[HN Gopher] Mach 3.5 Over Libya in an SR-71 Blackbird
___________________________________________________________________
Mach 3.5 Over Libya in an SR-71 Blackbird
Author : ilamont
Score : 178 points
Date : 2023-03-30 11:48 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thesr71blackbird.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thesr71blackbird.com)
| noefingway wrote:
| Every time the SR-71 pops up, it's brings back a memory of seeing
| it do a flyby at Dulles Airport. IIRC it was supposed to be the
| last flight as the program was ending. This is probably 1989. I
| didn't know about it until the day of the event so I didn't have
| my camera with me.
|
| I think my entire engineering department and a bunch from the
| production floor (about 15-20 of us) went over to the airport to
| see the bird. Back then you could drive up to and park at the
| upper departure level. So there we are, waiting... Someone
| brought a portable scanner along and was listening to air traffic
| control, so we knew when it would pass over.
|
| First thing we heard was the sonic boom as it passed over (I
| believe this flight set the west coast to east coast speed
| record.) After some interval of minutes we heard which direction
| it would be coming from. All other landing and take off traffic
| was suspended while the bird circled the airport. Then turned a
| made a low level (like about the height of the tower) really
| slow. We got a really good look at it. He hit the afterburners,
| and took off. I've never seen anything move that fast. It
| practically disappeared, like something out of a movie jumping
| into hyperspace. Absolutely incredible, no matter how much I read
| about the SR-71 and the program, I'm just in awe of the designers
| and engineers that made it happen.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| The dates in the story are confusing me.
|
| > My first encounter with the SR-71 came when I was 10 years old
| in the form of molded black plastic in a Revell kit.
|
| > Twenty-nine years later, I stood awe-struck in a Beale Air
| Force Base hangar, staring at the very real SR-71 before me.
|
| > 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
|
| So the author was born in 1944 if they were 39 (29+ 10) in 1983.
|
| 1966 then puts them graduating at 22 (was high school longer back
| then? I wouldn't have thought so and he's supposed to have a
| stellar record and 22 feels a little old for joining the
| military) and playing with the SR-71 model in 1952 before it was
| even conceived in 1960.
|
| What am I missing?
| cfeduke wrote:
| My thinking is high school graduation could be as early as 16
| but more likely 17 or 18, so 1966 - 18 = 1948 (or 49 or 50).
| 1983 would be 35, though by the author's own math he'd be 39. I
| think its probably safe to discount "10 years old" memory for
| the Revell kit; I can't seem to find when the kit began
| production (because the Internet is about buying things) - but
| in order for high school graduation to be at age 18 then the
| kit would have to be produced and sold in 1958 which seems
| unlikely (or 1960 if graduating at age 16).
| vlovich123 wrote:
| I'm not familiar with this space. Is a Revell kit for a top
| secret plane that hadn't even been designed something that
| happened/happens commonly?
|
| The author says the motivating incident was the U2 shoot down
| in 1960 which was the motivating incident for the engineer to
| start designing it. How would the author be playing with it
| then?
|
| Misdirect about the kid part to enhance the story? Maybe they
| had the kit later in life and retrofitted it into a "destiny"
| theme?
| ben7799 wrote:
| A bunch of this doesn't make much sense to me either, the SR-71
| was revealed to the public in 1966. That would make him born in
| 1956. He would be 30 in 1986, which makes sense, but the the 29
| years later part doesn't sound right.
|
| I built an SR-71 kit as a kid. But I was born in 1977. I wish I
| still had it. I put a ton of work into it.
|
| The model manufacturers did scoop the reveals at some points,
| but they were never that accurate. I had an "F-19 Stealth
| Fighter" kit I built as well. It had significant differences
| from the F-117 when that became public.
| hcrisp wrote:
| I built an SR-71 model rocket. It was Estes, not Revell, and
| looked like this [0]. It was very difficult to build compared
| to other models, because it had three cylinders with webbing
| for the fuselage and engines. I remember being disappointed
| that the two outer cylinders were not designed to take
| individual model rocket engines. There was only one in the
| center. I guess it would have been too hard to ignite them
| synchronously.
|
| When I launched it (vertically of course), the plane seemed to
| hover forever on the launchpad before finally overcoming
| gravity and taking off. It did not achieve Mach 3.5 or anything
| significant for a rocket of its size. When it reached the
| ejection stage, it popped off the front cabin "nosecone",
| looking very ungainly as it fluttered to the ground on a
| parachute.
|
| I still have that model somewhere downstairs.
|
| [0] https://www.rocketreviews.com/estes-industries-
| sr-71-blackbi...
| kube-system wrote:
| Thanks for posting this. I built that same kit back when it
| was new, but at the time it was just some estes rocket to me
| -- I just now realized it was an SR-71.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| I guess it was pretty incredible watching a missile fly down an
| air vent, pretty unbelievable, but couldn't we feasibly use that
| same technology to shoot food to hungry people? You know what I
| mean? Fly over the Ethiopia: "There's a guy that needs a banana!"
|
| Stealth banana. Smart fruit!
| knodi123 wrote:
| This is a quote from a Bill Hicks standup routine.
|
| https://youtu.be/1o_8b31GRnU?t=49
| ilamont wrote:
| _Ironically, the plane was dripping, much like the misshapen
| model had assembled in my youth. Fuel was seeping through the
| joints, raining down on the hangar floor. At Mach 3, the plane
| would expand several inches because of the severe temperature,
| which could heat the leading edge of the wing to 1,100 degrees.
| To prevent cracking, expansion joints had been built into the
| plane. Sealant resembling rubber glue covered the seams, but when
| the plane was subsonic, fuel would leak through the joints._
|
| Wouldn't this be a major hazard on the ground?
| saganus wrote:
| In the "Skunk Works" book they explain that you could throw a
| lit cigarette directly into a puddle of fuel and it would not
| ignite, due to the very high temps needed.
| 93po wrote:
| Cigarettes also won't ignite regular car gas
| pc86 wrote:
| Yes but for a different reason - car gas because it's the
| vapors which ignite, so if you toss a cigarette on a
| _fresh_ puddle of car gas you 're going to have a very bad
| day. For planes it's due to the much higher temperatures
| required, the worst thing you'll do tossing a cigarette
| into a fresh puddle of jet fuel is burn your finger.
| knodi123 wrote:
| Totally counterintuitive, but yup. There ya go.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XBfg1rwZKHk
| brianwawok wrote:
| You do what you gotta do. Spending millions per flight, you can
| have some guys in a golf cart with kitty litter follow the
| plane around the hanger.
| meepmorp wrote:
| Not as much as you'd think - by design, JP7 has a low vapor
| pressure and doesn't ignite easily. To start the engines in the
| SR71, they used the very pyrophoric triethylborane
| (spontaneously combusts at -20C).
| sbradford26 wrote:
| Fun fact the SR71 was capable of in air refueling but it
| still required pyrophoric triethylborane to start
| afterburners which couldn't be resupplied in air. So total
| mission time was limited by that and not fuel.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| Yes. But also the fuel used was also very difficult to light
| (consequence of it's design requirements), so at least as a
| fire hazard, it was probably relatively well controlled.
|
| Uh health risks... _shrug_. The pilot is wearing most of a
| space suit. Who knows whats up with the ground crew though.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| Some interesting trivia:
|
| The SR-71 began as the YF-12, and was originally supposed to be
| RS-71 (Reconnaissance/Surveillance), but somebody thought SR
| sounded better.
|
| The YF prefix on the original aircraft is often referred to as
| "Yankee Fire", a caveat that is still in use.
| swasheck wrote:
| legend is that president johnson got it confused in a press
| conference and called it the sr-71 so instead of correcting him
| they just changed the name.
|
| "skunk works" is a great read. i'm almost done with "area 51"
| by annie jacobsen and it's quite the interesting read as well,
| though it does get dry at times.
| https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15839422W/Area_51
| chipsa wrote:
| The correct part of the legend is that the speech he was
| reading off of said SR-71, because someone thought it sounded
| better, and getting it spoken by the President was easier
| than doing it the "Right" way.
| laverya wrote:
| Pretty sure that the CIA's A-12s came before the YF-12
| interceptor prototype.
| scrlk wrote:
| It's a shame that the book that this story came from - Sled
| Driver by Brian Shul - is out of print.
|
| The SR-71 speed check story is another good read:
| https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blac...
| sampo wrote:
| You can get a digital copy of the book easily
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=Sled+Driver+pdf
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Just a note, the Kindle version isn't available for sale,
| despite being listed on Google search.
| dboreham wrote:
| > is out of print
|
| I bought a copy sometime in the 90s, found in the remaindered
| section of a bookstore, cheap.
|
| Fast forward a decade or so, a couple of house moves, and I
| can't find the book. So I order a copy from Amazon, still
| available new at that time.
|
| Another decade or so later, I find my first copy. Then I
| discover they're worth like $300+ each!
| stef25 wrote:
| Heh there's a speed check story in this article too with
| different numbers: For the F-18 Dusty 52 it's 525 vs 620 knots
| and for the blackbird it's 1742 vs 1842.
| brightball wrote:
| Still worth it to get Skunk Works by Ben Rich. One of the best
| books I've ever read.
| wslh wrote:
| Thanks, learning... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk_Works
| geocrasher wrote:
| Yep, a fantastic read.
| [deleted]
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I have read that story SO MANY TIMES, but I nearly always click
| and read again when it comes up.
| scrlk wrote:
| Once you've finished re-reading, here's the reverse version:
|
| > There were a lot of things we couldn't do in a Cessna 172,
| but we were some of the slowest guys on the block and loved
| reminding our fellow aviators of this fact. People often
| asked us if, because of this fact, it was fun to fly the 172.
| Fun would not be the first word I would use to describe
| flying this plane. Mundane, maybe. Even boring at times. But
| there was one day in our Cessna experience when we would have
| to say that it was pure fun to be some of the slowest guys
| out there, at least for a moment.
|
| > It occurred when my CFI and I were flying a training
| flight. We needed 40 hours in the plane to complete my
| training and attain PPL status. Somewhere over Colorado we
| had passed the 40 hour mark. We had made the turn back
| towards our home airport in a radius of a mile or two and the
| plane was performing flawlessly. My gauges were wired in the
| left seat and we were starting to feel pretty good about
| ourselves, not only because I would soon be flying as a true
| pilot, but because we had gained a great deal of confidence
| in the plane in the past ten months. Bumbling across the
| mountains 3,500 feet below us, I could only see about 8 miles
| across the ground. I was, finally, after many humbling months
| of training and study, ahead of the plane.
|
| > I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for my CFI in the right
| seat. There he was, with nothing to do except watch me and
| monitor two different radios. This wasn't really good
| practice for him at all. He'd been doing it for years. It had
| been difficult for me to relinquish control of the radios, as
| during my this part of my flying career, I could handle it on
| my own. But it was part of the division of duties on this
| flight and I had adjusted to it. I still insisted on talking
| on the radio while we were on the ground, however. My CFI was
| so good at many things, but he couldn't match my expertise at
| sounding awkward on the radios, a skill that had been roughly
| sharpened with years of listening to LiveATC.com where the
| slightest radio miscue was a daily occurrence. He understood
| that and allowed me that luxury.
|
| > Just to get a sense of what my CFI had to contend with, I
| pulled the radio toggle switches and monitored the
| frequencies along with him. The predominant radio chatter was
| from Denver Center, not far below us, controlling daily
| traffic in our sector. While they had us on their scope (for
| a good while, I might add), we were in uncontrolled airspace
| and normally would not talk to them unless we needed to climb
| into their airspace. We listened as the shaky voice of a lone
| SR-71 pilot asked Center for a readout of his ground speed.
| Center replied: "Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight
| hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground." Now the
| thing to understand about Center controllers, was that
| whether they were talking to a rookie pilot in a Cessna, or
| to Air Force One, they always spoke in the exact same, calm,
| deep, professional, tone that made one feel important. I
| referred to it as the "Houston Center voice." I have always
| felt that after years of seeing documentaries on this
| country's space program and listening to the calm and
| distinct voice of the Houston controllers, that all other
| controllers since then wanted to sound like that, and that
| they basically did. And it didn't matter what sector of the
| country we would be flying in, it always seemed like the same
| guy was talking. Over the years that tone of voice had become
| somewhat of a comforting sound to pilots everywhere.
| Conversely, over the years, pilots always wanted to ensure
| that, when transmitting, they sounded like Chuck Yeager, or
| at least like John Wayne. Better to die than sound bad on the
| radios.
|
| > Just moments after the SR-71's inquiry, an F-18 piped up on
| frequency, in a rather superior tone, asking for his ground
| speed. "Dusty 52, Center, we have you at 620 on the ground."
| Boy, I thought, the F-18 really must think he is dazzling his
| SR-71 brethren. Then out of the blue, a Twin Beech pilot out
| of an airport outside of Denver came up on frequency. You
| knew right away it was a Twin Beech driver because he sounded
| very cool on the radios. "Center, Beechcraft 173-Delta-
| Charlie ground speed check". Before Center could reply, I'm
| thinking to myself, hey, that Beech probably has a ground
| speed indicator in that multi-thousand-dollar cockpit, so why
| is he asking Center for a readout? Then I got it, ol' Delta-
| Charlie here is making sure that every military jock from
| Mount Whitney to the Mojave knows what true speed is. He's
| the slowest dude in the valley today, and he just wants
| everyone to know how much fun he is having in his new bug-
| smasher. And the reply, always with that same, calm, voice,
| with more distinct alliteration than emotion: "173-Delta-
| Charlie, Center, we have you at 90 knots on the ground." And
| I thought to myself, is this a ripe situation, or what? As my
| hand instinctively reached for the mic button, I had to
| remind myself that my CFI was in control of the radios.
| Still, I thought, it must be done - in mere hours we'll be
| out of the sector and the opportunity will be lost. That
| Beechcraft must die, and die now. I thought about all of my
| training and how important it was that we developed well as a
| crew and knew that to jump in on the radios now would destroy
| the integrity of all that we had worked toward becoming. I
| was torn.
|
| > Somewhere, half a mile above Colorado, there was a pilot
| screaming inside his head. Then, I heard it. The click of the
| mic button from the right seat. That was the very moment that
| I knew my CFI and I had become lifelong friends. Very
| professionally, and with no emotion, my CFI spoke: "Denver
| Center, Cessna 56-November-Sierra, can you give us a ground
| speed check?" There was no hesitation, and the replay came as
| if was an everyday request. "Cessna 56-November-Sierra, I
| show you at 56 knots, across the ground."
|
| > I think it was the six knots that I liked the best, so
| accurate and proud was Center to deliver that information
| without hesitation, and you just knew he was smiling. But the
| precise point at which I knew that my CFI and I were going to
| be really good friends for a long time was when he keyed the
| mic once again to say, in his most CFI-like voice: "Ah,
| Center, much thanks, we're showing closer to 52 on the
| money."
|
| > For a moment my CFI was a god. And we finally heard a
| little crack in the armor of the Houston Center voice, when
| Denver came back with, "Roger that November-Sierra, your E6B
| is probably more accurate than our state-of-the-art radar.
| You boys have a good one." It all had lasted for just
| moments, but in that short, memorable stroll across the west,
| the Navy had been owned, all mortal airplanes on freq were
| forced to bow before the King of Slow, and more importantly,
| my CFI and I had crossed the threshold of being BFFs. A fine
| day's work. We never heard another transmission on that
| frequency all the way to our home airport.
|
| > For just one day, it truly was fun being the slowest guys
| out there.
| ckozlowski wrote:
| On the Blackbird site, there's a really good factual story
| delivered after someone asked about the _slowest_ they 'd
| ever flown the plane. That tale is a good read:
|
| https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-bla
| c...
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Why does this exist?
| suzzer99 wrote:
| Now do this story - but some person flying a Kitty Hawk
| replica 30 feet off the ground chimes in after the Cessna
| person.
| frantathefranta wrote:
| Next logical step would be the Antonov An-2 flying at
| negative ground speed, backwards.
| pc86 wrote:
| To be fair you can do that in a 172 as well (but it's
| obviously not negative ground speed). My CFI took me up
| on a particularly windy day so we could fly 3kts
| backwards.
| sneak wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29373436
| jlack wrote:
| He sells his books anytime he gives a talk. I got an
| autographed copy ~5 years ago when he was a speaker at the
| museum of flight in Seattle during the seafair airshow.
| TimMeade wrote:
| He tells it on stage.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AyHH9G9et0
| smburdick wrote:
| And it looks like they all cost hundreds:
| https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?kn=Sled%20Dri...
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I'm going to avoid linking to the reddit post, but if you
| google around a bit, you can find a pdf that fell off the back
| of a truck.
| phkahler wrote:
| Is Mach 3.5 the highest reported speed? Is it "official" in some
| way?
| brightball wrote:
| I believe it's the upper limit to the SR-71's engine style
| based on air intake.
|
| If you watched Top Gun: Maverick since it came out they
| (spoiler) had him flying a prototype plane called the Darkstar
| to hit Mach 10 in order to maintain a military contract. During
| the flight, he switches engines to SCRAM Jet once he reaches
| Mach 3.5 because in order for those types of engines to have
| enough air intake to function, you already have to be traveling
| at that speed.
|
| This was such an innovation that China redirected a satellite
| to find the plane because they thought it was real.
|
| If you've never read Skunk Works by Ben Rich, I highly
| recommend it. Lots of SR-71 stories along with U-2, F-117 too.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| I doubt they were absolutely convinced it was real, but still
| pretty hilarious.
| https://www.businessinsider.com/bruckheimer-china-moved-
| sate...
| greggsy wrote:
| "The Navy told us that a Chinese satellite turned and
| headed on a different route to photograph that plane."
|
| I can only assume that China publish their targeting on
| some Twitter account? What ludicrous statement.
| scottyah wrote:
| Is this a reference of the USA doing just that?
| https://www.npr.org/2022/11/18/1137474748/trump-tweeted-
| an-i...
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Amateurs can track satellites with telescopes. Inferring
| intent from a course change is pretty reasonable if it
| makes a direct overpass, with not much else of interest
| on the same track. That's not the crazy part of the
| story.
| brightball wrote:
| I don't think the Navy was watching Chinese twitter...
| greggsy wrote:
| Are you implying that they disclosed (to a movie
| director) that the USA have a foothold within China's
| IMINT apparatus?
|
| It's trivial to observe flyover changes, but it's
| ludicrous to suggest that this action alone meant they
| were looking for a specific aircraft.
| [deleted]
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| Fastest official is Mach 3.43. I would note that that isn't
| likely the full story. The US Gov has famously been deceptive
| about the plane, both overselling or underselling its
| abilities. (Notably, I do not believe that the US Government
| ever 'officially' admitted to overflying the USSR.)
|
| It is very possible that for a short period of time, they
| sustained over mach 3.5 or 3.6, what affect that would have/had
| on the airframe and engines is unknown.
|
| An interesting story is that once, during the cold war, a
| Mig-25 was supposedly tracked over Israel at over Mach 3.2 in
| what is best described as "GTFO" mode. It basically was an
| attempt to do what the US was doing with the SR-71s. At that
| speed, the engines are assumed to have been scraped after each
| flight.
|
| One could make assumptions that the ram-jet elements of an
| SR-71's J-58s could allow for a few minutes, in the right
| airframe, with a lucky bin of build quality and weather, far
| beyond that.
|
| I would also note that this story buries the lede. The title
| states mach 3.5 but the pilot implies numbers beyond. I'm not
| sure how factual it is or if it is dramatized, but the pilot
| absolutely is who they say they are and wrote a book about it.
| ranger207 wrote:
| > At that speed, the engines are assumed to have been scraped
| after each flight. > One could make assumptions that the ram-
| jet elements of an SR-71's J-58s could allow for a few
| minutes...far beyond that
|
| I would expect the SR-71 to stay at speed longer and for the
| engines to be capable of higher power (assuming the airframe
| and intake can handle it). US engines were generally higher
| quality, while Soviet engines were expected to be replaced
| very quickly relatively. However, this was a conscious
| decision on the part of the USSR: instead of making expensive
| engines with good maintainability in the field, they chose to
| make cheap engines that were easy to replace. As a result,
| while a MiG-25 may have only been able to maintain Mach 3 for
| a few minutes and ruin the engine in the process, they built
| 1,186 of them, with probably >5,000 Mach 3 capable engines.
|
| Not particularly relevant, but always interesting to discuss
| how different people think
| phkahler wrote:
| The SR71 engines are the only ones ever designed to run
| continuously in after burner. Also in ramjet mode, going
| faster increased the efficiency as the bow shock swept back
| and into the engine inlets, providing pre-compressed air.
| FpUser wrote:
| Kelly was an absolutely amazing person. A giant.
| carbl wrote:
| No mention of the big block GM V8s on a wagon that was used as a
| crank to start the engines. They went through a couple of units.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I love stories about America violating sovreign airspace,
| especially when they use such a cool plane. The entire world is
| truly their own backyard!
| scottyah wrote:
| There is no international law (or agreement) defining the
| vertical boundary of a nation's sovereign territory/airspace,
| but I guarantee no Libyans were up at 80,000'.
| davidu wrote:
| The world hates that the US is the world police, but then
| constantly demands the US be the world police.
| postsantum wrote:
| >but then constantly demands the US be the world police
|
| Que?
| polski-g wrote:
| Europe isn't even willing to fund their own militaries.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| There is a huge difference between patrolling international
| tradeways or helping nato allies, and invading or violating
| foreign countries on a whim with absolutely 0 consequences.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| I hate to be cynical, but if they don't do the other stuff
| as well, what's in it for them?
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Well for one thing the US genuinely seems to be a lot
| less imperialistic these days. I mean, not militarily at
| least, I'm sure they are still involved in all kinds of
| meddling but with less military muscle flexing. It
| started with Trump but Biden seem to thankfully have kept
| the same less-interventionist policy. So I guess they
| have found a way to not do the other stuff, thankfully.
|
| I guess it could just be a return back to the mean from
| the absolutely, unashamed military imperialism of the
| 1980s- early 2010s.
| [deleted]
| igravious wrote:
| The days of America violating sovereign airspace are drawing to
| a close, thankfully.
|
| "The United States-initiated aerial bombing of targets inside
| the borders of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah which took place on
| April 15, 1986, was met with substantial and immediate
| criticism by the world community. The positive reaction from
| the U.S. congress and the American public was not shared by
| much of the world. Arab nations denounced the American action,
| as did the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. In
| meetings of the UN Security Council, countries denouncing the
| raid outnumbered those which supported it.
|
| Good article: "American Bombing of Libya: An International
| Legal Analysis" (1987)
|
| https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ar...
| closewith wrote:
| > The days of America violating sovereign airspace are
| drawing to a close, thankfully.
|
| They're still overflying Afghanistan and who knows where
| else.
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| I wouldn't hold my breath... The US launched an airstrike in
| an illegally-occupied (Syria) nation less than a week ago.
|
| https://news.antiwar.com/2023/03/25/us-carries-out-
| airstrike...
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Illegally occupied according to who?
| Iwan-Zotow wrote:
| mmm... to anyone who could read?
|
| I mean, could you say why us troops are in Syrian oil
| fields stealing oil?
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Ah yes, because surely when the US stops patrolling the seas
| and skies of this planet, nobody else will try. We will
| finally have our peaceful utopia once that pesky United
| States is out of the way!
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Yes because the US _has_ to patrol the skies of libya,
| otherwise the entire world will collapse.
|
| See? Strawmaning an argument is very easy to do, I can do
| it too!
| rocket_surgeron wrote:
| The SR-71s were over Libya in 1986 because the Libyan secret
| service detonated a bomb in a Berlin nightclub, killing 3 and
| wounding hundreds, ten days prior.
|
| "oh yeah well what abou.."
|
| With all due respect, stop.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Ah yes, the US said so. You should probably look into the
| actual investigations and events before telling other people
| to stop. Almost no european country agrees with the
| conclusion of the US government (that bombed libya in a
| matter of days, before any investigation started to begin
| with).
|
| A government that was back then almost frothing at the mouth
| at any occasion to blame everything on the libyans, to a
| comical degree. Which was well known, and also the reason why
| most european countries did not agree with the intervention
| that we are discussing
| CircleSpokes wrote:
| What a ridiculous thing to say. Do you think the Libyan
| intelligence service gets to bomb dance clubs and then cry
| sovereignty when someone bombs some military targets in Libya?
| I don't know if you are ignorant of the situation or if you
| truly believe a country cannot retaliate against an attack
| against their citizens and allies. (This story and the bombing
| campaigned being photographed by the SR71 was a direct response
| to the West Berlin discotheque bombing in 1986).
|
| >The entire world is truly their own backyard!
|
| Yes..? If you are a state actor like Libya and you attack other
| nations civilians to cause terror then they have the right to
| attack you back. The US bombing Gaddafi's compounds and some
| other military targets in Libya was 100% justified. To act like
| a country can't retaliate in such a situation is honestly
| childish.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| Well, nobody presented evidence that Libya was behind the La
| Belle bombing.
|
| If you think that some shady arm of US intelligence isn't
| capable of such a heinous false flag operation, I urge you to
| read more history. Now I'm not saying it was one, I'm saying
| we have no idea who was behind it.
| CircleSpokes wrote:
| Because real life isn't a TV show. That isn't how national
| security agencies work. They don't dump raw intelligence to
| the public. The US knew it was Libya obviously, and the
| data released since then has proved that. Hell even the
| Stasi & the soviets knew it was Libya.
|
| Again this isn't a TV show. No country needs permission to
| react to an attack against them by another state like
| Libya.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| Oh, so your advice is to blindly trust whatever they
| shovel into the public's mouths ?
|
| I totally trust US three letter organisations, and cannot
| see what could possibly go wrong as they have never shown
| signs of incompetence and malice in the past.
|
| The fact that the stasi thought it was the Libyans could
| very well mean that it was a very successful false flag
| operation. This is the problem with the intelligence
| apparatus. It is war against the truth.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I guess we should just trust when the Chinese or Russian
| agencies come up with their conclusions too, then.
|
| And yes, the US is a democracy and russia/china aren't.
| But that doesn't seem to have made the US any more trust
| worthy when it comes to not being prone to baseless war
| mongering. And the US population seem to be pretty
| excited to vote over and over again for (or at least, it
| used to be) war hawks or even outright war criminals.
| Bush was re-elected in 2004 after outright lying about an
| incredibly destructive war, so it seems like democracy
| isn't an argument for trusting the US more on these
| matters. I guess Americans and westerners in general
| (mostly) don't live with the consequences of those wars
| so it's very easy to handwave demands of actual proof by
| saying that life isn't a movie, or that it was all done
| with good faith(tm).
|
| But for muslims and the MENA region in general, those
| arguments just don't resonate well with us at all.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| So there would be absolutely no problem if afghans or cubans
| bombed the US, right? Is it just the US that is allowed to
| basically do whatever it wants to a country based on whatever
| conclusion their spook agencies come up with?
|
| Plus, as the other comment says there has been no proof that
| libya was involved. Going by a "hunch" or "secret info from
| our intelligence agencies" isn't evidence either. You should
| probably read up on the events, it was super controversial at
| the time so claiming it was just a cut and dry self-defense
| move from the US is laughable.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| Amazing what engineers were able to do (build aircraft like the
| SR-71) before computers came along and made them less productive.
| whalesalad wrote:
| My grandfather was an OG at the Skunk Works from the time where
| it was first established. He started at the Burbank plant and
| followed to Palmdale. He worked on a lot of those legendary
| projects and still has a ton of his old illustrations. This was
| a question of mine too - why was there so much innovation at
| such breakneck speed and why have things changed? His feeling
| is that it was a cultural one. In the early days of the Skunk
| Works, people felt and operated like it was the most secretive
| and important element of their lives and had a tremendous
| amount of pride for their work. He said that over time it began
| to operate less and less like a sidecar "elite unit" of
| engineering etc... and started to get integrated more into the
| rest of Lockheed. Then the culture began to fell apart because
| the bar was not as high.
| dboreham wrote:
| That said, it did require computers retrofitted to the engines
| to make the plane safe.
|
| http://www.enginehistory.org/Convention/2014/SR-71Inlts/SR-7...
| .
| HPsquared wrote:
| That task could have probably been done by a mechanical or
| analogue computer. Not sure I'd call that control system a
| full-fledged computer.
| kens wrote:
| Aerospace computers don't get any respect. The SR-71's
| DAFICS (Digital Automatic Flight and Inlet Control System)
| is a digital computer system with triple-redundancy. I bet
| your computer doesn't have that :-)
|
| https://doi.org/10.4271/851977
| MR4D wrote:
| Short of God, an engineer with a slide rule is the most
| powerful thing in the universe.
| ye-olde-sysrq wrote:
| I know you're being glib but I assume the reason we didn't do
| any more Blackbirds is because normal satellite imagery got
| good enough that it didn't make as much sense to keep building
| these crazy things.
|
| Does anyone remember that satellite photo Trump leaked of that
| iranian missile silo?
|
| https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755994591/president-trump-twe...
|
| This one ^
|
| I'm just guessing that if they showed it to Trump unprompted in
| a briefing, it's unlikely that this is max zoom. And it's
| already crazy clear.
|
| And the article mentions:
|
| "Hanham also says that the European company Airbus has been
| experimenting with drones that fly so high, they are
| technically outside the atmosphere and thus operating outside
| national boundaries. But she says she doesn't know whether the
| U.S. has such a system."
|
| So I think we just got a bit better at radar deflection and
| flying really high to where the Blackbird doesn't make sense
| anymore.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| >satellite imagery
|
| "This one cool trick makes spy agencies hate him"
|
| https://www.harborfreight.com/tarps
| scottyah wrote:
| That only helps if you're trying to hide the paint job of
| the object under the tarp
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| > I know you're being glib ...
|
| Yes. But I truly believe we lost something with the
| dependence on computers for everything.
| closewith wrote:
| > I know you're being glib but I assume the reason we didn't
| do any more Blackbirds is because normal satellite imagery
| got good enough that it didn't make as much sense to keep
| building these crazy things.
|
| Most likely because of cost and missile technology catching
| up. After all, the U2 is still in active service, so the
| satellites aren't a perfect replacement.
| geocrasher wrote:
| Indeed, Mach 3.5 is the _declared_ top speed in this story, but
| higher speeds are implied. The Mach eases to
| 3.5 as we crest 80,000 feet... Screaming past Tripoli, our
| phenomenal speed continues to rise... I realize that I still have
| my left hand full-forward and we're continuing to rocket along in
| maximum afterburner... The TDI now shows us Mach numbers, not
| only new to our experience but flat out scary.
|
| He mentions unusually cool temperatures allowing higher speeds
| than usual, and the aircraft is performing better than ever. So
| who knows. 3.6? Did a perfect set of circumstances, mixed with a
| rather urgent need to depart, take them closer to 3.7?
|
| It's truly incredible that the A12/SR-71 aircraft was designed
| without the benefit of modern computing. In Ben Rich's book
| "Skunk Works" I recall there a bit about a comment that somebody
| once made regarding Kelly Johnson, something like "That Swede can
| _see_ air ". Truly a compliment to Johnson's almost uncanny
| ability to design aircraft for a specification. The U2 was
| another example of such ability.
| bombcar wrote:
| > It's truly incredible that the A12/SR-71 aircraft was
| designed without the benefit of modern computing.
|
| One of the huge things that computers give us is the ability to
| simulate _where_ the design limits _actually_ are - you can
| "relatively" easily design a device that needs to do "at least
| X" but once you're done, you don't really know how far _past_ X
| you can go - computer simulations can help discover where and
| what exactly fails.
|
| (Some limits like boat "hull speed" are easier to find than
| others).
| ithkuil wrote:
| "Any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an
| (computer assisted?) engineer to build a bridge that barely
| stands"
| bombcar wrote:
| It's actually an interesting problem from a "total effort"
| viewpoint.
|
| There's zero reason to design a kitchen to last 100 years
| if the average one will be remodeled in 7 and even the
| oldest won't go past 20.
|
| But other things can be designed to last significantly
| longer, and be used way past their "original expected
| lifespan" - many of the buildings in Europe, for example,
| have lasted centuries.
| ithkuil wrote:
| True.
|
| That said, w.r.t old buildings, selection bias may play a
| significant role, perhaps bigger than intentions
| bombcar wrote:
| And maintenance costs, too. You may have a bridge that's
| 100 years old but you're paying 1/10 a new bridge in
| maintenance every year - not noticeable.
| Fatnino wrote:
| The computer allows you to cut down your design so that it
| will do "at least X and no more" so you can save a few cents
| and then the plane falls apart when the pilot asks it to do
| Mach 3.6 but that's OK because the manual said it will top
| out at 3.5
| strictnein wrote:
| Such a great book that is becoming harder to find a decent copy
| of these days.
|
| There's a great sketch that Kelly Johnson did of the A12. This
| was in September of 1958(!) and he had a rough top speed of
| Mach 3.0, with a possibility of Mach 3.2. And it existed on
| nothing but a sheet of paper and in his mind. No computers with
| advanced software and super computers with petaflops of power.
|
| https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/History/CIA/a-12-blackbird-...
| anodyne33 wrote:
| First time I've seen that sketch, but it looks like Popular
| Science lifted it directly for an article from the 80's that
| I remember distinctly about Project Aurora.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Temperature is the limiting factor for speed, I remember SR71
| pilots on a panel saying the aircraft flew faster in winter
| than in the summer for that reason.
| sbaiddn wrote:
| What does winter mean at 80 000 ft and Mach 3?
|
| The jet stream is insanely fast at that altitude mixing the
| air, and at Mach 3 the surface weather changes in fractions
| of a minute.
| psd1 wrote:
| Winter means that your nearest pole is tilted away from the
| sun. Your half of the planet is cooler, especially towards
| the poles.
| weard_beard wrote:
| For instance the James Webb telescope gets clearer
| pictures in summer because in winter the astronauts
| breath can fog up the lens.
| StrangeATractor wrote:
| I'm fuzzy on details but I remember reading it had some
| pretty crazy thermal expansion. I think the pilot had to wait
| quite a while (hours?) before opening the cockpit to give the
| plane time to cool enough.
| AdamN wrote:
| It's also cool that the whole thing was machined 'loose' so
| that it would expand as it heated up. Apparently the plane
| would leak fuel and oil when it was on the ground ...
| ridgeguy wrote:
| Yep, JP-7 [1]. Special low vapor pressure to mitigate
| accidental ignition hazard.
|
| The Sled leaked like a grad student's '69 VW bus in the
| hangar. Leak-free above > 1.5 Mach.
|
| (edit to add link)
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JP-7
| dghughes wrote:
| Also incredible most of the titanium came from the USSR but
| through indirect routes and suppliers with the Soviets being
| unaware.
| ben7799 wrote:
| Which is really odd, as Titanium is not that rare.
|
| Are we sure that story about the Titanium coming from the
| USSR is accurate?
| philipkglass wrote:
| Titanium is very common in the Earth's crust. But turning
| titanium minerals into pure, ductile titanium metal is more
| energy intensive and complex than making most other metals:
|
| https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Inorganic_Chemistry
| /...
|
| At the time, the USSR had already invested significant
| resources into making titanium for submarines. Buying
| titanium under false pretenses was easier than increasing
| the domestic industrial capacity for making titanium,
| particularly when the plane was not going to be produced in
| large numbers.
| StrangeATractor wrote:
| Related:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losos-class_submarine
| justin66 wrote:
| The Alfa submarine would seem to be more relevant.
| StrangeATractor wrote:
| I don't disagree but the Piranha is damn cool. Crew of 9!
| stametseater wrote:
| Also the Papa-class (only one built), which preceded the
| Alfa and remains the fastest submarine ever built. And
| the Sierra-class submarines which followed the Alfa
| class.
| billfor wrote:
| https://mentourpilot.com/sr-71-when-cia-used-soviet-
| titanium...
| dendrite9 wrote:
| There was a government arranged meeting betweeen Boeing
| and Soviet engineers to discuss working with titanium for
| the SST: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-
| magazine/the-titani...
|
| In the alpine climbing world Soviet climbers used
| titanium gear that was considered very good and light.
| Some of it was from scraps and spare material, but they
| had access to titanium.
| throwmeaway1212 wrote:
| It's a fairly well known and documented story, do you have
| anything similar in evidence rather than just conjecture?
| pc86 wrote:
| "no u" isn't exactly a response engendering a
| constructive conversation.
| smburdick wrote:
| I think it's mostly anecdotal (I have heard it too, but I
| can't think of where)
|
| Not a metallurgist, but if I had to guess it was hard to
| find in large enough quantities at the time. I also
| understand that it's a lot harder to work with than say
| aluminum or steel
|
| Speaking of which, King Louis served his guests with
| aluminum silverware, since at the time it was more valuable
| than gold due to the difficulty of extracting it at the
| time, despite its abundance.
| ckozlowski wrote:
| "Skunk Works" by Ben Rich is a first hand account by the
| (eventual) lead of that Lockheed division, and he
| describes this in his book.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-
| Lockheed/...
| dylan604 wrote:
| Why deplete your own supplies when you can use your
| opponents?
| ridgeguy wrote:
| Second the recommendation Ben Rich's "Skunk Works" as a good
| read. A fascinating tale of hardware development in an earlier
| age.
| sbaiddn wrote:
| Adrian Newley is aerodynamist and the current chief designer of
| Red Bull (current champions and top of the season). He has won
| more F1 champions than any other designer.
|
| _He draws his cars on paper._
|
| Granted, I'm sure someone digitizes his designs and runs them
| through a CFD suite, if for no other reason that wind tunnel
| time rule limited.
|
| Still.
| kingkongjaffa wrote:
| It's a nice story to read about rock star engineers but F1
| race car aerodynamics is not done on paper.
|
| Sure concepts to try can be sketched out on paper. Things
| like wing arrangements, rough intuitive ideas about where the
| clean and dirty air is. But everything in F1 is an iterative
| loop between a lap time simulation, vehicle dynamics, and
| aerodynamics.
|
| Vehicle performance is largely a trade off between Cornering
| dynamics (typically demanding more downforce) and straight
| light speed (typically demanding less drag) which is why
| different tracks have different setups.
|
| Basically balanced between cornering sections and straight
| line sections to figure out the optimal balance of lift/drag
| and the dynamic behaviour of the rest of the car in response
| to those aero set up effects.
| sbaiddn wrote:
| Obviously they use computers. My point is that Newley,
| (claims at least) to do his design work on paper.
|
| Which, is not that surprising. If you're good enough to
| have a draughtman digitize your designs for you, you're
| free to draw what you want on a five by four foot surface
| and not fiddle with a GUI and a 30?, 40? inch screen.
|
| Overnight they print you the latest drawing on the plotter
| and you're back to you doing you. Id live to have a
| secretary print me my work and then digitize it in the
| evening.
| kingkongjaffa wrote:
| His name is Newey BTW.
|
| What you're describing is not how engineering is done.
|
| There's no overnight printing of the drawings.
|
| The 3D CAD models are designed and available in real
| time, they are used in various CFD and FEA models. The
| only time drawings are printed out are dimensioned
| production drawings sent to manufacture the parts.
|
| https://fractory.com/engineering-drawing-basics/
|
| There are no digital draftsmen, it's sort of semantics
| but design engineers are working directly with parametric
| 3D models, they can produce 2D drawings from the models.
|
| As a senior engineer Newey is likely reviewing Wind
| tunnel data, CAD designs of concepts, CFD/FEA Data,
| laptime sim results, and collaborating "over the
| shoulder" of less senior engineers responsible for
| specific aerodynamic packages, who then feed that info in
| collaboration with design engineers and surface modelers
| to update the CAD models.
| mongol wrote:
| I remember my manager was obsessed with the plane and it's name.
| It sounded so cool. But then I told him what bird it really is
| (Koltrast in Swedish) and he seemed so disappointed. He probably
| thought it was a black Eagle or something.
|
| Here the Blackbird is mostly known for its beautiful although
| melancholic song. And it is also the national bird of Sweden.
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