How Did the SR-71 Blackbird Get Made and How was It So Fast?
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- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2024
- Explore the legendary Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, the world's fastest military aircraft. Discover its groundbreaking design, thrilling history, and the incredible feats that made it an aviation icon.
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Is it like HBO?
Him i
It flew so fast because my grandpa worked in it sir. Haha the J58/a the Powerplant that made it happen
I read Forty plus comments and none of them asked " oh shit! Isn't anyone doing anything about this!"
Please remember that this technological miracle was developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s!!
With slide rules!
@@suzannesnowden5405I remember those days!😂
Imagine what today is in army use that we do not now about yet...
@@CarloLeonKolegajust think of all those idiots running around claiming they saw an UFO….
And yet it set many records on its "final" flight
The SR-71 is the most incredible and beautiful aircraft ever conceived.
You mean after the F-4 Phantom II?
Very incredible. For me personally it's top 2 with Concorde at top.
The funniest aspect of it's story being that it's built out of titanium bought from the then USSR, "hush hush" via various shell company layers. That was during the cold war, there was no realistic alternative source for the metal ore in the quantities needed for the project, there is some here and there on the globe but none are in quantities and grades of purity sufficient to make more than a few prototypes out of realistically. I forget the numbers involved but there is info about this whole thing online. The USSR at the time had so much of it they even made titanium alloy military helmets heh, the 'Sphera' I think it was called.
Indeed. They have one at a little museum at the Richmond International airport and everytime we were there my parents would take me to see it. It was so cool.
Agreed.. And done so bloody long ago. God damn engineers and Physicists.. And people think the pyramids were built by aliens.. LOL, It's Gorgeous.
This plane is in the museum I work at. it's hung from cables in the gallery, and is veeeeery slowly sinking towards the exhibit hall
Like how slowly
That's... an interesting way to say something that sounds dangerously close to either the ceiling is sagging/ breaking, or that the cables are stretching/breaking o.o;;
Maybe they can put a fan in front of it to generate some lift
There's also one at the Hill Airforce Base Museum in Utah, though it's displayed on the ground. Such a cool aircraft.
I bet that's the one I saw.
They have actually tried to change how the X-Jet looks several times but every time they go back the design based off the SR-71. It’s just such a cool looking plane
Mark Holden - "It's a common misconception that the SR-71 was designed to leak fuel.
That's a myth. 👇
In reality, Blackbird's engineers and ground crews were focused on one thing: keeping fuel where it belongs.
Those infamous panel gaps (where the leaks occur) are sealed meticulously with a specific sealant to prevent fuel from escaping.
When the jet was brand new out of the factory, it would not leak a drop.
So, where does the myth come from?
The sealant used to keep the fuel contained breaks down under the strain of repeated heat cycles, and over time, some fuel does escape.
The maintenance crews who looked after the SR-71 would measure the number of drops of fuel per minute leaking from each panel gap. These discrepancies would be logged into the aircraft's maintenance manuals for each of the 32 tail SR-71 numbers produced.
There's even an excerpt from the manual that states the maximum allowable fuel leak per zone (I'll pin the photo in the comments).
They used this measurement to determine the intervals at which they would need to re-apply the sealant.
The myth of the SR-71's fuel leaks might make a good tale, but the real story is in the diligence of its engineers and maintenance crews.
Lesson: Perfection isn't achieved overnight; it's a process of continuous improvement and hard-earned lessons.
Dissecting the SR-71's fuel system, we see a tale not of intentional flaws but of persistent engineering.
It's a constant game of iteration, maintenance, and system optimization, even for a legend. "
A truly excellent and informative. I spent 4 years at Beale AFB with those birds. God I love that plane.
100%, the plane would heat up so much and expand so much it would shed the sealant
Unrelated: fun fact the primary metal used in the plane was actually bought from its original target, russia, even though it wasn't actually used much over the ussr
Right on, man!!! 👍✌️
@@josephsmith6777 I couldn't find any evidence that the SR-71 violated USSR airspace, except possibly for a momentary accidental deviation from the "black line" (planned route). I'd be surprised they would overfly the USSR after signing a treaty banning manned overflights. That treaty gave birth to the TAGBOARD program (M-21/D-21).
Umm, you're wrong.
In 1985 at USAF base Mildenhall, Suffolk, UK, I was privileged to view the Blackbird on the ground from a distance of 20 metres when the base held an open day to the British public. And what a memorable experience it was. Simply glorious was that plane, and highly welcoming were the USAF staff in attendance. God bless America now and forever for its unwavering support for my country.
I've seen it fly from there. Several times.
I'm 55 and the first scale model my father made for me when I was a kid was an SR71. It still gives me goosebumps. On my latest trip to USA I saw the SR71 in the museum in Washington next to Space Shuttle Discovery and on the flight deck of US Intrepid in New York next to Space Shuttle Endeavour. I've also seen one in the USAF museum in Dayton Ohio and the one that has the speed record at RAF Duxford near Cambridge. I love this plane. Thanks for a great video Simon.
Think I built every military model from WWI to about 75 ish?
My father in law worked on the camera equipment for these babies. They are amazing all over
My dad used to take our family to air shows all over the UK when I was a kiddie, so we saw the Blackbird fly a number of times. Aside from the Vulcan, it was always the highlight for us. I first visited New York in 2002 and saw the Blackbird on the USS Intrepid, it was wonderful to see the plane again…only wish it could have been flying! ❤
I so wish I had been able to see pilots pulling trick maneuvers with a fucking bomber jet. Apparently the Vulcan is still considered one of the most maneuverable dedicated bomber aircraft ever made and there are a lot of military aviation enthusiasts who were incredibly disappointed when the planes were finally retired. Unfortunately, the RAF had a similar opinion, but the airframes were deemed too deteriorated from stresses and the cost to refurbish the aging planes could not be justified. As far as I know, a single airframe was restored and is kept as a demonstrator and flown at air shows in the UK. What a damn cool plane.
Funfact:
The name „Skunk Works“ goes back to the first location of the division. It was inside an old circus tent which was located near a plastics factory. Said factory often emitted some pretty foul smells, which gave rise to people answering the phone like „Skunk Works, Johnson here“. The top brass at Lockheed didn’t like it, but the name stuck.
Source: Ben Rich, „Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed“.
Both are right. The quote about it smelling like a skunk is what gave it the Skunk in its name, but the Skunk Works name itself is a play on the Skonk Works from Li'l Abner.
I read the book a LONG time ago. Still one of the best.
I was wondering why you kept saying "rs-71" instead of "sr-71". Today I Found Out! 😂
Easier to rename the plane that correct the President... excellent call, considering some of the stories I have heard about LBJ.
Have a read of a book called 'Skunkworks' by Ben Rich (early head of Lockheed Skunkworks division).
That call to rename the aircraft caused a LOT of work! Every single engineering drawing and piece of paper that had RS-71 on it had to be recalled and re-issued with SR-71. It was a nightmare!
It was not a misspeak by LBJ. Curtiss Lemay wanted to change it and briefed the President, but the press releases still said RS-71.
Starting our fancy spy plane with a big block chevy is the most american thing ever
Two big block chevys in tandem. It was amazing to hear them spool up. The open headers were great.
It was actually two Buick Wildcat engine for most of the Blackbirds' service.
@@NRPBrutecorrect, they burned through the entire stockpile of the aluminum block Buick v8s…that’s why you can’t find them like ever
@NRPBrute they supposedly ran thr junkyard in us empty of the buick so switched to a chevy heard they scattered easier tho if over revved
@jaimeschmeling7800 absolutely true the Chevrolet grenade.
I was a Marine stationed on Okinawa '89-90, when the SR-71 "Habu" made its last flight from Kadena. I don't know if it was that flight I saw, but I recall seeing the SR-71 seemingly flying around the island while I was there, making 2 passes. My best friend from High School joined the Air Force, and he was told that the top speed was much higher than publicly stated; I'd believe that.
The SR-71 didn't have a speed limit, it's a temperature limit. In cold air it could go a bit faster.
No it couldn't. The inlets would unstart about Mach 3.4. That is life threatening. It happened a few times under pilots who didn't believe what they were told by the engineers.
Can you explain what that means? I'm not smart
My dad was a marine there in the 80s so was his sister she was af they said they seen them land glowing red so I believe it I seen a video the guy said machine 4.5 was actual speed it could achieve could go faster but frame couldn't take it
@@DongusKong I love this question, i also would love an answer x
This iconic aircraft was designed WITHOUT the use of a single computer! Let that sink in for a minute....
I let the sink in, and it l leaked in the corner. So I let it out again.
Why do people keep saying that.
NACA and Lockheed had been using IBM 704 computers for a decade when this plane was designed.
If they didn’t use any computers, they would still be designing it today.
@@calvinnickel9995 People don't realize just how far back computers go.
@@calvinnickel9995 this is only kind of true. They did have access to computers that could perform complex math, and I'm certain that they utilized them. However, they also did a lot of the math and design/redesign work for the SR 71 using slide rules and math tables. Remember that they literally had teams of people working on every individual component of the plane.
Implying that it would take them 60 years to do the math without a computer is pretty ridiculous. Esp when you realize that the math was complex, but it was still just regular geometric, logarithmic, and algebraic math that was well understood for over 100 years at this point.
@@calvinnickel9995 most of the work was done by hand, and computers back then didn't work like computers today. they were basically nothing more than fancy pocket calculators. And SR-71 engineers said they did most of it by hand.
The starter carts used Buick Wildcat V8s. Chevy engines weren’t used until MUCH later after the world’s limited supply of the Buick engines had been practically wiped out.
Unlikely. They made 50 Blackbirds. They made THOUSANDS of Wildcats.
It was actually two Buick Wildcats, not big block Chevies, for most of the Blackbird's service.
yessir buick
I've seen the A12 on display on the USS Intrepid in New York City. It's a beautifully terrifying plane to see. It's smaller than you think, and the sharp angular surfaces smoothly rounding up and over the cockpit really look like some alien beast made exclusively to haul all the ass in the universe.
10/10 you should see one as soon as possible.
It's funny I drive past there on the way into the city all the time and admire the A12 from the car, but I never even thought about going to see it up close. Like it was just part of the city scenery and something to drool at from the west side highway. Then a couple of months ago I was driving by and all of a sudden was like 'wait a minute, why the hell don't I just visit the museum and see it!' So I did. It was awesome.
Would love to see a segment about a Blackbird's engine blowing up during a Baltic Express run in the 80s, and how the Swedish SA-37 Viggens intercepted and escorted it out of their airspace, but also protected it from Soviet fighters, several, i believe, had missile lock on the recon plane.
What? Did this actually happen? I've never heard this before and I'm already fascinated! Please explain more.
@@RayvenTheNight
www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/12/30/finally-declassified-swedish-pilots-awarded-us-air-medals-for-saving-sr-71-spy-plane/
@@RayvenTheNightm.ruclips.net/video/K1IzqQRwIoI/видео.html
Both the Soviets and the Swedes got regular missile locks on the SR-71 (the Swedes no less than 51 times!).
This was to practice intercepts and in the Soviets case to shoot it down if it ever entered Soviet airspace (which it didn’t).
When the engine failed the Soviets wanted to force it down into the USSR but they chose Sweden instead. It’s unlikely they would have fired even with the Swedes there.
Never ceases to amaze me the things we used to make with far less technology than we have today. We went to the moon with slide rulers and woven computers weaker than a calculator. We have it all now and no one wants to do anything with it 😒
The problem is cost.
Do you want to go back to when minimum wage was $2.50 an hour?
@@calvinnickel9995 yes, the cost of living, cars and houses were proportionally FAR cheaper back then relative to wages. Colleges were merit based and high quality. Everything was built to last and to be fixed. things were simpler and more reliable. Families and communities were strong.
Life was objectively better back then on many measurable metrics.
The space program used many large, medium, and small computers to get to the moon and back.
@@Dxyzxyz all small in computing power. variations in physical size.
@@SoloRenegadeComputing power has scaled up enormously. And we waste most of it.
@21:06 "... and causing a violent deceleration that pilots liked to being caught in a train crash. This problem threatened to derail the entire project..." 😂 Well, I got the writer's pun, even if Simon didn't!
Ohhhh. Simon's mortgage payment is due. Time to put out an SR-71 video ! 😀
He knows we'll all watch it. And he's damn right, too. That plane looks like a fucking spaceship from the future and it's cool as hell. Maybe I should get back into building model planes so I can hang one on the wall as a piece of art.
@@mndlessdrwerit looks so far ahead of its time today, I can’t even fathom how it would be to see it way back when
SR-71 is, by far, the sexiest aircraft I've ever seen and I've loved it since I was a child. The real thing is, if this masterpiece was retired, imagine what we have today.
We have satellites with 10cm resolution in true color and 1cm resolution in cloud penetrating synthetic aperture radar. As much as I love the sleek sexy menacing look of the flying Stingray the law of physics and technological progress has made the entire concept a dead end. Unless you go outside the atmosphere you simply can't do these speeds without being a gigantic lantern in the IR spectrum... And I bet current satellite coverage is 24/7 everywhere on earth.
For reconnaissance, wouldn't it be satellites and unmanned aircraft?
I tracked one of these while stationed in Gitmo (cuba) in the late 80s. It was so fast we could only catch it on our radar every other sweep, and that was only because it stayed in the area and wasn’t trying to avoid it. It could circle the island and be back home on the tarmac before they could scramble their MiGs. 😊
4:39 sorry I commented before watching the video. LoL thank you. To be fair, the radar was navy radar we had arrived to temporarily replace it while it underwent updates/repairs. (marines, this was classified stuff back then. ;)
7:42 oooh, random aside, I’ve also been to Bodo Norway while in the Marines. 😊
The crew patches say 3+ for a reason. Mach 3 was the unclassified max. They were capable of, and flew at, far higher speeds.
No.
This is the typical American ambiguity “we will neither confirm nor deny” or “we could tell you but then we’d have to kill you” crap that impresses mouth breathers but not anyone who can do a bit of inductive reasoning.
Of course you can hide anything you want under op sec but the huge intelligence failures of the US paint a very different picture to its actual capabilities.
The speed display on the Nimitz carriers blanks out above 30 knots. Maybe _THEY_ go Mach 3 plus? Lol.
According to the pilot handbook of the SR-71, the aircraft is limited to a speed of Mach 3.2 by a compressor inlet temperature of 427°C. It can go fast Mach.. but only in lower temperature air.
The speed of sound is slower in lower temperature air.. so even if it’s going a faster Mach, the true airspeed isn’t any faster.
The Mach is also limited by the inlet spikes. They can only keep the shockwave in the correct position up to Mach 3.3. Any faster than that you risk inlet unstart which is so violent that they can’t even practice for it-and one solution was to immediately unstart the other engine which in effect causes a train wreck.. but at least prevents the plane from entering a flat spin.
Remember. After every Mach 3 flight this plane required a week of overhaul.. and only about 20% of its flight hours were spent above Mach 3. You can bet when they went out to set the world absolute speed record that they gave it absolutely everything it had.
Anything more.. and you are doing massive damage to the engines and airframe and taking your life into your hands.
No
Cool fact
My local aviation museum (The Air Zoo in Portage Michigan) has the last SR-71B trainer model which was one of the 2 sent to NASA so it looks just like the video with NASA written on it. If you ever are passing through southern Michigan and love aviation then the Air Zoo is definitely for you. (Not sponsored by them btw just sharing my little bit of close to home links to content found across the Simon channels)
Nice, we have the only A-12 trainer out here in Southern California. Sadly, it's outside baking in the sun next to the parking lot. There's another A-12 at Blackbird Park in palmdale (Right next to a D-21!) But they too are unfortunately sitting outside. Wish all the blackbirds would get brought inside.
When that tornado ripped through Portage and hit that FedEx building right down the road from the Air Zoo I was praying that we didn't lose the Blackbird
@@AmerinadianGaming Right that was crazy close to them.
@@niteslayer11wjot71 couple hundred yards
One job I had in the US Army was with satellite communications. When they were launching a brand new series of models, they had people over at my duty station in California to test them out. One of the guys, I forget his name, was an older fellow and he worked on the SR-71. As he told it, they were doing things that were way ahead of what was being done at the time. He thought of himself as smart, but there was stuff being developed that he couldn't comprehend at the time. It really was a modern wonder of the civilized world.
There was an Air Force Base in San Bernardino California where that used to hold an air show every few years. Back in the early 90s I saw the SR-71 there and you could get within twenty feet of it so I checked it out for about an hour. My girlfriend was getting tired of waiting or I would have looked much longer. We found some food and shade and while we were eating they fired up that beast and we watched it take off and make a few quick passes before roaring away over the mountains. Definitely worth the price of admission alone.
That is awesome. Do you remember them using a start cart? That I'd love to witness.
It's amazing what humans can achieve when someone enters the room and says "whatever it takes, no matter the cost". We would have had bases on the moon and Mars already if someone with a wallet had really wanted it.
Also a valid, deadlines are sometimes less important than outcomes. Had they scrapped it because of failing to meet the timeline, it would have set us back a decade.
Wow the group at Skunk Works were brilliant, such strange problem's encountered with strange solutions.
One problem was the use of permanent markers (Sharpies). They discovered the ink could cause corrosion in the titanium alloy when under stress.
In one of the Star Wars Prequels, we see Padme Amidala exiting a craft that looks remarkably like a chrome SR-71 without tailfins.
The Kansas Cosmosphere has one of these bad mfs sitting in its lobby. You can walk all around it, even touch it. Very cool.
They are very very big....
I've been in aviation for over 60 years. One common principal is that even a brick can fly. If you give it enough power.
The F-4 Phantom is a prime example! 😂
@@rixxroxxk1620my instructor would agree
The SR-71 still looks like an aircraft from the future even after all this time. I won't be so hyperbolic as to say it's the most beautiful aircraft ever made, because there are still more aircraft to come, but it's design will always be fascinating to admire.
We lived on Kadena AFB when they were flown out there. Grateful I got to see these things fly
A Swedish fighter jet successfully managed lock on to the SR71 (not with any intention to fire at it) and were awarded medals for this. Sweden also saved a a damaged SR71 from falling into Sovjet hands by guiding it south over the baltic ocean towards the allies.
Not just “a” Swedish fighter jet. There were at least 51 successful interceptions of the SR-71 by the Swedish Air Force.
When you have a plane that wakes up everyone within ten miles of Mildenhall, still needs to tank up with fuel, has to thread the needle between sovereign airspace in rhe Baltic Sea, and has a turning radius of _81 MILES!_ …. it’s pretty easy to guess where it will be and place your aircraft in its path. A properly timed zoom climb completes the mission and if need be the missile could make up the rest of the distance and altitude.
The hypergolic fuel used to light off JP7 was TEB (Triethylborane) @11:30
Quite so and amazing to see! More accurately TEB is not a fuel but rather a liquid reagent.
@@millionsofrecordsernieb7587 "reagent" is needlessly vague, the specific reaction is that it spontaneously combusts in air, i.e. it's a hypergolic fuel, being used as fire starter.
@@MatthijsvanDuin It is my understanding that TEB is pyrophoric rather than hypergolic. I've never seen TEB described as a fuel, although of course it does release thermal energy upon combustion. I think TEB is a pyrophoric liquid reagent fuel additive. Unless I am mistaken, hypergolic and pyrophoric aren't synonymous.
@@millionsofrecordsernieb7587 Pyrophoric is more accurate yes, meaning hypergolic with air. It's not a fuel additive since it's not added to the fuel, it's injected directly into the engine via a separate "ignition probe", if I understand correctly.
@@MatthijsvanDuin It's a fuel additive, but not like we do at the gas station mixing with the existing fuel before injection into the combustion chamber. The location it's being added to does require fuel for it to work so I think we could correctly call it a fuel additive (but at the risk of causing confusion). Or, we could Google it and then take the opposite of what it says and that is probably correct😜😜😜
how many channels does this guy have? seriously... he's everywhere!
Alot. There's 4 explanations for how he does it:
1. He's just a really hard worker
2. Like 1 but he's being held at gunpoint
3. He's got a twin or triplet
4. He stole the forbidden scroll from the hidden leaf village and learned how to shadow clone.
I vote 4 as most likely
It is a misconception that friction with the rapidly moving air is what causes a plane's, or spaceship's, skin to heat up. It is the compression of that air, unable to move away from the fast moving vehicule, that produces the heat. It is the same principle that achieves ignition in diesel engines, with pistons greatly compressing a fuel-air mixture in the engine's cylinders, raising its temperature enough to ignite it.
"achieves ignition in diesel engines, with pistons greatly compressing a fuel-air mixture in the engine's cylinders"
That's not how a diesel engine works.
Air (without fuel) is either 'sucked' in (naturally aspirated) or forced in (turbo/supercharger). The rising piston compresses the air so it heats up (you got that part right), and just before TDC fuel is injected directly or indirectly into the hot air. The air being hot enough to ignite the diesel fuel.
@@Chris-hx3om Thank you for the clarification.
@Chris-hx3om
Yes. Otherwise the diesel would ignite too early. This is why diesels need some form of fuel injection-either low pressure into a prechamber or high pressure into the combustion chamber (direct injection). The high pressures and close tolerances combined with the very robust construction required are what make diesel engines much more expensive to buy and maintain than gas ones.
air friction is air compression, the terms are synonymous in aeronautical terms
As a young man I built a plastic model of the SR-71; Thought it was super cool looking but I had NO IDEA what sort of airplane it was but it had to be crazy fast, that much I was sure of .
My cousin helped design the U-2. His name was Dr. Edwin Land. He was most famous for inventing the Polaroid camera and leading that corporation. He also invented polarized sunglass, 3D glasses (for 3D movies) and hundred of other things. He belonged to my grandfathers' generation.
Considering how old the technology is now. How much more advanced is the new stuff we don’t know about?
Because you dont have to know...
@taspats8701
Because it doesn’t exist.
The need for a super fast manned spy plane is similar to the need for a fully automatic ball musket.
It would be impressive, but useless.
@@calvinnickel9995 sure,because you are an expert in such a technologies?
@@taspats8701 exactly. I didn’t say anything about manned or unmanned. I believe now more than ever the need for that capability is more important than ever.
But what did this have to do with the Suzuki Hyabusa you say?
Glad you asked.
Honda built the worlds fastest motorcycle. They named it the "Blackbird" after the SR-71. Suzuki decided to respond with the GSXR 1300. But what to call their Bike?
They went with 隼 "Hayabusa". Which means Peregrine Falcon. Not only is this literally the fastest animal in the world, but they are also known to literally eat blackbirds. Double diss!
Shortly after the introduction of the new bike, the Japanese manufacturers agreed to limit top speed on their bikes to 186mph (it makes more sense in KPH) and so the GSXR remained the worlds fastest bike until the Europeans beat them years and years later.
So fast. So beautiful. So cool. So mind-boggling that this thing was built in the age of the Slide Rule!!
The age of the computer. NACA and Lockheed had electronic computers for nearly a decade when this thing was made.
It’s like saying aircraft today are designed by an iPhone rather than supercomputers doing computational fluid dynamics. You can bet that engineers are doing quick checks and rough calculations on iPhones.. but that’s not how they design an entire plane.
I read a book about the SR-71 last year written by one of the later pilots. Among the more interesting things was the fact that on some missions the crew would often see multiple sunsets and sunrises in a single flight. While flying towards the sun the aircraft was outrunning the Earth’s rotation which made the sun rise in relation to the aircraft. To refuel the plane would decelerate to subsonic speed and descend in altitude to rendezvous with the tanker aircraft and the sun would set. After refuelling they would accelerate back to speed, climb to altitude and the sun would begin to rise again….in the West!
It's still the best looking jet , by far . It's screams speed without even moving.
If you ever get the chance to see one of these things in the flesh, I totally recommend you take it. I genuinely accidentally found one of these at a museum one day and it was damn near a religious experience. I am not kidding, the awe induced had me standing there in silence for nearly 20 min just reading about it and walking along it examining its breath taking geometry and thinking of all the wild stories it would have told if it could talk. And I thought I already knew most of what was publicly available about the plane. And then I found out just how wrong I was. I certianly didn't expect to find the jet there and as a result I was about an hour longer there than intended.
The Boeing museum of flight in Seattle has one you can go up and touch. They also have a trainer cockpit you can sit in
The creation of this plane is just as amazing the plane itself. It was and always will be a master work of human engineering. Every single part of it's creation had to be completed thought up and invented just for it's production. There has never been anything like it and there never will be.
nevers a long time
I thought it was babish hosting the show for a second in the thumbnail
The Black Bird is still a beloved piece of aviation history. Thank you Simon.
I have had the good fortune of seeing both museumed SR71s.
There are 21 museumed SR-71s. Not counting a handful of A12s + YF12s.
I am a huge fan of the SR71 and this is one of the best videos I've ever seen on the topic.
Actually, the early start carts used two Buick Wildcat engines. Later start carts used one Chevy 454 (or was it a 425?). By the late 1970s, they had compressed air systems to start the J58s.
Yes it was easier to switch to Chevy 454's rather than to procure the increasingly rare Wildcats. Supposedly they blew up so many that it made it difficult for find them. There's a few videos of this engine start process and it is simply awesome.
GM never made a 425, maybe a 427?
@@Chris-hx3om GM Buick Division 425
I had the extreme pleasure of standing next to the one on the deck of the "Intrepid" in NYC. Amazing bird. Nice job, Simon.
Simon is not a nice guy. He deleted all his videos where he demanded his subscribers should have to pay to watch him while youtube pays him on average 8k a video. He wants your internet provider to pay him a percentage. This guy is the worst of the worst. Not to mention, how many times has he milked this plane? Greed.
The plane on the Intrepid is an A-12, not an SR-71
US Strategic Command: *slaps roof of every flying machine devised from 1950-1990* "this baby can hold so many nukes"
Living close to Carswell AFB (now the JRB Fort Worth at Carswell) one got used to B-52's as well as, shall we say "unusual" traffic. We did a lot of day to day in the area at the time and my wife came home one day excited at seeing an unusual aircraft. Her description included a "dropped nose like the Concorde".
It was years later that I was "flying" my die cast SR-71 by her and she said, "Do that again." I did it once more and she said, "That's it!" She had seen the SR-71 fly on one of their flights to where it would stand down. I'm the aviation nut and I've only seen them static. Lucky girl.
The Blackbird is basically the aircraft embodiment of "Hold my beer..."
@29:10 It seems this myth will never die. The air force had already decided to switch the name to SR-71. Johnson got it right. The printed press release had the out of date moniker of "RS-71", leading people to wonder if Johnson got it wrong.
Rich Graham thoroughly debunked this myth in his book "Flying the SR-71 Blackbird"
So many myths regarding the SR-71 persist.
“It was designed by slide rules!” No!
“Its real top speed is classified!” No it’s not.
“The Soviets couldn’t shoot it down!” It never flew over the USSR once!
“That we know of!” No.. it never flew over the USSR once, period.
“Listen to Brian Shul’s LA Speed Check!” It’s a work of fiction or extremely embellished fact.
“If this is what they had in the 60s, just imagine what they have now!” They have nothing. This was like having a fully automatic ball musket. Cool, but ultimately obsolete with satellites and drones.
I remember seeing these beauties take off from RAF Mildenhall, stunning sight, incredible aircraft.
Funny thing is about the SR-71 Blackbird is I live in to in the city that it was originally based in. The citizens of Wichita Kansas knew what the plane looked like before we ever knew what its name was because it was based at McConnell Air Force Base. Also just want to say keep up the good work on your video Simon.
The SR-71 was based out of Beale AFB in California.
The original engine starting carts used Buick nailhead engines, they were replaced by the big block Chevys after 1966, the last year of nailhead production.
The fuel had a low flash point so it wouldn't boil off when encountering the skin temperatures generated during high speed flight (it was circulated through the airframe as a coolant before being sent to the engines), not because they were worried about some smoker setting fire to the leaking fuel. And the leaking thing is overblown. It would drip a little fuel near the end of its seal replacement cycle. It's not like fuel was pouring out of the plane any time it wasn't supersonic.
BTW, regular gasoline will not ignite if you drop a match into a puddle of it, and standard jet fuel is less volatile than gasoline. For a fuel to burn, it needs to be a vapor, not a liquid. This is why cars spray a mist of fuel into a cylinder rather than just dumping in a slug of gas.
So why didn’t the XB-70 also need this fuel?
@@calvinnickel9995 It had its own special fuel called JP-6 which was only ever used for the XB-70.
"X,X, The X! X-Men!!!" Cue action figure commercial music from the 1990s
I was stationed at Ft Hood in the late 1980s. I was on a maintenance test flight in a UH-1H at 10k feet. At that altitude we could hear LA flight Control and an aircraft requested clearance to "Angeles 80" which is 80,000 feet "copy, clearance to Angeles 80. If you can get there."
"Roger Control, Decending to 80,000".
Best freaking day EVER!
In AF training i saw an image of the Atlantic record flight plan. it showed a big circle in the middle of the ocean. or maybe the flight plan was on tv show "Wings".
One of the SR71s was sent to March Airforce base, and it was visible from the road. I'd see it every day on my commute until it was moved.
Simon - you are one fast talker!! These planes were amazing!!
This is by far and away your best video I've yet to see.
The original Blackbird start cart used 2 Buick big block engines. Chevy engines were used later. The man who came up with the idea was an avid hotrodder and car enthusiast. It just so happened that this was cheaper, more practical, and cost effective than anything Lockheed could have developed. As we all know, practical, cheap, and cost effective is a rarity in government.
I absolutely love the Black Bird. It's so iconic and sexy. Just the sheer power of It's engines is inspiring.
Ive read that the declared max speed is actually not its top speed.the Power plants could push the plane much faster...but the heat that would be generated at thos speeds would have detrimental effects to pilot and materials of the plane.
So an actual top speed was never determined.
And note, the USAF only claims "above Mach 3". There are air traffic radars that tracked objects (that would only make sense in context as SR-71s) going closer to Mach 4 than Mach 3.
@@geodkytthe account of the mission where Libyan missiles got a lock suggests the speed achieved may have been Mach 3 + quite a bit more than a wee bit.
@@geodkyt If anything was tracked close to mach 4 it was only with a crazy tailwind - the material limits of the J58 would melt at mach 3.4 at the latest, as temperature is increasing rapidly at this point
@geodkyt
lol… the fish get bigger every year.
Mach 4… my ass. Especially in a plane with such explicit limitations on compressor inlet temperature and the risk of dangerous and violent inlet unstart and that required a week of overhaul between each Mach 3 flight.
Tail winds will make any plane faster but does not increase Mach as Mach is the speed of the aircraft relative to the local speed of sound.
In cold air the SR-71 could go at a higher Mach because the temperature limits could be respected at higher Mach.. but the speed of sound is slower in cold air so the true airspeed isn’t any faster.
I've seen the SR-71 Blackbird in flight during an airshow at Travis AFB, CA during the mid 1980s. The March Field Air Museum in California, (less than 5 miles from where I live now,) has a Blackbird as part of its collection. Also, an SR-71 was featured as a means of escape for the title character of the 1985 film, "D.A.R.Y.L.," during the film's climatic conclusion.
I loved hearing this thing gloriously break the sound barrier; it was interesting growing up where it was developed. There is an air museum right around the corner with a SR-71, one of the two Boeing SCAs, and a few other planes developed at Edwards/Skunkworks.
Lest we forget, the single zeat A-12's, that flew extended missions in Vietnam. Just one guy, doing BOTH tasks.
It was a great movie for its time. In the 70s pollution and over population were issues that threatened the environment and mankind. The domes represented lifeboats, limited resources in the domes required control of the human population.
The engines used in the AG330 Start Carts were Buick 401 "Nail Heads" up until the mid 70's. The Start Carts were mechanically coupled to the P&W engines but lacked over-running clutches so if the ground crew failed to disconnect the couplings before the P&W's fully spooled up, the poor Buicks would be wound up to the point they would blow apart. The Big Block Chevys started to appear after replacement Buicks became hard to source. The design was never changed and the Chevys were blown up on a regular basis, too.
I wonder why they did this when they had air starters on similar sized engines and continued to use them on much larger ones (like the 100,000lbf GE90 engines on the 777).
I love the SR-71. Most of this I already knew but one thing I didn’t know was how they acquired titanium. I love aviation in general and I’m learning to fly right now. I just have a small Cherokee but flying something like the SR-71 would be a dream.
I’ve always thought the SR-71 was the most beautiful jet ever made!!! It really looked like a spaceship too me! It’s more science fiction spaceship looking than anything Star Wars or Star Trek has ever looked
Love the Dragon Lady and the 9th Support Wing
Fun fact: upon commissioning into actual service, each SR-71 was given a name written in pencil on the underside of one of the chines. The graphite from the pencil was not eroded by heat or wind, which ink or paint would have been; and it did not compromise the stealth characteristics in any way. The names given to the planes were all names of famous photographers in honour of the purpose of the missions they flew. The SR-71 that was on USS Intrepid was called Daguerre. The one at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum was called Mapplethorpe. The pencilled names can be clearly seen to this day.
The one on the Intrepid isn't an SR71, but the only A12B. Never heard that pencil story, going to ask about that.
Talks abou the YF-12, shows the X-15 rocket plane and the XB-70 Valkyrie, a supersonic nuclear bomber that dwarfed the SR-71
I was going to call that out, but hit cntrl-f first.
Can confirm, JP7 is so unwilling to light off with traditional igniters that it took every bit of that 600hp in the start cart to spin the engines to get just barely enough heat and compression in the compressor to light off and idle. Those Big Block Buick carts were eventually replaced by a pair of more modern gas turbine start carts once those became a thing, the pair of Buicks just didn't have the horsepower (for context it's all we had at the time and they just weren't up to the task, but they got the job done). I had a relative who worked ground who used to talk about that a lot, "you really had to know what you were doing in the early days and in some cases if the cart was acting up or the 58's just refused to light light off, ground crew wouldn't pack one extra shot of TEB to get things rolling over. That was highly frowned upon but the Lockheed guys always got a kick out of the explosive BOOM of TEB ligting off those giant J58's and green fire!"
No turbine engine produces enough compression to get jet fuel to auto ignite for starting. This is why you need igniters.. capacitance discharge systems that are so powerful they will kill you instantly if you touch them.
In fact.. even with its low compression to start one of the problems is axial compressors is they still produce too much compression at low RPM.. risking compressor stall. So engine have either bleed valves which dump most of the air overboard at low RPM, variable inlet guide vanes and/or stators that reduce the angle of attack on the compressor blades and therefore reduce compression, or in the case of the J58 on the SR-71.. have two separate spools for the low pressure and high pressure compressors-only the high one being turned by the starter and not benefiting from being supercharged by the low pressure compressor.
The only function the compressor serves during starting is to provide cooling air. Only very powerful modern engines like the GE90 have the compression ratios to auto ignite fuel.. most of them sustain combustion by a continuous flame front much like any furnace or gas stove.
@@calvinnickel9995 the way the old tech was employed, the J58's in that configuration required everything they could get to light off; JP7 WON'T light on just igniters on those behemoths with low n2 the way you think they do in modern gas turbines running Jet-A/A1. The more heat you could get before introducing fuel, the better. It's like trying to burn water
You are right that JP7 won’t light without a hypergolic additive.
You are wrong about the compressors effect and function for starting.
I’m a pilot with 7,000 hours and I start turbine engines all the time. The problem with starting a turbine engine isn’t enough temperature-but too much.
A compressor doesn’t make the temperature rise appreciably at the 10-20% N2 it spins at, at the introduction of fuel. Any more than you’d expect a fan to make you hotter rather than colder even though it’s adding energy to the air.
When you hit the starter and look at the ITT/TIT/EGT it doesn’t change for a cold start. If it’s a start on a previously run engine.. you’ll see it go DOWN!! And we are encouraged to motor the starter after a quick turn as it will reduce the temperatures by 100 or even 200 degrees Celsius.. and make a hot start less likely.
Because that’s the limiting factor on almost all turbine engines.. the extreme heat that’s produced after light off but before the compressor has spooled up to idle (often 60% or higher).
The only time you need to add heat is when it’s extremely cold. Like -40 cold.
@@calvinnickel9995 well, when you witness a TEB start for yourself then you can lecture me all about JP7, J58-JT11D's and hung starts.. or any of the other weird quirks of that variant as-installed 😉
DO YOU EVEN READ MY CHRISTMAS LIST?! -Alucard
The SR-71 is known for it's astonishing speed, of course, but what I think is lost on people is that it wasn't the only aircraft that could reach mach 3 speeds during that era. It wasn't the speed alone that made the SR-71 so special. What was radical about the SR-71 was that it could effortlessly sustain 2000mph until fuel exhaustion at 80,000 feet of altitude. THAT was the game changer. It wasn't a machine of raw power, it was a machine of elegant aerodynamic and thermodynamic efficiency specifically tailored to fly faster than a rifle bullet at the edge of space. That is what made it untouchable. The Soviet's had jets that could reach that speed, but they would point their noses at the SR-71, push their engines to max power, and run out of fuel and damage their engines before they could intercept it.
Indeed, even with mach 5 Soviet missiles launched at it, the missiles would exhaust their fuel upon ascent, coasting after the SR-71 at mach 5, over taking it quickly in theory - except, they were now coasting at 80,000 feet, getting slower every second. The SR-71, sustaining mach 3, could make course corrects to avoid the missiles. This would force the missiles guidance system to bleed off speed by maneuvering in an attempt to intercept. Doing this, the missiles would quickly run out of energy and fall back to earth. The ability to efficiently sustain such high speed at such high altitude made the SR-71 untouchable until late 70s when improved missile tech could finally catch it. There were a few close calls over Vietnam with the A12.
Uh…. no.
First… it wasn’t “effortlessly”. The SR-71 required a week of overhaul after each Mach 3 flight.. and speeds above Mach 3 only account for about 20% of the hours flown. The only plane capable of “effortlessl” supersonic flight was Concorde-which has more hours at supersonic speeds than all other aircraft COMBINED!
It also needed to carry 80,000 pounds of fuel to do so.. most of which had to be put on it from air to air refueling. This was after space shuttle like preparations for takeoff. Vs a MIG-25 which could be hot and ready on a hard stand for a two minute scramble.
You also misunderstand how interceptions work. From the 1950s.. in the era of the F-89, F-94, and the CF-100.. they had the radar and weapons capabilities to do collision course interceptions. You don’t need to chase down a Mach 3 aircraft-you simply need to occupy the same position at the same time. And with the SR-71 having a turn radius of EIGHTY ONE MILES (eg: if it was going south over Manhattan and turned left… it wouldn’t be going north until it was over Martha’s Vineyard.. eight minutes later) it couldn’t just turn and evade unless it slowed down.
This is why not only did the Soviets successfully intercept it numerous times-closing to exactly 3km which is more than enough for its huge missiles to make up the difference-but the Swedes were also able to intercept it in their Mach 2 Viggens no less than 51 times.
The only reason it wasn’t shot down in those cases is because it was in international airspace. It never overflew the USSR once.
It was shot at.. but only when overflying tiny developing nations where they would have to fire on it in international airspace. The Mig-25 did the same thing over Sinai, Israel, and Islamabad and likewise was never shot down in that role.
@@calvinnickel9995 Your standards are really silly. It could fly at 2000 miles per hour for hours. That's effortless, given any other aircraft besides the concord had to be in full after burner to even go super sonic and would run out of fuel in minutes. The concord also couldn't hit mach 3, and there is a massive difference between mach 2 and mach 3 in terms of, well, everything. Aerodynamics, materials, engine design. It's a non-trivial distinction. Being able to sustain that speed is astonishing.
Yes, I understand how intercepts work, you apparently don't, and don't' know your history. They had to go to rather extreme lengths to nerf the SR-71's capabilities in order to allow the F-15s to get simulated kills in training. And when SR-71 pilots didn't follow those nerf'd rules, the F-15s were completely unable to intercept even when knowing the exact time, course and altitude. Speed and altitude are impossible to overcome without superior speed and altitude, that's just physics. So now you want to claim that the soviets, who couldn't know exact time, course, and altitude were able to successfully intercept it? The Russians make lot of claims, most of them are lies. Keep that in mind.
The A12 got hit once. It survived. Tactics were changed, improved radar detection, etc. You couldn't be stupid with it. The CIA had been getting stupid with, like flying right over a missile site. It's true they never flew over the USSR, officially anyway, but it's not true soviets never tried to shoot it down with interceptors. They just couldn't.
As I said, by the 70s the soviets absolutely had missiles that could take it down. And by then it was staying well away from those missile sites. Missile range is still a thing, but by that time satellites were our main source of aerial reconnaissance. There are rumors the SR-71 was used more to annoy the soviets than anything else at that point. True? Who knows.
It generally wasn't allowed to be super sonic over Europe in most cases. Hardly a tactical intercept, what you are describing is escorting an aircraft out of a country's airspace. A few times it wasn't where it was supposed to be over Europe, and once again the SR-71 used speed to get away. One of those times a couple of Viggens actually threatened the SR-71, the pilot just pushed the throttles and left the Viggens in their wake. Remember, the SR-71 was faster than "normal intercept speed" + "bullet speed" of most fighter aircraft. The Viggens had no chance of actually shooting it down.
Sorry… you lost me at “the Concorde had to go full burner to even go supersonic and was out of fuel in minutes”.
Concorde supercruised and crossed oceans supersonically entirely with fuel carried on board.. plus civilian reserves.
Yeah the SR-71 could go Mach 3 for “hours”… literally two of them. That’s it.
The important thing to remember is back then they didn’t have radar fast enough to find it. So unless they happened to see it, and had some prediction to its flight path, or happened to be in the same air space, they were never going find it in time to be in range to fire at it.
In 1986, I was a Marine radar operator. We tracked one (we were using Navy radar that day) in Gitmo. It was so fast we could only see it about other sweep or so and we knew it was coming and its flight path. It circled the island and was gone. It did a flyby of the whole country and showed up on US radar about 3 times, and we knew where to look for it….
it could do more than mach 3, enough that you would've had to know where it's going to do an intercept attempt coming at an angle to it's path with a mig-23. mig 23 could do way way more sorties without a rebuild.. while being being much much slower - in the required energy amounts mig-23's speed is a lot less than 71's.
Thank you for creating this! Col. James Sullivan was my father-in-law....🐐❤ (Miss you, man!)
Still, the greatest aircraft ever built
It’s amazing
Baked Beans is the real answer to it speed.
glad you made this video
i just went back and binged your previous blackbird videos and watched a ton of other RUclipsrs who did content on it
Simon should make a Megaprojects video on how much ad revenue his many videos on the SR-71 has earned him.
Still the most amazing jet powered aircraft ever built.
Kelly Johnson was a visionary genius. He was also behind the P-38 Lightning.
Ahh the fork-tailed devil. I saw 4 in formation at Mather AFB (Sacramento Airshow) about 10 years ago. I think they said at the time there were only 6 still flying in the world. The sound was awesome! Imagine in 1943, Operation Vengeance had 18 P-38's dispatched in the Pacific to intercept Adm. Yamamoto. They flew at wave-top level to avoid detection, imagine that sight!
Wow, these skunk work folk really were a different breed and this was all done in an era without a desktop computer. There were so many obstacles to getting the machine made but they successfully overcame every single one.
Lived in Yuba City near Beale AFB for a couple of decades. The blackbirds would come in at night. We never saw them, we only heard them. You could see the satellites passing over Beale though, especially near dawn.
The SR-71 used Buick wildcat engines in the start carts. Rumor is you couldn't find a wild cat engine on the west coast after the air force started using them and needed spare parts.
Out of curiosity, why did images of the X-15 & the B-70 appear about halfway through the episode?
Did I miss the mention of those planes in the narration?
About 11 mins in you stated a commonly held misconception: the aircraft expands due to heat which had the effect of eliminating the substantial fuel leaks while on the ground. This is untrue. Those leaks were caused by heat and expansion. The major leakage was from the outer wing tanks (not present in the A-12). These were not critical so the aircraft flew and fuel was supplied from those tanks first, eliminating any danger. What leak that would ground the aircraft was in the mission bays which became dangerous due to wicking fuel in the insulation in those areas. Auto ignition was possible.
I was a fuel system specialist on the SR-71 from 1967 to 1970.
"What leak that would ground the aircraft was in the mission bays which became dangerous due to wicking fuel in the insulation in those areas" Do you mean fuel leaked into the mission bays themselves?
How Simon pumps out so many vids for so many channel’s, has to be some world record…
Absolutely my favorite aircraft
Coolest jet ever!
Yeah that we know of
Ironically it got very hot
Shortly before Pearl harbor, a civilian organization called the Civil Air Patrol was signed into existence by the Congress, allowing civilians to participate in the national defense and especially with shoreline reconnaissance.
During the events of WWII, the Civil Air Patrol proved to be critical to the defense of the sprawling US shoreline, locating and even bombing several U-boats. Their efforts would go on to lead directly to the capture of the first enigma machine, a major turning point for the allies.
The organization is still around today, having transitioned to a primarily youth organization in the 50's (I think, not 100% on that one but you gotta pay your writers to do something, right?). Their primary functions now include land based search and rescue across the Continental US, and some work in Canada and Mexico as well. They assist and often lead disaster relief efforts, including during 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. They are America's unsung heros, truly.
During the grounding of all flights in US airspace after the attacks of 9/11, CAP was the only non-military organization allowed to fly, and nearly every photo of 9/11 from the air was taken by a CAP pilot.
It is an incredible organization and would be a great fit for most of your channels, but especially Today I Found Out. No one knows about them but everyone has been impacted by their efforts. Feel free to PM if you have questions, I was part of the organization for nearly 10 years and was quite high in the organization. It's a military-esque organization similar to ROTC, but actually MORE affiliated with the military, and has been credited with saving civilian aviation during WWII, when many nations were banning it, we encouraged it and integrated it.
When the government wouldn't give them permission to drop bombs, a pilot dropped flour sacks on the white house, showing that not only could they be accurate, but also exposing a HUGE gap in aerial coverage and protection for the capital.
I would LOVE to see you do a report on this
"Their efforts would go on to lead directly to the capture of the first enigma machine, a major turning point for the allies."
You've been played by the USA propaganda machine. The first enigma machine was captured by the British Navy in May 1941. It was the Polish Free Resistance that helped with code breaking and lead to the British setting up Station X at Bletchley Park. The US didn't capture a machine until 1944.
Nice work of fiction.
@@Chris-hx3om I think the British acquired their first Enigma from Rejewski, who built one in the early 1930s in Poland and then supplied it to the British in October, 1939 (I think). I don't know how significant it was for the British to capture one later but I think the major advance was acquiring the first one from Rejewski (albeit a duplicate, not an authentic unit). My favorite story from that whole affair was the single British politician who was against this sort of thing because "gentlemen don't read other gentlemen's mail". A nice thought but a tad naive in my opinion.
@@millionsofrecordsernieb7587 Yes, I'd also heard that at some point. But the first one captured also came with the one-time pads for setting the wheels. And that was a major break.
I was in AFJROTC in high school (1985), and there was a VERY active Civil Air Patrol (community organization primarily for youth) at that time. (Daytona Beach, FL). We used to compete against them in Parades and such. They had uniforms just like we did. 😊