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Tales of the Blackbird (SR-71)

Roosky01

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I can't even imagine the size of the balls on Mr. Weaver...
 

4Waters

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SR-71-Low-Flyby (1).jpg
 

rivrrts429

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Javajoe

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On the news last night they showed a pic of that first balloon taken by a U2. The wing was in the pic. Didn’t know they really use it anymore
 

stephenkatsea

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Thru the years we’ve made some very amazing stuff. And it’s still the best. I can only hope, we can currently continue to concentrate and remain doing just that. Although, some of today’s popular movements and directions seem very contrary to that.
 
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stephenkatsea

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Don’t know if it amazes or saddens me when I see that SR.-71 Blackbird sitting on the deck of our naval carrier Intrepid, permanently tied alongside the dock in NYC.
 

monkeyswrench

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Thanks to all contributing and involved in the project. Job very well done.
The fact that we still talk about it, and are in awe of it today, shows it's lasting impression. We have companies 3D printing alloy rocket engines, and cars with more computers than all of the combined aerospace engineers of the 60's...but nothing seems to be as much of a leap as it was.
 

4Waters

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The fact that we still talk about it, and are in awe of it today, shows it's lasting impression. We have companies 3D printing alloy rocket engines, and cars with more computers than all of the combined aerospace engineers of the 60's...but nothing seems to be as much of a leap as it was.
What's impressive is our phones could run an entire Apollo mission, rocket, capsule, moon lander and mission control with the computing power of 1 phone😳. Mission controls computer was at a minimum the size of an average house in the 60's
 

monkeyswrench

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RogerThat99

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For years, probably since the retirement of the SR71, there have been rumors of contrails that could only be made by a "pulse" or "scramjet" configuration.
Always made me wonder.
We have to have a scramjet plane by now. We have been hearing the phrase for 20 years. If you haven't seen Top Gun Maverick, he test flies a plane that is supposed to be a scramjet. I they are portraying it in movies, we are probably on to a newer technology. LOL
 

RogerThat99

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On the news last night they showed a pic of that first balloon taken by a U2. The wing was in the pic. Didn’t know they really use it anymore
I have a U2 base not too far from me (they also had SR-71's when they were still active). I took this pic about a year ago from my house. I never see them fly over low enough to see, and don't know why this one was so low. Someone told me that the pilot lives near me, and flew by his kids birthday party, sports game, or something. Who knows if that is true though.
20191031_175748.jpg
 
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attitude

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I thought the rumored SR-71 replacement was the Aurora. Supposedly a triangular shaped craft that has been spotted by multiple people.
 

monkeyswrench

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What would those look like?
"Supposedly", a dotted line. The dots being spaced further apart with speed...same duration between pulses, but spaced out due to distance traveled. There were reports and pics here and there online 20 years ago. Pics always sucked, and only faint because it was light hitting them at real high altitude. Early mornings, so sun hit them before sunrise.
 

Sleek-Jet

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For years, probably since the retirement of the SR71, there have been rumors of contrails that could only be made by a "pulse" or "scramjet" configuration.
Always made me wonder.
The diamonds on a rope pictures.

While there might be an airframe that replaced the Blackbird it is highly unlikely that is a manned aircraft. My money is on a stealth drone, because then you don't need speed. Or the low earth orbit drone that Boeing flies on a regular basis.
 

whiteworks

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I stopped in the March air force base museum last week while I was out in that area. Oh boy was I surprised when I walked in and saw a SR71 sitting in the hangar. That place is awesome and 100% worth the $15.00 price of admissions and tome I spent walking around.

It was really inspiring, I was talking with a Vietnam era docent, he was the real deal. I remember when I was a child going to planes of fame and there were WWII docents airing around telling war stories about bombing missions, those guys are mostly gone now, but the viet nam guys are not.

I’ll admit I did look up the air force website information about maximum age for enlisting when I got home, figure go run some laps and fly rad shit my not be such a bad ending to act II of this life. Unfortunately I’m too old to enlist now 😂
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rivrrts429

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rivrrts429

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This is impressive to listen to. The people behind this project are/were impressive to account for all of these obstacles…


 

DLow

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Pretty good information about its systems in this well produced animated video. The flight control engineering is pretty cool.

 
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