
Behind the stick of the SR-71 - canistr
http://www.sbnation.com/2014/3/7/5447310/sr-71-blackbird-pilot-interview
======
haberman
> There was a titanium bulkhead between you and the backseat. [...] Literally,
> a wall.

This is what makes the famous "speed check" story about the SR-71 so effective
([http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/favorite-
sr-71-story-107912...](http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/favorite-
sr-71-story-1079127041)).

There is no eye contact or body language possible between the pilot and the
communicator in the SR-71. What makes that story so perfect is not just the
speed aspect, not just the smugness of the other planes, but the interpersonal
relationship between the pilot and his crew member. It's just perfect story-
telling.

~~~
jrockway
Perhaps equally exciting is that the inertial navigation system on the SR-71
is calibrated by looking through a telescope at stars in broad daylight.
Apparently quite simple, but still cool.

~~~
jjoonathan
It's the same way with ICBMs. Once they've gone ballistic they look up at the
stars to get their bearings. Then they switch to their gyroscope to guide
themselves in. It makes sense, in a chilling way: you can't rely on radio
signals like GPS, because in a nuclear exchange your satellites are likely to
be destroyed or jammed. You can't rely on surface features because in a
nuclear apocalypse those might be changing too. The only things that can be
trusted to work are the gyroscope and the stars. And the payload.

(In case you're wondering, I know this because I was wiki-ing around after my
iphone's accelerometer went nuts to figure out how state-of-the-art gyroscopes
worked. Turns out that there's a special type of gyroscope, the Ring Laser
Gyroscope, which uses relativity and interference patterns to achieve ~0
drift. RLGs were developed for ICBMs.)

~~~
lambdaphage
It is a dreadful poesy to think that the last stargazer from this planet might
have been a robotic rocket, looking up once at the fixed stars for all of
humanity before ending it.

~~~
nikhizzle
Deeply poignant

------
cobrausn
I'll be honest, I'm kind of enjoying 'Aviation Week' here on HN. This is the
kind of stuff that got me interested in math and science to begin with. Too
bad my vision is so awful.

~~~
to3m
I think it's more like War Machinery Porn Week, really. Never really felt
fully comfortable about this stuff myself. But for whatever burred tooth in
the cogs of fate got us here, we'd be reading of (and marvelling at) the
derring-do of people history has taught us to despise.

Nevertheless, here we are. And here, most importantly, at least from my
perspective, I am. And - or perhaps, "and so" \- I enjoyed this one.

~~~
mpyne
It's really important to separate the tools from the intent IMHO.

Just as one can use a butcher knife for its intended purpose or use it to
kill, it's possible to design military equipment to "kill people and break
things" without necessarily meaning to wage aggressive warfare.

It's true that the military tools _are_ often misused, but that wouldn't
change in the real world by simply not having them; pacifist countries are
sheep in a field full of wolves.

Just look at Ukraine, and then compare to nations that e.g. gave up nuclear
weapons and then suffered "regime change". The list includes Libya, parts of
Ukraine, and effectively Iraq (who were _very_ close to a nuke circa 1991).
There's a reason Iran and North Korea want the bomb, and that reason is
because the _deterrent_ value is real, not imagined.

Rather it's the same as an underlying principle behind the Second Amendment
push (no one cares for my defense more than I care for my defense), scaled up
to the geopolitical level.

So just as I think it's possible to appreciate the craftsmanship and design
that goes into a well-made katana even if you don't intend to run the sword
through someone's guts, I think it's possible to appreciate at a technical
level some of the technology used in military gear without feeling like it
means you support war. ;)

~~~
dredmorbius
_It 's really important to separate the tools from the intent IMHO._

First thing I'll say: I'm not sure I've reached a conclusion regarding that
statement or not.

But I've been leaning rather more strongly to the idea that things can be
classified as beneficial vs. otherwise. Though sometimes counterintuitively.

One of the more interesting hypotheticals I've run across recently is the
Paperclip Maximizer example:
[http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer)

 _The paperclip maximizer is the canonical thought experiment showing how an
artificial general intelligence, even one designed competently and without
malice, could ultimately destroy humanity. The thought experiment assumes an
AI stable structure of goals or values, and shows that AIs with apparently
innocuous values could pose an existential threat._

The idea: _any_ simple-minded optimization behavior which doesn't take into
consideration human values can, taken to the logical extreme, prove hazardous.

It was posted to HN a few years ago, though it didn't trigger much discussion
at the time:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1747413](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1747413)

~~~
mpyne
It's a great thought experiment. I think I even read it when it came across
HN. But it seems to me to be an argument about _why_ we keep humans "in the
loop", as it were, and less about what tools you give the humans.

It does open some questions about how "innovative" one might want to be when
developing a weapon, even for defensive uses.

It's sort of unfortunate that nuclear physics made the gains it did, _when_ it
did, as a big part of the reason the U.S. ended up making the big push for the
bomb, at a time when they needed all the resources they could get put into
things like logistics for shipping materiel, was because of the fear that
Germany might get it first. I.e., " _if_ someone will get the bomb, we'd
better do it better they do".

I suppose the Cold War would have ensured proliferation one way or another,
but WWII certainly did not help the cause of non-proliferation.

But either way, war or defense (whatever you call it) can _never_ be a simple-
minded optimized anything. It is almost the very highest level of human
holistic competition. So I'm not worried about the technology (as long as we
don't make it self-aware, of course), I'm worried about the people.

~~~
quahaug
Especially considering that human beings can, very easily, become totally
divorced from healthy, " _normal_ " human values.

It's not enough to merely keep humans in the picture, but to keep healthy,
undamaged humans in the picture.

Let's say, perhaps, that after a particularly costly war, the only humans left
are a mixture of mentally unstable, angry, ambitious, victory-driven amputees,
with intense biases imbued upon them by surviving particularly horrific and
violent combat. These people, in a warped attempt to say "never again",
optimize an artificially intelligent, fully automated child-rearing skinner
box [1] to mold children into their own image, as the natural and perfect
outcome which produces a society averse to violent warfare. The result is that
every child that emerges from the skinner box is an angry, warped sociopath,
missing limbs, who rationalizes even trivial behavior with an arbitrary moral
high ground of extreme polar ideology.

But wait... aren't humans... technically classifiable as self-assembling
intelligent constructs, spewed forth from the bald nothingness of space and
time by mere coincidence? What if _WE_ are the beast we fear?

Oh... oh god.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner)

~~~
dredmorbius
Organizational behavior and group decisionmaking is among the more fascinating
fields I've encountered.

------
melling
The world's fastest plane was built before we landed on the moon. We're
spoiled in tech by Moore's Law but the difficultly in making advances in
commercial and military aviation is disappointing. In the 1970's everyone
probably though NY to London in 2 hours was a given by now.

Here's a great book to read about the SR-71.

[http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-
Lockheed/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-
Lockheed/dp/0316743003)

~~~
toomuchtodo
> In the 1970's everyone probably though NY to London in 2 hours was a given
> by now.

[https://medium.com/lift-and-drag/7885a299bca2](https://medium.com/lift-and-
drag/7885a299bca2)

~~~
Sambdala
To be fair, a lot of the "We're too cheap to fly >Mach 1" comes down to the
fact that door-to-door travel time doesn't really come down commensurate with
the increased costs of faster-than-sound travel.

When the airport is outside town, and you have to arrive 1.5 hours before the
flight takes off, taking even a large % of the flight time off doesn't make a
significant dent in total travel time.

~~~
venomsnake
I think that for any travel there is some critical time when it doesn't matter
how long it is as long it is < 24h and more than a long commute. You are
wasting a whole day for that leg of the trip anyway no matter if the flight is
4 or 10 hours. So why waste money.

~~~
ghaff
It makes some difference but I agree with your basic point. Especially as you
have to add 2 hours or so buffer for check-in, security, etc.--especially for
an international flight.

And if you're looking for more generalized "reduced pain of travel," the
reality is that really comfortable seating arrangements and decent food/drink
can be delivered on a sub-sonic widebody for a lot less $$ than it would cost
you to travel the route on a hypothetical supersonic passenger jet.

Transpacific is probably where the difference would matter the most, assuming
the supersonic jet had that kind of range (which is sort of doubtful). But
it's worth noting that, even with today's jets, some really long haul routes
that would significantly cut travel time for some don't make economic sense
and have been eliminated (e.g. New York-Singapore).

------
jpmattia
Not mentioned in the story (or comments yet): You can see the SR-71 at the
Smithsonian out by Dulles Airport, along with a shuttle and a huge array of
other hardware. Very cool if you're into that sort of thing.

[http://airandspace.si.edu/visit/udvar-hazy-
center/](http://airandspace.si.edu/visit/udvar-hazy-center/)

~~~
mercurial
I remember seeing one at the Paris flight show when I was a kid. It looked
like nothing else. You'd think it was a fighter jet, except it's so massive
and streamlined, it's more like a misplaced, oversized prop from a sci-fi
flick. Absolutely amazing aircraft. Anybody has a list of other "odd" planes?
I know about the giant Soviet plane, the Kalinin K-7 [1], though while being
"special" it's not particularly elegant and never went beyond the prototype
stage.

1:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalinin_K-7](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalinin_K-7)

~~~
rangibaby
The "Capsian Sea Monster" certainly counts as odd:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lun-
class_ekranoplan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lun-class_ekranoplan)

~~~
mercurial
Definitely odd. Looks like Russian designers had a weakness for unwieldy,
large "planes".

------
amiramir
Obligatory great SR-71 story: [http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/favorite-
sr-71-story-107912...](http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/favorite-
sr-71-story-1079127041)

~~~
toomuchtodo
Had a feeling it was ground speed check. My favorite story.

------
kposehn
If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend reading Ben Rich's
autobiography Skunk Works. Very good book, and a ton more information about
their projects with some great pilot excerpts.

My favorite is the SR-71 that had to cut across France, was intercepted by a
Mirage fighter and then left it behind in seconds :D

------
lisper
There's a link to the SR-71 manual, where I found this gem, in the takeoff
section:

"The tires may skid with the brakes on at high engine thrust."

That is not a problem you have to deal with when flying a Cessna 172.

~~~
einhverfr
They had some other interesting problems. The big one was that the chines
allowed very high angle of attack turns. The result was that you could
actually stall your engines without stalling the plane (the engine inputs
would blank and you'd lose compression).

That's not a problem you'd have with other planes either because usually the
wings would stall first. This is a problem because you don't get an
aerodynamic sense of being near the danger zone when things go haywire.

------
gokhan
It's again this time of the year on HN where avalanche of aviation stories
eventually leads to the great SR-71 articles. I love it.

------
anfedorov
Related:
[http://www.econrates.com/reality/schul.html](http://www.econrates.com/reality/schul.html)

------
djyaz1200
"Skunk Works" by Ben R Rich is a great book about the Lockheed guys and the
SR-71 + F117. They were basically running a startup at Lockheed.

------
anigbrowl
I don't know why this is on a sports website, but it's great stuff all the
same.

~~~
odacrem
because, awesome

------
bane
From
[http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/vetscor/1981814/posts?page...](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/vetscor/1981814/posts?page=1)

"The plane was flying a mile every 1.6 seconds, well above our Mach 3.2
limit."

So asked Wolfram about this

[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+mile+per+1.6+seconds...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+mile+per+1.6+seconds+in+miles+per+hour)

2250 mph (3629 kph)

Mach 2.956 at Sea level (340.3 m/s)

I couldn't figure out the magic English sentence that would get it to
calculate the Mach at different altitudes.

~~~
snogglethorpe
[http://www.fighter-planes.com/jetmach1.htm](http://www.fighter-
planes.com/jetmach1.htm)

According to that page, at 60,000 feet the speed of sound is 1062 km/h, making
3629 km/h approximately mach 3.4.

------
Scuds
Got to see one of these in person along with the engines and external starter
engines at Seattle's Museum of Flight.

UNREAL especially for 1960 era technology.

~~~
wiredfool
The Blackbird there is an M-21, which has a pylon on the top for launching
drones. Though, they do have the cockpit of an SR71 that went off the end of a
runway and was totalled.

There's also a Blackbird at Dulles, in the Udvar Hazy Air and Space annex.
That one's an SR71.

The concordes are amazing too. They look sooo spindly, until you're right up
close to those engines. (and hmm, both museums have concordes too. But the
Seattle one lets you walk through the inside.)

~~~
lotharbot
> _" the Seattle one lets you walk through the inside"_

As long as the weather is nice enough. We had to close down if there was
either a threat to safety (lightning, ice on the stairs) or a lot of moisture
getting inside the aircraft.

As a bonus, you can also walk through Eisenhower's Air Force One aircraft and
see a lot of other cool stuff. Apparently in the summer they even open the 747
prototype, one of the 727s, and the Super Connie:
[http://www.museumofflight.org/airpark](http://www.museumofflight.org/airpark)

(I used to work in the museum, and later volunteered to monitor those two
aircraft. Never got to see inside the 747 though.)

------
dba7dba
Interesting quotes from the article

> You'd fly the T-38 every day (for proficiency sake).

> As we took off from there and came back around for a pass, the right engine
> exploded. We had to dump gas, and set about thirteen acres of Maryland on
> fire as we did that. That was kind of interesting, just spewing flaming fuel
> and titanium pieces around.

------
kayoone
Pretty amazing. Here is another SR-71 story that broke up mid-flight at Mach
>3:
[http://www.barthworks.com/aviation/sr71breakup.htm](http://www.barthworks.com/aviation/sr71breakup.htm)

~~~
dba7dba
Thanks for the article. Quotes from it.

> The SR-71 had a turning radius of about 100 mi. at that speed (above Mach 3)
> and altitude.

Also, during his 1st flight after the accident, Eject light went on in the
back seat due to electrical issue. Because the backseater cannot see front
seat, the backseater momentarily thought the pilot ejected without telling
him...

------
zibit
Check out this list of 14 Rules of Management by Kelly Johnson. It was true
back then for building fighter jets and it's true now for basic software
development projects:

"Johnson's famed "down-to-brass-tacks" management style was summed up by his
motto, "Be quick, be quiet, and be on time." He ran Skunk Works by "Kelly's 14
Rules":

The Skunk Works manager must be delegated practically complete control of his
program in all aspects. He should report to a division president or higher.

Strong but small project offices must be provided both by the military and
industry.

The number of people having any connection with the project must be restricted
in an almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good people (10% to 25%
compared to the so-called normal systems).

A very simple drawing and drawing release system with great flexibility for
making changes must be provided.

There must be a minimum number of reports required, but important work must be
recorded thoroughly.

There must be a monthly cost review covering not only what has been spent and
committed but also projected costs to the conclusion of the program. Don't
have the books 90 days late, and don't surprise the customer with sudden
overruns.

The contractor must be delegated and must assume more than normal
responsibility to get good vendor bids for subcontract on the project.
Commercial bid procedures are very often better than military ones.

The inspection system as currently used by the Skunk Works, which has been
approved by both the Air Force and Navy, meets the intent of existing military
requirements and should be used on new projects. Push more basic inspection
responsibility back to subcontractors and vendors. Don't duplicate so much
inspection.

The contractor must be delegated the authority to test his final product in
flight. He can and must test it in the initial stages. If he doesn't, he
rapidly loses his competency to design other vehicles.

The specifications applying to the hardware must be agreed to well in advance
of contracting. The Skunk Works practice of having a specification section
stating clearly which important military specification items will not
knowingly be complied with and reasons therefore is highly recommended.

Funding a program must be timely so that the contractor doesn't have to keep
running to the bank to support government projects.

There must be mutual trust between the military project organization and the
contractor with very close cooperation and liaison on a day-to-day basis. This
cuts down misunderstanding and correspondence to an absolute minimum.

Access by outsiders to the project and its personnel must be strictly
controlled by appropriate security measures.

Because only a few people will be used in engineering and most other areas,
ways must be provided to reward good performance by pay not based on the
number of personnel supervised."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Johnson_(engineer)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Johnson_\(engineer\))

~~~
zandor
_Note that Kelly had a 15th rule that he passed on by word of mouth. According
to the book "Skunk Works" the 15th rule is: "Starve before doing business with
the damned Navy. They don't know what the hell they want and will drive you up
a wall before they break either your heart or a more exposed part of your
anatomy._

------
NAFV_P
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_XB-70_Valkyrie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_XB-70_Valkyrie)

------
HillOBeans
Got one of these good 'ole birds in the Museum next to Robins AFB in Georgia.
They also have the start carts, and even have an engine pulled so you can see
the six bypass ducts. They have recently mounted the plane on a stand so it
looks like it has just left the runway, headed for the stratosphere....

------
dbarlett
If you liked this, you'll love _Flying the SR-71 Blackbird: In the Cockpit on
a Secret Operational Mission_ [http://www.amazon.com/Flying-SR-71-Blackbird-
Cockpit-Operati...](http://www.amazon.com/Flying-SR-71-Blackbird-Cockpit-
Operational/dp/0760332398/)

------
curiousDog
This is what sometimes makes me wonder if the US Air Force came into contact
with alien technology ;). Imagine going to this in just 60 yrs of flight being
invented. Incredible, inspiring engineering.

------
Schweigi
Interesting interview with a former SR-71 pilot:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeBu6mRDaro](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeBu6mRDaro)

------
kyberias
What's with this aviation / war topics week on HN?

------
z3phyr
Pilots were wearing HEV suit!

------
naturalethic
"You would get a couple of sunsets and sunrises, because at those northern
latitudes often you would see day to night, and then a terminator line..."

Eh, this would only happen if they were adjusting their vector in like a wave,
or their speed, right? It's not like they are shooting around the planet.

And he says England to Russia, so not following the sun. What is he talking
about?

 __edit: reading further i 'm having a real hard time believing this shit.

