbird always showed us something new, each aircraft  possessing its own unique personality. In time, we realized we were flying a national treasure.   When we taxied out of our revetments for takeoff, people took notice.  Traffic congested near the airfield fences, because everyone wanted to see and hear the mighty SR-71 lift off.

 

You could not be a part of this program and not come to love the  airplane.   Slowly, she revealed her secrets to us as we earned her trust.

One moonless night, while flying a routine training mission over the Pacific, I wondered what the sky would look like from 84,000 feet if the cockpit lighting were dark. While heading home on a straight course, I slowly turned down all of the lighting, reducing  the glare and revealing the night sky. 

Within seconds, I turned the lights back up, fearful that the jet would know and somehow punish me.  But my desire to see the sky overruled my caution, I dimmed the lighting again.  To my amazement, I saw a bright light outside my window. As my eyes adjusted to the view, I realized that the brilliance was the broad expanse of the Milky Way,
now  a gleaming stripe across the sky. 

Where dark spaces in the sky had usually existed, there were now dense clusters of sparkling stars.  Shooting stars flashed across the canvas every few seconds. It  was like a fireworks display with no sound. 

I knew I had to get my eyes back on the instruments, and reluctantly I  brought my attention back inside. To my surprise, with the cockpit lighting still off, I could see every gauge, lit  by starlight. In the plane's mirrors, I could see the eerie shine of my gold spacesuit incandescently illuminated in a celestial glow. I stole one last glance out the window.

Despite our speed, we seemed still before the heavens, humbled in the radiance of a much greater power.   For those few moments, I felt a part of something far more significant than anything we were doing in the plane. The sharp sound of Walt's voice on the radio brought me back to the tasks at hand as I prepared for our descent.

The SR-71 was an expensive aircraft to operate.  The most significant cost was tanker support, and in 1990, confronted with budget cutbacks, the Air Force retired the SR-71.

The SR-71 served six presidents, protecting   America for a quarter of a century. Unbeknownst to most, during conflicts the plane flew  over USSR, North Vietnam ,  Red China, North Korea , the  Middle East , South Africa,   Cuba ,  Nicaragua , Iran ,  Libya , and the Falkland  Islands  On a weekly basis, the SR-71 kept watch over every Soviet nuclear submarine and mobile missile site, and all of their troop movements. It was a key factor in winning the Cold War.

I am proud to say I flew about 500 hours in this aircraft.   I knew her well.   She gave way to no plane, proudly dragging her sonic boom through  enemy backyards with great impunity.   She defeated every missile, outran every MiG, and always brought us home.   In the first 100 years of manned flight, no aircraft was more remarkable.

The  Blackbird had outrun nearly 4,000 missiles, not once taking a  scratch from enemy fire.

On her final flight, the  Blackbird, destined for the Smithsonian National Air and  Space
Museum, sped from  Los  Angeles to  Washington in 64 minutes!,  at a constant 2,145 mph and setting four speed  records. 

 

SR-71 Blackbird, a Pilot’s tale