
Finding a D21 drone in an aircraft graveyard - sgt101
https://theaviationist.com/2018/06/08/the-time-i-found-a-formerly-top-secret-d-21-supersonic-drone-in-the-arizona-desert/
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NKosmatos
Anything related to SR-71 is amazing, especially this D21 drone that rode on
top of a modified blackbird at Mach 3!!!

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dingaling
I'm a bit confused by this story. He says he found it 'abandoned' in the
backlot of some AZ aircraft graveyard in 2009, but it was actually loaned to
the Pima Air Museum in ... 1993.

[https://flic.kr/p/nHrFJm](https://flic.kr/p/nHrFJm)

It was on their lot, it just wasn't on display at that time. Probably because
there were already eight others ( plus some wrecakge ) on display around the
USA... Despite its secrecy it's not a rarity.

Also the serial he states is incorrect, 90-0533 is a USAF C-17A transport; the
90 indicates the Fiscal Year in which the procurement was authorised. That
D-21's serial was just a non-standard 533. Like a lot of the A-12 / SR project
things weren't always booked and accounted like they should have been.

~~~
ThenAsNow
There's also a D-21 out for all to see at Blackbird Air Park in Palmdale
(which has plenty of other awesome stuff as well, such as an A-12/SR-71 -
don't remember which airframe - wind tunnel model).

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flohofwoe
Is this a similar concept as the cancelled Soviet Lavochkin La-350 ramjet
cruise missile design of the 50's, which was based on ideas of a German Dr.
Wolf Trommsdorf (who was working for the Russians after the WW2)?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burya)

edit: a bit more info (German only, sorry)
[http://www.fliegerrevuex.aero/mach-35-interkontinentalflugko...](http://www.fliegerrevuex.aero/mach-35-interkontinentalflugkoerper-
der-luftwaffe-1944/)

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villson
There's a well preserved one mounted on the M-21 at the Museum of Flight in
Seattle.

[http://www.museumofflight.org/aircraft/lockheed-d-21b-drone](http://www.museumofflight.org/aircraft/lockheed-d-21b-drone)

It seems the drone had been moved to that back lot at some point. The last
time I was at Pima that drone was in a hanger with other unmanned aircraft.

