[HN Gopher] SR-71 Blackbird Speed Check Story
___________________________________________________________________
SR-71 Blackbird Speed Check Story
Author : wallflower
Score : 160 points
Date : 2023-05-23 09:23 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thesr71blackbird.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thesr71blackbird.com)
| gcanyon wrote:
| To me the "slowest speed" story is better:
| https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blac...
| NKosmatos wrote:
| I've read/seen both of these stories many times and everytime I
| come across them, I re-read them :-) Can't get enough of SR-71
| stories.
| austinl wrote:
| I'd recommend reading Skunk Works by Ben R. Rich for more on the
| engineering of the Blackbird and other special aviation projects.
|
| I knew the Blackbird was fast, but didn't quite realize how fast
| until reading this book. The SR-72 would cruise at Mach 3, or
| three times the speed of sound. It would do this at 80,000 feet,
| over twice the traditional cruising altitude of a 747. Even at
| this height, where the temperature is -60degF, friction would
| cause the fuselage to heat to 600degF. This would melt
| traditional aircraft, so the plane was built with titanium
| (ironically supplied by the Soviet Union). The Blackbird used to
| overfly North Korea five days a week in just ten minutes.
| nehal3m wrote:
| According to this [0] article it leaks fuel sitting on the
| runway because:
|
| "The fuel system of the SR-71 could not be sealed permanently
| because there simply were no sealants that were flexible and
| durable enough to deal with those kind of temperatures and
| shrinking-expansion cycles."
|
| I think that says enough about how bonkers fast that thing is.
|
| [0] https://nodum.org/was-sr-71-blackbird-leaking-fuel/
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| Yeah, heat expansion made it airtight at Mach 3, but sitting
| on a runway with its parts contracted back to normal
| dimensions, it had leaks.
| GartzenDeHaes wrote:
| Not just on the runway. The hangers had big drains in them to
| catch the fuel and anyone unfortunate enough to have to work
| under the plane would get soaked. "Hey, I think the plane is
| leaking" -- me.
| carabiner wrote:
| I've got a lil titanium bowl for camping. Feels like alien
| material, it's so light and feels like you could snap it, but
| then it's incredibly strong. I used it in the oven last night
| to make TikTok feta pasta. No worries on being oven safe as its
| melting temp is 3,000degF.
| canadianfella wrote:
| [dead]
| jacquesm wrote:
| Try working it with regular tools and you'll be even more
| amazed. It's incredible stuff.
| peteradio wrote:
| I'm not sure how to take this comment. Is it unworkable or
| surprisingly workable?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Very much unworkable. I got a chunk of titanium tubing at
| some point of my more metal oriented years and tried to
| do something useful with it, it ate up my tools pretty
| quickly. Typical standing time for a regular HSS bit was
| < 1 hole. Carbide did a bit better, but still that too
| went much faster than usual.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| It's quite well known for being difficult to machine
| generally.
| nickff wrote:
| Titanium is very hard to work with; for instance the
| carbide coatings on many drill-bits can cause it to
| degrade over time. Tooling for production of the
| blackbirds was a challenge in and of itself, as little
| was known about working with titanium at the time.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| The more you cut titanium the harder it gets. It can eat
| even carbide drill / mill tools. Welding it is a
| nightmare.
| carabiner wrote:
| Yeah I used to work in aerospace (defense) and was shown a
| large part, about 3 feet wide, with very complex geometry
| that was machined from a huge solid chunk of titanium. They
| said that one part was worth $1 million, on a vehicle that
| cost total $80m or so. I'm guessing a lot of it was due to
| difficulty in fabrication.
| simlevesque wrote:
| > No worries on being oven safe as its melting temp is
| 3,000degF.
|
| Two things:
|
| - Your bowl is most likely not pure titanium and is probably
| made of an alloy.
|
| - Over 1,200F titanium produces titanium dioxide and may give
| you titanium dioxide poisoning.
| carabiner wrote:
| It's grade 1 unalloyed titanium from Snow Peak:
| https://www.snowpeak.com/blogs/explore/ultralight-
| everything with the lowest oxygen content. Your hazard
| warnings are noted though, and I definitely will keep it at
| lower temps.
|
| I've also got their titanium flask. I had it engraved from
| a random guy on youtube who had experience engraving on Ti,
| because everyone else I contacted (mostly jewelry shops)
| could only anodize it.
| petsfed wrote:
| If there was a way to bend this particular exchange into
| the style of the article, I would. Its definitely in the
| same spirit.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| My oven only goes to 500F. Some go to 550F. Even Ooni's are
| 1000F at most.
|
| What does yours do?
| simlevesque wrote:
| Well most oven won't burn any of your cookware no matter
| the material.
|
| I just wanted to emphasize that there are danger below
| 3,000F.
| antod wrote:
| Our wedding rings are titanium. The engineering geek in me
| loves it for nerdy reasons, and the metal allergies in my
| wife love it for other reasons.
| alsodumb wrote:
| My materials science professor always used ring as an
| example in intro to matse classes of what not to do with
| titanium.
|
| His point was that if you ever get into an accident and the
| first responders have to cut your ring for whatever reason
| (MRI machine, etc.), literally none of their tools would be
| able to do that on a titanium ring. None of the tools in
| hospital would work either. It may not always be feasible
| to pull it out the usual way.
|
| Take it as you will.
| debatem1 wrote:
| Unfortunately, this is an urban legend. While titanium is
| amazing stuff a normal ring cutter can go through it.
| vegasbrianc wrote:
| Can also recommend this book. Good read.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| /second that book, one of the best on US aviation history and
| engineering.
|
| Also iirc, ironically the technique for shaping the F-117 to
| reflect away radar came from a Soviet journal article on
| shaping nosecones to minimize their interference on radar
| emanating from them.
| Loughla wrote:
| What blows my mind is that this aircraft was originally shown,
| formally, in 1964.
|
| 1.9.6.4.
|
| They had this level of engineering in 1964.
|
| Just imagine what shit goes on behind closed doors today. It
| really does sort of stagger you.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| Given how bloated and wasteful our government is today, and
| how much the dept of defense blew on the F-35, I would be
| staggered if anything useful happens behind closed doors,
| besides corruption.
|
| I think we were able to accomplish a lot more in the past.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Powerpoint was created in 1987 and it was all downhill from
| there according to the military.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/04/why-
| the...
| bragr wrote:
| >Given how bloated and wasteful our government is today,
| and how much the dept of defense blew on the F-35
|
| You are listening to the fighter plane mafia too much. F-35
| is a capable platform with a reasonable but large price tag
| for those capabilities. If you want to have a discussion of
| those capabilities, and whether those are needed, that's
| fine, but "big price tag == corruption" isn't a self
| supporting argument.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| > "big price tag == corruption"
|
| The DoD has failed 5 audits in a row. Take that however
| you want.
| nradov wrote:
| The DoD has had screwed up accounting systems for decades
| because Congress never appropriated funding to fix them.
| When the audits started a few years ago there was no
| expectation that they would pass. The goal is to identify
| the problems so that they can gradually be fixed without
| disrupting ongoing operations.
| m348e912 wrote:
| >>F-35 is a capable platform with a reasonable but large
| price tag for those capabilities.
|
| We might have a different understanding of what
| reasonable actually means. I am curious if you are
| willing to share your understanding of how much has been
| spent to-date on the the F-35 program and your thoughts
| on how that price tag may be considered reasonable for
| what was delivered. I'm not being combative, I am
| genuinely curious.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| The majority of the engineers where I live work for, or
| have worked for, defense contractors. I've shut down a
| defense contractor recruiter once a week or more for the
| last several months. It's insanity.
|
| I've been a fly on the wall for so many conversations
| about the stuff they're accustomed to spending money
| on... Fighter plane mafia aside, I have no trouble
| believing that that money is going nowhere useful.
| oatmeal1 wrote:
| F-35 is an awful, awful, awful deal. It's an iteration on
| the F-22 that is expected to cost 1.7 trillion dollars in
| total. An absolutely unimaginable sum of money.
|
| https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-105943
| ranger207 wrote:
| It's $1.7 trillion in 2023 dollars (I think) total costs
| across the entirety of the program until 2070 (not sure
| if the number is "starting today" or "from the start of
| the program in ~1993") for ~2000 planes for the US and
| ~1000 for allies (although I don't think the $1.7
| trillion includes allies). But the question isn't "how
| much does the F-35 cost", it's "how much more/less does
| the F-35 cost compared to whatever else would fulfill its
| place". Would that be modernized F-15s and F-16s? Would
| those be able to fulfill the requirements set by the Air
| Force and indirectly by Congress? Or would there be
| another program instead that might cost even more than
| $1.7 trillion across ~50 years (or 80 if counting from
| the start of the program)?
|
| Also, the F-35 isn't an iteration on the F-22. It's an
| entirely new airplane. It's a bit worse in aerodynamics
| but has far better sensors and electronics, reducing the
| importance of aerodynamics in the first place. In a
| dogfight the F-22 is better; in a realistic engagement
| involving multiple platforms and missions being performed
| at once with air, sea, and land targets and allies, the
| F-35 is better.
|
| The F-35 program was absolutely mismanaged in its early
| years and it's a crime that nothing was done about that.
| There's parts of the program that are mismanaged today
| (see [0] for examples of what the Air Force is trying to
| do to avoid those problems with their next fighter). But
| the program now isn't substantially worse than what other
| fighters went through, and despite all the program's
| failings the product itself is fantastic
|
| [0] https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-
| zone/avoiding-f-35-acquisit...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > F-35 is an awful, awful, awful deal. It's an iteration
| on the F-22
|
| No, its not. While the program was initiated after the
| program that built the F-22 its a complement with a
| different set of niches, not an iteration on the -22.
| Loosely, the F-22 was the successor to the Air Force's
| F-15s, and the F-35A, F-35B, and F-35C, was the successor
| to...every other contemporary fighter and fixed wing
| attack aircraft in the US Air Force, Navy, and Marine
| Corps inventory.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I've seen the video of Brian telling this story.
|
| This is a master class in story-telling. It's the polar opposite
| of "keep it simple, get to the point, etc. etc."
|
| He's got you in the palm of his hand, and he's going to keep you
| there as long as he wants to.
| [deleted]
| alberth wrote:
| Two things:
|
| 1. The HN link should be to the actual video of the retired pilot
| telling the story firsthand. That's below
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AyHH9G9et0
|
| 2. Most former SR-71 pilots consider the story not true, but it's
| a fun story to hear nonetheless.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/xis19w/reddits_be...
| moron4hire wrote:
| The story mentions:
|
| "There he was, with no really good view of the incredible
| sights before us, tasked with monitoring four different radios.
| This was good practice for him for when we began flying real
| missions, when a priority transmission from headquarters could
| be vital."
|
| Just because military aircraft don't use the same frequencies
| as commercial aircraft doesn't mean this SR-71 crew on a
| training mission wasn't listening in on commercial air traffic
| frequencies.
| JackFr wrote:
| First the Flaming Hot Cheetos Inventor and now the SR-71
| Speed Check?
|
| What's next? Am I gonna find out that every TED talk is
| basically BS?
| LegitShady wrote:
| Ted Talks peaked in 2013, with "2070 Paradigm Shift", one
| of the best speeches ever in the history of the planet
| earth.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmicRDpS5Gk
|
| Imitated by many, never surpassed. Ted Talks were all
| downhill after this one.
| emmelaich wrote:
| That was fantastic.
|
| In the same vein sorta, Reggie Watts:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdHK_r9RXTc
|
| Especially the first 9 minutes.
| jaggederest wrote:
| > Am I gonna find out that every TED talk is basically BS?
|
| Uh, hi, I have bad news for you about the quality and
| consistency of TED talks...
| moron4hire wrote:
| That's kinda the joke
| michaelteter wrote:
| I never tire of that story.
|
| Growing up in an aviation family, I have heard endless cool
| stories (but few so cool).
|
| One of my favorites was when my grandfather was flying when the
| F15 was in early flight development. The skies were much less
| busy, and there was a bit less formality.
|
| Ground knew who was where, so it asked my grandfather, "would you
| like to see something interesting?" GD agreed, and moments later
| an F15 pulled up alongside him, pointed at an upward angle and
| maintaining what was a slow flight speed for it. The two pilots
| were close enough to exchange waves, and moments later the F15
| rocketed away.
|
| Most likely that day, the F15 was the fastest thing in the air
| for several hundred miles.
| ftxbro wrote:
| they should just put this one on automatic rotation on the hacker
| news front page like the promoted ycombinator startup ads
| camel_gopher wrote:
| Farmer: "Slow?" ATC: "Yes"
|
| Playboy: "Fast?" ATC: "No"
|
| Stick Jockey: "Fast right?" ATC: "Not bad"
|
| Sled Driver: "Oh hai" ATC: "Yup goes to 11"
| mholt wrote:
| Great story.
|
| Brian Shul died just a few days ago. :(
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Shul
| mackeyja92 wrote:
| Oh man, this sucks. Learning about it from your comment. I
| always wanted to go see one of his speeches. I remember seeing
| them on YouTube and they were great. His story is truly
| inspirational. His books are incredible as well. I was gifted
| signed copies of Sled Driver and The Untouchables and I
| honestly treasure them. Guess I'll just have to read them again
| today.
| hinkley wrote:
| The SR-71's actual top speed was classified, and the 'official'
| top speed was faster than anything else in production.
|
| At several points growing up someone would come up with a new
| plane that encroached on the SR-71's speed record. Then a couple
| weeks later there would be an announcement about the SR-71
| setting a new top speed.
|
| I suspect someone in Intelligence had to decide that being
| officially the fastest was important, but exactly how fast being
| a secret made the plane and pilot a little bit safer. So they had
| to nudge the fiction a little bit closer to the truth any time
| there was a pretender. Or, manufacturing improvements nudged the
| maximum safe speed up over time, and they only bothered updating
| the public about this when a dick measuring contest was held in
| their honor. Or maybe both.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| It's like the lawyer attitude during a deposition: provide as
| little info as necessary. Classified by default.
| chipsa wrote:
| That said, we both know the shape of the SR-71, and the
| Compressor Inlet Temperature limit. The shape determines the
| smallest Mach angle that the entire plane fits inside, which
| gives a value for the maximum speed. The CIT limit gives a
| value for the maximum speed, which is roughly the same as the
| Mach angle value, at approximately Mach 3.3. To go faster, the
| plane would have to be skinnier, or the wing tips would poke
| beyond the Mach cone, and the entire tip would generate it's
| own set of shockwaves, which would most likely result in a
| sharp increase in temperature for the part outside the cone
| (which can be read as: the wing tips melt off).
| 542458 wrote:
| This might be a dumb question, but isn't that the maximum
| _sustained_ speed for the plane, and higher speeds would be
| possible for short bursts? (as in, before the wing tips get
| hot enough to melt off)
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| It's just nuts to think about people on Concorde sipping
| champagne at Mach 2.04. I wonder if that's something which
| will be possible again in my lifetime.
| sneak wrote:
| It's likely there will be Starship-based passenger
| transport from point to point on Earth within 10-15 years.
|
| The biggest hurdle will be getting countries to allow an
| ICBM filled with humans to approach their mainland.
| dumpsterlid wrote:
| [dead]
| JustLurking2022 wrote:
| Highly doubt. The Concorde's problem was economics not
| science and a rocket based solution is even less
| economical - even a reusable one.
| kiratp wrote:
| Concorde was profitable. Accidents + 9/11 pullback killed
| it. The major factor against supersonic is actually the
| fact that sonic booms are not allowed over the
| continental United states. Companies like Boom Supersonic
| are focussed on eliminating those.
|
| https://simpleflying.com/did-british-airways-make-a-
| profit-f...
|
| > If British Airways and Air France were looking for more
| profit, these issues would have to be addressed. And that
| was the plan. British and French aerospace divisions were
| looking to create a brand new supersonic aircraft before
| plans to take the Concorde out of service in 2000 were
| realized.
|
| > Of course, that never happened. With a plethora of odds
| stacked against it, the 2000 crash in France, 9/11
| affecting interest, and Airbus scrapping Concorde part
| replacements, the Concorde was shelved before its time.
| thereisnospork wrote:
| For normal people sure, but for VIPs and especially
| military it will happen.
|
| Imagine being able to drop Seal Team Six into Taipei, the
| Red Square, or literally any other piece of earth with a
| ~50ft clearing on ~30 minutes notice? That's a capability
| which is very hard to put a price on.
| vkou wrote:
| I'd like to not imagine a boots-on-the-ground shooting
| war, where you are launching _a craft that is
| indistinguishable from an ICBM_ at a nuclear power 's
| capital.
|
| I'd like anyone at the DOD who _is_ imagining it to
| either be fired or shot, before they drag the rest of us
| into their geno-suicidal fantasies.
| moron4hire wrote:
| * * *
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| My aunt once rode the concord from Paris back home to NYC
| as an indulgence. She ended up sitting next to Jacque
| Cousteau of all people and had a fantastic time. It's one
| of her favorite stories.
|
| I'd check into Reaction Engines, and the concept of
| precooled jet engines in general. The math says they should
| be capable of efficient cruising at speeds up to mach 5.
| The question is if anyone can make the engineering
| practical and affordable. But in terms of pure possibility,
| there's wide open possibilities.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Isn't the temperature on the body surface the big factor
| here? The sr-71 would heat up tremendously and it barely
| had any air pressure to contend with.
| rationalist wrote:
| It's a great story that I loved reading, but I'm skeptical by
| nature:
|
| Has there ever been any other recorded witness to this story?
| Obviously there was at least 3 other pilots and an air traffic
| controller, but I imagine there were more people on frequency at
| the time.
|
| Additionally, can ATC equipment even depict that speed? For
| example, modern U.S. ATC equipment will not indicate the altitude
| of anything above FL600.
|
| I remember there being a reddit comment that had quite a few
| upvotes debunking the story, but I can't remember what their
| reasons were.
| joezydeco wrote:
| I found this on Reddit which matches up. It's another SR-71
| pilot that says the military aircraft wouldn't even be on the
| same radio frequency. But military does transit commercial
| space from time to time so you never know.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/xis19w/reddits_be...
|
| But, then again, doing Mach 2.8 in Class A airspace is kind of
| unrealistic. And noisy.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > But, then again, doing Mach 2.8 in Class A airspace is kind
| of unrealistic.
|
| My understanding is that the SR-71 flies so high (up to
| 90,000 feet) that they can go as fast as they like because
| there's nothing else up that high.
| suzzer99 wrote:
| I wonder how loud a sonic boom from that high is at ground
| level.
| khuey wrote:
| https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS
| -01... suggests that the SR-71 produces a relatively
| small sonic boom at high altitude.
| bumby wrote:
| I was visiting with a friend in the desert when Virgin
| Galactic made it's initial flight into space. I don't
| know how high they were when they passed overhead, but it
| certainly audible and rattled the garage door.
|
| Edit: after a quick search, the VSS Unity is released
| from the carrier at 50k feet. But now I can't recall if
| the boom was on the ascent or on the way back.
| kkylin wrote:
| What I very vaguely remember, from an airshow at Edwards
| AFB commeorating the 50th anniversary of Chuck Yeager's
| 1947 flight in the X-1, is that it is clearly audible,
| but not so window-shakingly loud as when an F-16 went
| supersonic below 10,000 feet (which they weren't supposed
| to) where I live. (The latter happened several years ago
| during Thunderbirds practice.)
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| https://theaviationgeekclub.com/did-you-know-the-
| sr-71-black...
|
| Some of these incidents are probably false or
| exaggerated, but it does seem it produced enough of a
| boom to route away from cities.
| lmm wrote:
| There's a story of an SR-71 nosing around the
| Florida/Bahamas/Cuba area only to get a call from ATC
| asking them to divert due to traffic. At our altitude? So
| the pressure-suited pilots adjust course for a bunch of
| French tourists in their jackets and sundresses go past,
| because the one other plane that flew that high was
| Concorde.
| dboreham wrote:
| Military aviation uses non-military frequencies to
| communicate with ATC, which they do except when operating in
| closed airspace. E.g. ATC is notified by the pilot of each
| aircraft entering the sidewinder low level training route in
| southern CA.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I assume they were in Class E (TFA says "uncontrolled
| airspace" which E is technically _not_ , but a reasonable
| assumption) above Class A.
| rationalist wrote:
| It was a different thread that I remember. Someone posted the
| story as a submission, and one of the top-level comments was
| debunking it. My Google-fu used to be extremely good, back
| when Google was a good search engine, otherwise I would have
| found it by now and posted the link.
|
| I like the effect that the story has had, but I dislike the
| idea that it might have been an exaggeration.
|
| The author of Sled Driver made a lot of appearances/talks,
| but I don't know how much he was paid for them.
|
| -
|
| The author states he doesn't normally monitor the frequencies
| as that was the other person's job, but the one time he does
| monitor, this happens?
|
| Either things like this happen all of the time, in which case
| there would be plenty of people sharing their version of
| these kinds of stories, or the pilot got _extremely_ lucky in
| his timing.
| timerol wrote:
| Later in that thread someone mentions that the SR-71 has 4
| radios (like the story mentioned) 2 UHF, 1 VHF, and 1 HF. So
| despite not being on the same frequency for most
| communications, they were definitely capable of monitoring
| and transmitting on civilian frequencies. A bored radio
| operator on yet another training flight could easily be
| listening into civilian radio traffic.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| Not an SR-71, but a couple of weeks ago I was listening to
| a pilot/amateur radio operator making contacts on the 20m
| band while he flew from Texas to Nevada. I'm assuming their
| radios are a bit more flexible on what frequencies they can
| transmit on.
|
| Edit -- Found him: https://www.qrz.com/db/K4RNN
| mcphage wrote:
| For me this is one of those things that's such a fun story, it
| hardly matter if it's actually true.
| GCA10 wrote:
| Oh, it does matter. I've made a living at times from non-
| fiction storytelling, and if you don't get in the habit of
| sticking to the facts, it's shamefully easy to slide ever
| closer to George Santos territory.
|
| But there's a compromise that will keep us both happy.
| Nothing wrong with having this go into the "legends" category
| -- where it's harmless fun to keep them circulating. Just as
| long as we know that this isn't quite how everything works.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I always assume stories like these are "fish tales" -
| there's a nugget of truth in there somewhere, but with each
| retelling, the story gets more exaggerated.
| jacquesm wrote:
| As a US friend of mine puts it: "Never let the truth get
| in the way of a good story".
| unionemployee wrote:
| Ugh. Aviation before, say, 1990 was amazing. Still necessary to
| do things like ground speed checks, non-radar approaches, VOR to
| VOR, etc. Real pilot sh*t. And lots of the equipment going back
| decades was still flying. An amazing time to be a pilot. Now
| everything is so optimized and dumbed down. I was born too late.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| RIP Brian Shul.
| dang wrote:
| Related. Others?
|
| _The Ground Speed Check - Tales from the Blackbird_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36030304 - May 2023 (1
| comment)
|
| _SR-71 Blackbird 's ground speed check story_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25733807 - Jan 2021 (12
| comments)
|
| _SR-71 Blackbird 'Speed Check'_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18101839 - Sept 2018 (1
| comment)
|
| _SR-71 Blackbird Pilot Trolls Arrogant Fighter Pilot with Ground
| Speed Check_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10902209 -
| Jan 2016 (3 comments)
| jabl wrote:
| Perhaps this is on occasion of
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36028041
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _SR-71 pilot, photographer and storyteller Brian Shul dies
| at 75_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36028041 - May
| 2023 (47 comments)
| teachrdan wrote:
| My favorite version of this story, from u/buryat:
|
| SR-71 speed check
|
| One time we were going fast
|
| a small plane got on the radio and said "how fast am i going"
|
| the tower said "you are going fast"
|
| and then a bigger plane got on the radio and said "haha i think
| i am going faster how fast am i going"
|
| and the tower said "you are going a little faster"
|
| and then a jet fighter was going really fast and talked like a
| really cool guy and said "hey there, I sound like a cool guy,
| tell me how fast I'm going"
|
| and the tower said "you are going very fast" but he sounded
| totally normal
|
| And then I wanted to say something but that was against the
| rules, and then the other guy in my plane said "hey tower, are
| we going fast"
|
| and the tower said "yes you are going like a million fast" and
| then the guy in my plane said "I think it's a million and one
| fast" and then the tower said "lol yeah ur plane is good"
|
| and then I said "did we just become best friends"
|
| and the other guy said "yes"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29373436
| idlewords wrote:
| Have you thought of making an evergreen page for frequently
| reposted stories like this?
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