
SR-71 In-Flight Breakup - kayoone
http://www.barthworks.com/aviation/sr71breakup.htm
======
danbee
Seeing as there have been a couple of SR-71 stories on Hacker News right now I
thought I'd share my favourite: [http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/favorite-
sr-71-story-107912...](http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/favorite-
sr-71-story-1079127041)

~~~
protomyth
Love that one, here is my other favorite
[http://www.vfp62.com/SR-71_flyby.html](http://www.vfp62.com/SR-71_flyby.html)
about the SR-71 going a bit too slow

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ghshephard
I wonder if kayoone realizes he submitted the same story about seven months
ago. Ironically, I recall reading the story as well on HN when it was
submitted yet another time here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4652643](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4652643).

Must be something about this story, or perhaps the SR-71, that grabs our
attention.

~~~
kayoone
I know, but as nobody looked at it back then and i think it is relevant again
this week i just posted it a second time. Its a really interesting read, so i
hope people dont mind.

~~~
el_benhameen
I for one have read this story before, and I'll happily continue to re-read it
every time I run into it. Exciting and interesting, with plenty of neat
details (100-mile turning radius?!). Thanks for posting it.

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BrentOzar
Because Barthworks is pretty much down due to load, here's another version of
the pilot's story on Jalopnik:

[http://jalopnik.com/5951233/this-is-the-man-who-made-the-
fir...](http://jalopnik.com/5951233/this-is-the-man-who-made-the-first-
supersonic-parachute-jump-just-not-on-purpose)

tl;dr - the plane disintegrated around him before he had the chance to eject,
and he floated to the ground thanks to his parachute. Copilot, not so lucky.

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wldlyinaccurate
Is it just me or does HN appear to have had an influx of aviation enthusiasts?

~~~
mschuster91
Certainly something different than the daily "my framework foobar is the next
successor to angular"-kind of posts. I'm actually happy for a bit of... rather
unusual content.

As for the article: it's a pity. The US could fly to the moon with less
computer power than a dumbphone, put people in things like the SR71 (how did
they actually put enough processing power for all the flight computers in a
plane back then?!)... and now?

Space Shuttle's been retired, no near-time replacement. No SR71 (or anything
that can be seen as a replacement), and stupid Republican teabaggers caring
more about their pockets instead of the population. Seriously, America what's
wrong with you?

We Germans needed the Marshall plan after WW2, maybe it's needed the other way
round this time...

~~~
michaelfeathers
Oddly, I think it's a side effect of the way that technology works. When we
humans want to do something we find a way and usually it is extreme and
capital intensive. Afterward, we find more economical and less extreme ways of
doing it.

The Colosseum in Rome still exists because the only way to do it was to do it
in stone and stone lasts forever. Since then we've built millions of arenas
that won't last as long because we've used economic forces to develop just-
good-enough structure. Likewise, the SR-71 has been replaced by the just-good-
enough surveillance satellite.

There's another aspect too. Sometimes we do things just to see that we can.
Going to the moon is in that category. If there was a compelling reason to go
back we would've. The Concorde, one could argue, was in the same category - we
had to have the thrill of taking commercial flight into the supersonic realm,
but we found that they economics were such that the thrill of going supersonic
and getting there a few hours earlier were not enough to support a market.

~~~
jordanb
The SR-71 was a hack, where the goal was to use 1960s technology to make an
areal camera platform that could photograph targets protected by SAMs.

The original design brief was that it should be a stealth U2, but as the
A-12/SR-71 project developed it became clear that that wasn't possible with
the technology of the time, but that they could make a platform that flew so
fast the SAMs wouldn't have time to lock, launch, and intercept.

There were suborbital spy satellites available before the A-12 even flew:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_%28satellite%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_%28satellite%29)

The problem was that the cost of the keyhole program was incredible, you
needed a whole launch platform plus a whole recovery mission every time you
wanted to take a picture. So the SR-71 was a cost-saving measure versus
Keyhole.

Currently the us military can get the information that the SR-71 could provide
more easily and with less danger and cost.

~~~
michaelfeathers
Saw this about a planned successor called the SR-72. I wonder whether it is a
serious project?

[http://theaviationist.com/2013/11/01/sr-72-unveiled/](http://theaviationist.com/2013/11/01/sr-72-unveiled/)

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gnoway
Is anyone here familiar with how flight testing is actually performed?

One thing I wonder about after reading this is why, if they were able to
recreate the entire flight profile in a simulator _the next day_ and see the
same result, would they not just test everything in the simulator first?

~~~
skj
Because testing every sequence would take exponential time relative to the
length of the sequence.

For the post-accident simulation, they say "ok since we know we are in this
modification of the SR-71, in this phase of the flight, and this accident
happens, and this backup fails... ok yeah it looks like that's pretty bad.

~~~
gnoway
I misunderstood the article I guess. I thought they knew specifically what
they were testing, i.e. 'we have altered the airplane _this way_ and we will
now do _these things_.' After the failure, they were able to essentially
reconfigure the simulator to match the test parameters, rerun the test and
observe the same failure in simulation.

~~~
skj
The failure was not inevitable. Two things happened to go wrong at the same
terrible time.

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rhizome
You guys ever heard of this "A-10" plane? S'posed to be pretty cool.

~~~
ipsin
My favorite plane is the [A-Z]+\\-[0-9]+

~~~
ape4
Ah yeah the AJHHUDHAHDUDHUWHDUHUDHWD-9935935888

~~~
staticfish
It's too early on a Saturday morning for RegEx jokes :-)

~~~
ape4
You are right. I got no points in the morning, afternoon, but lots in the
evening.

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NAFV_P
> _The SR-71 had a turning radius of about 100 mi. at that speed and altitude,
> so I wasn 't even sure what state we were going to land in._

I wouldn't have guessed the Blackbird has better handling than the modern Ford
GT40.

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doug1001
amazing--"Touching the Void" for the aviation world.

"[E]xtracting myself from the parachute harness, I discovered the source of
those flapping-strap noises heard on the way down. My seat belt and shoulder
harness were still draped around me, attached and latched."

in the blockbuster film adaptation of this account, (starring Keanu Reeves)
the pilot is still holding the stick when his parachute brings him to the
ground.

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jraines
"I just feel like we're moving too fast"

