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SR-71 Blackbird Flight Manual
- UnknownSource 17y agoSaw 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.
- ibejoeb 17y agoHoping to find a model for X-Plane to try this out on...
- jrockway 17y agoX-Plane comes with the SR-71 by default.
- SpacemanSpiff 17y agoWARNING: This discovery cost me about 3 days of productivity a couple of years ago ;)
- jacquesm 17y agoHm, frustration, none of the pages work for me, they come up with a blank image.
- timcederman 17y agoIt uses PHP to serve the images from a database - e.g. http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/manual/3/display.php?file=3-8.png http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/manual/3/display.php?file=3-8.... Going to the image manually shows this: The Database Must Be Down.
- ehnus 17y agoMy 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"
- aperiodic 17y agoThis 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 17y agoI've been reading "Skunk Works" (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0316743003 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 17y agoI 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 17y agoIt 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.
- justlearning 17y agoyou 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 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6cZLfK4Zjk
- pmjoyce 17y agoThat's a U-2, not an SR-71
- justlearning 17y agothank you for correcting. I thought they were from the same 'family'. too late to delete my comment.
- herdrick 17y agoBoth 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.
- schwit 17y agoI take it the parts that remain classified contain the max speed and altitude?
- harshpotatoes 17y agoNow I really want to watch The Right Stuff again.
- mos1 17y agoIt's on Netflix streaming. I'd say you owe me 3 hours, but I liked it.
- Gambit89 17y agoI'll just leave this link here... http://gizmodo.com/5511236/the-thrill-of-flying-the-sr+71-blackbird http://gizmodo.com/5511236/the-thrill-of-flying-the-sr+71-bl...
- evgen 17y agoA 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_thread/thread/b9e23a24a784a26a http://groups.google.com/group/rec.aviation.stories/browse_t...
- watmough 17y agoCaught 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 http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/d-21.php