I love that plane Kelly Jonson was the man.
And the Kraut wearing Capri pants is pretty funny.

Wow, I've always sneered at RC planes for being g.. ummmm.... effeminate (explains the pants!) That, however, looks amazing.

I always loved the SR-71!!! Too much of our cool military technology is just something we stole from the Nazis and then applied modern materials science to improve it. The SR-71, however, is the pure embodiment of the American spirit, every painful step of the development was bought with America's smartest minds, with callouses on their thumbs from working their slide rules to prove it. Kelly Johnson was indeed the man!

Really Cool!!!

Now that was way COOL Think that pilot needs to be type rated?

Sent to me by a friend, thought I would pass it along as the topic came up.
Hope you enjoy
GT


From: Brian Suhl, USAF retired...


Subject: "what was the slowest you ever flew the Blackbird?"

As a former SR-71 pilot, and a professional keynote
speaker, the question I'm most often asked is "How fast would that SR-71
fly?" I can be assured of hearing that question several times at any event
I attend. It's an interesting question, given the aircraft's proclivity for
speed, but there really isn’t one number to give, as the jet would always
give you a little more speed if you wanted it to. It was common to see 35
miles a minute. Because we flew a programmed Mach number on most missions,
and never wanted to harm the plane in any way, we never let it run out to
any limits of temperature or speed. Thus, each SR-71 pilot had his own
individual “high” speed that he saw at some point on some mission. I saw
mine over Libya when Khadafy fired two missiles my way, and max power was
in order. Let’s just say that the plane truly loved speed and effortlessly
took us to Mach numbers we hadn’t previously seen.

So it was with great surprise, when at the end of one of
my presentations, someone asked, “what was the slowest you ever flew the
Blackbird?” This was a first. After giving it some thought, I was reminded
of a story that I had never shared before, and relayed the following.

I was flying the SR-71 out of RAF Mildenhall, England,
with my back-seater, Walt Watson; we were returning from a mission over
Europe and the Iron Curtain when we received a radio transmission from
home base. As we scooted across Denmark in three minutes, we learned that a
small RAF base in the English countryside had requested an SR-71 fly-past.
The
air cadet commander there was a former Blackbird pilot, and thought it
would
be a motivating moment for the young lads to see the mighty SR-71 perform a
low approach. No problem, we were happy to do it. After a quick aerial
refueling over the North Sea, we proceeded to find the small airfield.

Walter had a myriad of sophisticated navigation equipment
in the back seat, and began to vector me toward the field. Descending to
subsonic speeds, we found ourselves over a densely wooded area in a slight
haze. Like most former WWII British airfields, the one we were looking for
had a small tower and little surrounding infrastructure. Walter told me we
were close and that I should be able to see the field, but I saw nothing.
Nothing but trees as far as I could see in the haze. We got a little
lower, and I pulled the throttles back from 325 knots we were at. With the
gear
up, anything under 275 was just uncomfortable. Walt said we were
practically
over the field—yet; there was nothing in my windscreen. I banked the jet
and started a gentle circling maneuver in hopes of picking up anything that
looked like a field. Meanwhile, below, the cadet commander had taken the
cadets up on the catwalk of the tower in order to get a prime view of the
fly-past. It was a quiet, still day with no wind and partial gray
overcast.

Walter continued to give me indications that the field should be below us
but in the overcast and haze, I couldn’t see it. The longer we continued
to peer out the window and circle, the slower we got. With our power back,
the awaiting cadets heard nothing. I must have had good instructors in my
flying career, as something told me I better cross-check the gauges. As I
noticed
the airspeed indicator slide below 160 knots, my heart stopped and my
adrenalin-filled left hand pushed two throttles full forward. At this
point we weren’t really flying, but were falling in a slight bank. Just at
the
moment that both afterburners lit with a thunderous roar of flame (and
what a joyous feeling that was) the aircraft fell into full view of the
shocked
observers on the tower. Shattering the still quiet of that morning, they
now had 107 feet of fire-breathing titanium in their face as the plane
leveled
and accelerated, in full burner, on the tower side of the infield, closer
than expected, maintaining what could only be described as some sort of
ultimate knife-edge pass.

Quickly reaching the field boundary, we proceeded back to
Mildenhall without incident. We didn’t say a word for those next 14
minutes.

After landing, our commander greeted us, and we were both certain he was
reaching for our wings. Instead, he heartily shook our hands and said the
commander had told him it was the greatest SR-71 fly-past he had ever
seen, especially how we had surprised them with such a precise maneuver
that
could only be described as breathtaking. He said that some of the cadet’s
hats
were blown off and the sight of the plan form of the plane in full
afterburner dropping right in front of them was unbelievable. Walt and I
both understood the concept of “breathtaking” very well that morning, and
sheepishly replied that they were just excited to see our low approach.

As we retired to the equipment room to change from space
suits to flight suits, we just sat there-we hadn’t spoken a word since
“the pass.” Finally, Walter looked at me and said, “One hundred fifty-six
knots. What did you see?” Trying to find my voice, I stammered, “One
hundred
fifty-two.” We sat in silence for a moment. Then Walt said, “Don’t ever do
that to me again!” And I never did.

A year later, Walter and I were having lunch in the
Mildenhall Officer’s club, and overheard an officer talking to some cadets
about an SR-71 fly-past that he had seen one day. Of course, by now the
story included kids falling off the tower and screaming as the heat of the
jet singed their eyebrows. Noticing our HABU patches, as we stood there
with lunch trays in our hands, he asked us to verify to the cadets that
such a
thing had occurred. Walt just shook his head and said, “It was probably
just a routine low approach; they’re pretty impressive in that plane.”
Impressive indeed.

M6RV6 wrote:

"......Walter continued to give me indications that the field should be below us
but in the overcast and haze, I couldn’t see it. The longer we continued
to peer out the window and circle, the slower we got. With our power back,
the awaiting cadets heard nothing. I must have had good instructors in my
flying career, as something told me I better cross-check the gauges. As I
noticed
the airspeed indicator slide below 160 knots, my heart stopped and my
adrenalin-filled left hand pushed two throttles full forward. At this
point we weren’t really flying, but were falling in a slight bank. Just at
the
moment that both afterburners lit with a thunderous roar of flame (and
what a joyous feeling that was) the aircraft fell into full view of the
shocked
observers on the tower. Shattering the still quiet of that morning, they
now had 107 feet of fire-breathing titanium in their face as the plane
leveled
and accelerated, in full burner, on the tower side of the infield, closer
than expected, maintaining what could only be described as some sort of
ultimate knife-edge pass.

Quickly reaching the field boundary, we proceeded back to
Mildenhall without incident. We didn’t say a word for those next 14
minutes......"

Didn't know the SR-71 was vulnerable to moose stalls! I guess the thrust to weight ratio will get you out of a lot of trouble a typical backcountry plane won't.

Flynengr

I remember back when the SR-71 was still active the Air Force granted a rare interview with a Beale based crew. They still had to be vague about specifics in those days. When asked the usual "how fast will it go" question they gave the very short story version. "On one trip about 15 minutes after takeoff we had a problem, had to slow to subsonic, turn around and head home. It took 2 1/2 hours to get back to Beale."

Ever hear the story of the NASA U-2 pilot that was "above FL600" somewhere over the Gander area and lost the engine? Gander Center asked if he would rather go to Halifax or turn around and go back to Gander. The pilot, no doubt in his best cool voice, says oh, no we can make it back to Homestead from here.

Actually the SR 71 pilot's name who wrote that piece about flying slow is Brian Shul. If you haven't seen one of his books, they are spectactular. He wrote two on the SR 71, "Sled Driver" and "The Untouchables". I think both are out of print, but Shul now has a "special edition" (read VERY expensive) version of "Sled Driver" out. He also spent a season riding with the Blue Angels, and one riding with the Thunderbirds, and wrote books on those as well.

He spoke at the recent AOPA Convention, and is a gifted speaker, with a great motivational presentation. Before he flew the SR, he was shot down in Laos, and badly burned. He spent a year in the burn unit in Okinowa.

He said his first operational flight in the SR (all operational flights occured out of Kadena, Okinawa or Mildenhall, England) as he sat on the runway, he could see the hospital where he'd lain for a year, pretty much straight ahead on a hilltop. He told his backseater he was going to hold it low for a bit. Later, his backseater told the Colonel that they were "at least" 500 feet as they passed that hospital, in full afterburner....

MTV