
When His SR-71 Blackbird Disintegrated, This Pilot Free Fell from Space - dfsegoat
http://www.chuckyeager.org/news/sr-71-disintegrated-pilot-free-fell-space-lived-tell/
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CodeWriter23
Link via the Wayback
[http://web.archive.org/web/20190406205046/http://www.chuckye...](http://web.archive.org/web/20190406205046/http://www.chuckyeager.org/news/sr-71-disintegrated-
pilot-free-fell-space-lived-tell/)

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js2
At least he didn’t get caught in a thunderstorm like William Rankin.

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

[https://www.damninteresting.com/rider-on-the-
storm/](https://www.damninteresting.com/rider-on-the-storm/)

~~~
DarthGhandi
> was the only known person to survive a fall from the top of a cumulonimbus
> thunderstorm cloud.

Perhaps that's technically correct but Ewa Wiśnierska rose from ground level
to 10km to the top of a cumulonimbus thunderstorm and came down 4 hours later
60km away. It's an amazing story.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewa_Wi%C5%9Bnierska](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewa_Wi%C5%9Bnierska)

[https://www.theage.com.au/national/after-flying-to-the-
heave...](https://www.theage.com.au/national/after-flying-to-the-heavens-
worlds-luckiest-woman-thanks-the-angels-20070217-ge48ts.html)

~~~
NetOpWibby
That was a fascinating read, thank you.

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ta1234567890
> The next day, our flight profile was duplicated on the SR-71 flight
> simulator at Beale AFB, Calif. The outcome was identical. Steps were
> immediately taken to prevent a recurrence of our accident.

Wow! Super impressive that they could simulate that. Didn't know that was
possible, especially in 1966.

Is there any current simulation software (available to the public / off the
shelf) in which you could accurately simulate something like the situation
from the story?

~~~
zarriak
I'm going to have to guess that CFD simulation above mach 1 that is good is
probably not something that is publicly available but from reading RUAG's
website they use open source software[1]. From my experience with CFD in F1
the main issue you have with CFD is correlation but maybe driving a car around
a track is harder to simulate than going really fast in "clean" air.

This reason is what leads me to think that it is a major issue and is why both
China and the United States started going into mach 5+ with autonomous craft
to gather data for correlation.

[1]: [https://aerodynamics.ruag.com/en/aerodynamics/simulation-
ana...](https://aerodynamics.ruag.com/en/aerodynamics/simulation-analysis)

~~~
selestify
What is correlation?

~~~
fhars
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_and_dependence](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_and_dependence)

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sabalaba
I’m not sure if this is the same person but it sounds about right. The cowboy-
pilot whose ranch he landed on died about 20 years later in a plane crash:

[https://oklahoman.com/article/2151107/cowboy-hall-figure-
die...](https://oklahoman.com/article/2151107/cowboy-hall-figure-dies)

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dtjohnnymonkey
In college I had to take traffic school where I sat next to an SR-71 pilot. He
was there for a speeding citation.

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dxbydt
from the horse's mouth:
[https://twitter.com/genchuckyeager/status/111284127532415795...](https://twitter.com/genchuckyeager/status/1112841275324157952)

Aside: Incidentally I just drove to campus on Yeager Road ! 25 astronauts
graduated from Purdue including Neil Armstrong. Yeager flew with Armstrong (
[https://twitter.com/genchuckyeager/status/987529421618794496](https://twitter.com/genchuckyeager/status/987529421618794496)
) & felt rather strongly about Armstrong's portrayal by Gosling in First Man (
[https://twitter.com/genchuckyeager/status/103555534785798144...](https://twitter.com/genchuckyeager/status/1035555347857981440)
) Space is huge here at Purdue...yesterday was Space day with over 1000+ kids
packed into Neil Armstrong hall making rockets & stuff.

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catalogia
Tangentially related, the Space Shuttle Columbia was outfitted with modified
SR-71 ejection seats for the first few flights.

~~~
phs318u
Really? Did not know this. Any info as to why they stopped doing that?

~~~
beerandt
Think of the situation that puts the commander and pilot in- they're the ones
flying the shuttle; no one else can eject.

If they eject, they are essentially abandoning the rest of the crew to die.
It's the antithesis of the captain going down with his ship.

Initial unpowered glide tests were the only flights where ejection was even
likely survivable, and this was the reason the seats were ever installed in
the first place. (Only on the first two orbiters.) Any other use was an
extreme long shot.

Of course _all_ the abort modes ended up being fairly convoluted and
unsurvivable to some extent, except abort to orbit.

The "contingency" aborts were especially absurd, which depended on burning off
most of the remaining fuel (which would take longer, given it would likely be
used in the event of an engine failure), then orienting the shuttle into a
position where the crew could attempt a midair bail out. Think about that.

RTLS was a close second, for single SSME loss in the first 4 minutes. It was a
25 minute (!) abort process that involved building up enough speed and
altitude so that the shuttle could be flipped around and "put in reverse" to
return to the launch site. This involved a certain amount of time at near zero
horizontal velocity, so the altitude was needed to permit some time of "free
fall" while reversing direction. It also put the orbiter well outside of it's
survivable stress envelope, and subjected the crew to extreme g-forces. It was
highly questionable that even a perfectly functioning shuttle could have
executed the abort, let alone a malfunctioning one.

>Astronaut Mike Mullane referred to the RTLS abort as an "unnatural act of
physics"

>John Young:"RTLS requires continuous miracles interspersed with acts of God
to be successful"

These were abort modes that were considered survivable. There were another set
of scenarios that were considered not survivable: LOCV for Loss of Crew and
Vehicle.

It was this level of absurdity that led to the NASA culture of basically
ignoring some cherry-picked risks, ultimately leading to Challenger and
Columbia.

[https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/shutref/sts/a...](https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/shutref/sts/aborts/rtls.html)

[http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/pdf/383441main_contingen...](http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/pdf/383441main_contingency_aborts_21007_31007.pdf)

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

~~~
jabl
> Think of the situation that puts the commander and pilot in- they're the
> ones flying the shuttle; no one else can eject.

> If they eject, they are essentially abandoning the rest of the crew to die.
> It's the antithesis of the captain going down with his ship.

The Avro Vulcan bomber used by the RAF during the cold war had ejection seats
for the pilot and co-pilot, and the 3 other crewmen had just parachutes. There
were several accidents where the pilots managed to eject successfully but all
the other crewmen were killed.

~~~
beerandt
Interesting...

That's also a _little_ different in that the crew _could_ possibly bail before
the pilots ejected, at least in theory.

Which is similar to what the shuttle plan turned to post-Challenger, except
the ejection seats were already gone.

The commander and pilot were supposed to hold a bail out orientation until the
rest of the crew bailed, then put it on auto pilot (assuming it was working)
and bail themselves.

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edf13
Side note to this but it brings back great childhood memories of the c64
flight sim...

[https://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/chuck-yeagers-advanced-
fl...](https://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/chuck-yeagers-advanced-flight-
simulator)

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vxNsr
>: _Fortunately, the cause was a misadjusted microswitch, not my departure._

Lol, that's terrific.

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anonymousiam
Looks like Yeager's site is rate limited, but Google Cache came through for
me. I went to an AOPA dinner about 30 years ago where Bill Weaver talked about
his F104 Starfighter flight experience. (At that time, the SR71 stuff was
probably still classified BYEMAN.) He had many interesting tales to tell and
I'm glad that he survived this terrible accident.

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wiggler00m
_Resource limit is reached._

~~~
cb504
google-cache4theWin

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mellosouls
_Two weeks after the accident, I was back in an SR-71_

Casually mentioned. A different breed.

~~~
beerandt
Get right back up on that horse!

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samplatt
>A big red light on the master-warning panel in the rear cockpit had
illuminated just as we rotated, stating, “Pilot Ejected.” Fortunately, the
cause was a misadjusted microswitch, not my departure.

"Misadjusted switch". The ejection light "just happened" to be misadjusted 2
weeks after you survived force ejection. Uh-huh. Sure mate.

~~~
jacquesm
That's a microswitch underneath the chair that checks for presence of that
chair. If the switch is no longer depressed the chair is gone _or_ the switch
is maladjusted, which can easily happen.

~~~
anonymousiam
Especially on a brand new aircraft during the maiden flight.

