
SR-71 Blackbird Flight Manual - ibejoeb
http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/manual/
======
aperiodic
This plane never ceases to astound me.

It was so fast the standard evasive maneuver when it was shot at was simply to
increase speed. There was just no missile that could catch it.

During flight, the plane would heat up so much from friction that it would
expand significantly–as a consequence, the plane leaked fuel on the ground,
since the fuel transfer system only fit together right at 600 degrees
Fahrenheit.

Truly a marvel of human ingenuity.

~~~
johnswamps
I've been reading "Skunk Works" (<http://www.amazon.com/dp/0316743003>), which
talks about the development of the SR-71 and other planes (such as the U-2 and
the stealth bomber) at Lockheed's Skunk Works facility. It's a good read. I
think it may have been suggested by another HNer.

~~~
jlangenauer
I read this a few years ago. Quite a few years ago, come to think of it. It
makes you wistful for those time when such a small group of skilled engineers
came together to make incredible, physical things.

What we all do with code doesn't even come close.

~~~
johnswamps
It really puts things into perspective. We get excited when we come up with a
different way to display a form and these guys were building planes that
traveled at Mach 3 at 80,000 feet nearly 50 years ago. The amount of technical
problems you have to solve to get such a plane into the air is simply
staggering. Unbelievable.

------
ehnus
My favorite section is emergency procedures which contains gems like this:

"If both the A and B hydraulic systems fail as indicated by illumination of
the A HYD and B HYD warning lights and confirmed by loss of A and B hydraulic
pressure and deteriorating control effectiveness:

1\. Eject"

------
jacquesm
Hm, frustration, none of the pages work for me, they come up with a blank
image.

~~~
timcederman
It uses PHP to serve the images from a database - e.g.
[http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/manual/3/display.php?file=3-8...](http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/manual/3/display.php?file=3-8.png).
Going to the image manually shows this:

 _The Database Must Be Down._

------
SpacemanSpiff
WARNING: This discovery cost me about 3 days of productivity a couple of years
ago ;)

------
UnknownSource
Saw this the other week (I think its been posted to hacker news before). It's
actually surprisingly easy to understand, even for private barely-trained
pilot's.

~~~
rosser
I'm sure I wasn't the first to see it, but I posted it last Thursday. I'm not
surprised it didn't get any traction, though; the Dow was busy eating its own
head around the same time.

~~~
ibejoeb
I'm pretty sure there's a section in here about nose-dives...

------
watmough
Caught part of a MILT channel show from 2002 about the SR-71 / Lockheed
Skunkworks.

One thing I hadn't seen before was this... an unmanned drone, launched from
the back of an SR-71, at Mach 2. What a country!

<http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/d-21.php>

------
justlearning
you should watch James May(top gear)as he goes to the edge of space in one of
these: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6cZLfK4Zjk>

~~~
pmjoyce
That's a U-2, not an SR-71

~~~
justlearning
thank you for correcting. I thought they were from the same 'family'. too late
to delete my comment.

~~~
herdrick
Both come from Lockheed's 'Skunk Works' and they applied a lot of what they
learned on the U2 to the SR71, so you're not so far off.

------
Gambit89
I'll just leave this link here...

[http://gizmodo.com/5511236/the-thrill-of-flying-the-
sr+71-bl...](http://gizmodo.com/5511236/the-thrill-of-flying-the-
sr+71-blackbird)

~~~
evgen
A better excerpt of the "king of speed" story from Sled Driver stuffed into
the middle of that article is here:

[http://groups.google.com/group/rec.aviation.stories/browse_t...](http://groups.google.com/group/rec.aviation.stories/browse_thread/thread/b9e23a24a784a26a)

------
harshpotatoes
Now I really want to watch The Right Stuff again.

~~~
mos1
It's on Netflix streaming. I'd say you owe me 3 hours, but I liked it.

------
schwit
I take it the parts that remain classified contain the max speed and altitude?

------
ibejoeb
Hoping to find a model for X-Plane to try this out on...

~~~
jrockway
X-Plane comes with the SR-71 by default.

