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What Made the SR-71 Blackbird Such a Badass Plane (2015)
- onesun 9y agoI didn't make it past the first lovely sentence. "With a sleek needle nose and a swept double-delta wing with two prominent nacelles, the supersonic SR-1 Blackbird spy plane is the stuff aviation legend." SR-1? "Stuff aviation legend"? I'd expect a little better editing from Popular Mechanics.
- kevincennis 9y agoYou stopped reading the entire article because they dropped an "of"?
- cyberferret 9y agoI must admit that I picked up on the "SR-1" typo. If this was my local daily rag article, I could forgive, but for a technical publication that is supposed to give us accurate, meaningful data, that immediately sows some distrust that the rest of the information in the article may be suspect. Grammatical errors I can forgive to a certain extent, but getting the designation of the aircraft wrong that is the feature of the article? That is sloppy editing.
- kevincennis 9y agoI actually didn't even notice that until you put it in quotes just now.
- romwell 9y agoThen there are outright broken sentences like this: >The 1980s saw an increase in threats capable to countering the SR-71, including improved enemy air defenses and the introduction of the MiG-31, which was armed with the R-33 air-to-air missile could intercept the Blackbird. This just breaks my mental parsing, since there are so many ways to fix this: 1. ..MiG, which, being armed with the R-33 missile, could intercept the Blackbird; 2. ..MiG, which was armed with the R-33 missile, and could intercept the Blackbird; 3. ..MiG, which was armed with the R-33 air-to-air missile, and therefore could intercept the Blackbird. (and so on)
- rconti 9y agoThey mentioned the SR-1 program again later in the article too. I even had to Google it to make sure it wasn't me with the misunderstanding.
- jpeanuts 9y agoI'm more bothered by the tautology. What is an unswept delta-wing supposed to look like?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dragonwriter 9y agoThat's closer to an oxymoron than a tautology. But I guess a wing with a back swept leading edge and a forward swept trailing edge (which the SR-71 has) could have a triangular shape and a 0° sweep as typically measured (the SR-71 doesn't, of course), making it an “unswept delta”.
- onesun 9y agoI wrote that with a bit of sarcasm, but yes, it was hard for me to take this article seriously, even though I did manage to finish it.
- ProAm 9y agoGood old hacker news where people would rather discuss how the article was written instead of the content it contains.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dang 9y agoPlease don't posture over the community while being part of it. There are tons of substantive comments in this thread alone. Your superiority to others is, at a minimum, off topic.
- SamReidHughes 9y agoI didn't notice those typos the first time I read the article. Maybe it's really easy to misread letter-number combinations like that if you're already expecting it to be a certain number.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mikeokner 9y agoMy favorite story about the SR-71 being badass: http://oppositelock.kinja.com/favorite-sr-71-story-1079127041 http://oppositelock.kinja.com/favorite-sr-71-story-107912704...
- jksmith 9y agoFuck yeah, that is a badass story. Thanks for link!
- Retric 9y agoThat ones great, but I always like the question of how slow it could fly: https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-sr-71-blackbirds-most-spectacular-flyover-was-also-1719654907 https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-sr-71-blackbirds-most-...
- theoh 9y agoSee also a story about testing the minimum airspeed on a single engine, from the book "Contrails over the Mojave": https://books.google.ie/books?id=NTU9BAAAQBAJ&pg=PT114&lpg=PT114&dq=one+engine+blackbird+"contrails+over+the+mojave"&source=bl&ots=peSmq-aYjn&sig=xDfGq9TtVRsbjRCR4keRUoZ5FFk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-yuqQy9DXAhVkDsAKHWcDA34Q6AEIVTAM#v=onepage&q=one%20engine%20blackbird%20%22contrails%20over%20the%20mojave%22&f=false https://books.google.ie/books?id=NTU9BAAAQBAJ&pg=PT114&lpg=P...
- justsomedood 9y agoI think every SR-71 story I've read has been engrossing, and this one is no exception. Thanks for the link!
- strictnein 9y agoA good one (although some may dislike it): On the way back from a mission to the middle east, they ended up flying over France, even though France had refused them clearance. They were flying low and slow (relative terms obviously), and the pilot looked to his left and saw a French Mirage just off his left wing. The Mirage pilot called over and requested their diplomatic clearance code. The SR-71 pilot told the Mirage to hold on. The reconnaissance systems officer (RCO, the other guy in the plane) then informed the pilot that the code had been transmitted and they went back up to full speed and left the Mirage quickly behind. The code that the RCO transmitted? The middle finger.
- lylejohnson 9y agoThe first I remember reading about the "Blackbird" was in the _The Uncanny X-Men_, during the Claremont & Byrne run in the early 80's. Their jet was modeled on the SR-71, although I don't recall if they explicitly mentioned that model number.
- kevincennis 9y agoFor anyone who's interested in this stuff, I highly recommend the book "Skunk Works" – about Lockheed's famous operation that designed the SR-71, U-2, F-117 (stealth fighter), etc.
- regulation_d 9y agoI really wish I could get ahold of Brian Shul's Sled Driver.
- jfoutz 9y agoYes. it's also interesting that it's from the point of view of a guy who worked on something like 17 planes over the course of their career. I think that's very rare now.
- nether 9y agoIt's possible with job hopping, or program hopping within the same company. You just won't be working on that aircraft start to finish. I worked on 7 aircraft from 2005-2015.
- lentil 9y agoAgreed. I would also recommend this conference talk on the subject by Nickolas Means, it was very well done: https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLBzScQzZ83I81fnpqX2AkYD5c5cKgrqc2&v=pL3Yzjk5R4M https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLBzScQzZ83I81fnpqX2AkYD5c5...
- josephcooney 9y agoI also really enjoyed this book, and wrote up some notes on what I took away from it that I thought could apply to software engineering https://jcooney.net/post/2017/08/03/skunkworks.html https://jcooney.net/post/2017/08/03/skunkworks.html
- strictnein 9y agoIf you like the SR-71, and are interested in other Skunk Works projects like the U-2 and F-117, the book Skunk Works is a great read (and also a great audio book). https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003 https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/...
- joshvm 9y agoAlso if you're in the DC area, it's really worth going to the National Air & Space Museum, as well as their 'oversize' Udvar Hazy centre. The out of town place is special and hardly gets any tourists, even though they have an SR-71 and the Shuttle, Discovery. Other things include an X-15, the Enola Gay (feels weird if you've visited Hiroshima too), an exhibit on the Keyhole satellite program, a U2 and tons more. I don't think they have an F117, sadly.
- jotm 9y ago" The U-2 can still fly higher than the Global Hawk, carry a greater payload, and its sensors have more of a slant range. The Global Hawk also lacks de-icing equipment and countermeasures against Russian SAMs. We may be entering the age of drones, but old-fashioned piloted planes can still do a thing or two." Why not just copy the U2 and make an improved, unmanned version?
- katastic 9y agoProbably because: - The U2 uses old parts that aren't wildly/cheaply available anymore. - The Global Hawk doesn't have a person in it. So they can send them into more dangerous situations without worrying. Which means they likely want a cheaper robot version. (Though, before RnD costs which skyrocketed, the price appeared to be only about 10mil cheaper.) - New sensor modules have a different footprint that the shell can be designed around than a plane designed in the 70's. Also, more computer aided design into the entire thing. - More fuel economy means more air time. (Additionally no fatigued pilot means more air time.) I know you said "remove the pilot" but the point is the entire thing can be designed for more air time, and more efficient fuel use. Of course, often the most obvious answer is simply: Money. Tax payer dollars are "Free", and there's political power to be had in rewarding "your" defense contractor the ability to make brand new, amazing, super, bells-and-whistle aircraft. (::cough::F-35::cough::) And there's no ego boost for simply upgrading existing planes. (::cough::A-10::cough::) Since every new program seems to be full of cost overruns I really wonder if they intentionally do that. They low-ball it, pocket the surplus "costs" as long as they can until congress gets pissed and then magically "fix" the product with a "modest" cash-influx bill from congress to finally finish it off. Because it's politically dangerous to be a congressperson that voted for this failed product that then has to be repealed. So they could, in essence, "fail" at making their product up until the point where it's just under "repeal time" and pocket all that cash. [edit] Here's a quote on Wikipedia that lines up partially with my comment about costs to fly: "Secretary stated: "The Global Hawk is essential to national security; there are no alternatives to Global Hawk which provide acceptable capability at less cost; Global Hawk costs $220M less per year than the U-2 to operate on a comparable mission; the U-2 cannot simultaneously carry the same sensors as the Global Hawk; and if funding must be reduced, Global Hawk has a higher priority over other programs."[21]"
- leeoniya 9y agoi highly recommend reading this guy's hunt for the wrecked A-12 (the CIA's early variant of the SR-71): http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strange-places/bluefire-main/bluefire/the-hunt-for-928/ http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strange...
- jonah 9y agoHe has a number of great pieces on his site. I'd also recommend "The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans" http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/ http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hun...
- cagey 9y ago++ I recall this being a great read triggered by previous discussion[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12019567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12019567
- sizzzzlerz 9y agoYou can talk about the unobtainium skin, the Pratt-Whitney engines, the radar-bouncing fuselage angles but what really made it such a bad ass plane was Kelly Johnson and his team.
- DoofusOfDeath 9y agoI enjoy science-fiction, but I'm not an aircraft aficionado. What makes the SR-71 so awesome to me is that it looks like about the coolest spacecraft I could have imagined when I was 10 years old. And it still looks that way to me.
- ProAm 9y agoYeah, child hood memories with GI Joe come to mind [1] [1] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0a/8c/a7/0a8ca767c485d88869af7e6974d33b77.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0a/8c/a7/0a8ca767c485d88869af...
- kevin_thibedeau 9y agoI had a coworker once who claimed that he got a ride on one before it was declassified. Apparently he was waiting at an air station to go home on leave and was constantly being bumped from flights by higher ranks. A "special" fight came in that he could get on, though, after signing some paperwork to keep quiet about it.
- mikeash 9y agoThat sounds extremely unlikely. My understanding is that both crew members were essential, so you couldn't just put a warm body in the back seat and let the pilot do all the work. The back seat had all the navigation equipment, for one.
- sandworm101 9y agoWhat the OP forgets to mention is that the 71 was not intended initially as a surveillance aircraft. It was meant as an interceptor. The phoenix missile system, of f14 fame, was initially meant for an SR71/Oxcart-type airframe. This thing was mean to shoot down valkyrie-class bombers. That image of mach3/4 aircraft chasing each other down never really happened.
- mikeash 9y agoSort of. The A-12 came first. That was more or less a single-seat SR-71, built for the CIA as a spy plane. The Air Force wanted a high-speed interceptor, Lockheed proposed a variant of the A-12, and the YF-12 was born, but never got beyond three prototypes because it ended up being unnecessary. The SR-71 was the Air Force spy plane version of the A-12, enlarged to carry more fuel and two crew. The interceptor variant is definitely interesting, but it's a side branch of the spy plane lineage.
- AdmiralAsshat 9y agoI always preferred the SR-77 Blackbird, myself.
- cyberferret 9y ago"Blackbird" was the moniker for the SR-71. I've never heard of the SR-77. Either you have information on a super secret skunk works project, or else I suspect you might be taking the mickey out of the editors of the article for their SR-1 typo?
- undersuit 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbird_(comics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbird_(comics) apparently.
- tonteldoos 9y agoI've read (unsure if factual, can't find a source right now) that the plane's original designation was to be RS-71 (because reconnaissance). At some point, in a speech or introduction, some high ranking official misread that as SR-71, and after that all documentation was updated to show this new designation.
- doug1001 9y agoi can remember watching these take off/land at Kadena air base in Okinawa while i was stationed in Camp Hansen (USMC). We assume they were flying recon missions over North Korea. They would take off then quickly bank almost 180 degrees we referred to them as "Habu" because that's how the locals called them, which is the name of the large black (and extremely poisonous) snake indigenous to the island. i recall reading that the SR-71 was originally designed as a strategic interceptor, rather than a long-range recon bird.
- pklausler 9y agoThe thing that really amazes me is that these badass planes were designed with slide rules, drafting tables, and wind tunnels. No fluid-flow simulations; these things predate the CDC6600. The engineering was as badass as the product.
- asmithmd1 9y agoAnd no wind tunnel can produce Mach 3 flows. Test pilots had to slowly expand the flight envelope of prototype aircraft.
- hector_ka 9y agoCheck this out https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/facilities/htf/ https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/facilities/htf/ Back in the day they could test up to Mach 7. Not it is a test bed for hybrid electric planes.
- grkvlt 9y agoSupersonic wind tunnels have existed since the 1920s and Mach 3+ versions were built in Germany during World War 2 for the V2 project. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_wind_tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_wind_tunnel
- thule 9y agoI met a gentleman around 20-25 years ago that told me the story of the "$500 hammer". Years ago the press went crazy that the government was overpaying for tools for military projects. This guy gave me "the rest of the story". The cost for tooling is what it should be for a limited run of "special metal" tools. I'm guessing the tool manufacturer had to shutdown their normal operations to supply Skunkworks with all new tools. It would have cost a fortune. Not to mention the secrecy surrounding why some company wanted titanium tools. I don't recall if he mentioned the tools were make of titanium, but he did mention that the chrome bake on normal tools had caused problems on the SR-71 project. I'm glad to see that this little tidbit of information was covered in the article.
- jloughry 9y agoThe backstory is related in Skunk Works by Ben Rich [1]; cadmium-plated tools caused embrittlement in titanium skin panels; it took them a while to track down the cause but eventually they purged the Burbank factory of everything that was cadmium plated to solve the production problem. [1] Ben Rich and Leo Janos. Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed. Boston: Back Bay Books, 1996. ISBN 0-316-74300-3.
- Abishek_Muthian 9y agoGuys, I thought NASA is not supposed to disclose it's military affiliations publicly? "As reported in PM, NASA is currently the revisiting the supersonic spy plane concept. It recently awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin Skunk to test the feasibility of the SR-2, a supersonic drone that would fly almost twice the speed of the Blackbird. The idea is that speed would play the role that stealth once did in beating enemy air defense network. "
- matt_wulfeck 9y agoQ: what counter measures did the blackbird have against surface-to-air missiles? A: it would simply fly faster than them. What ana amazing piece of engineering.
- ufmace 9y agoCool post, I didn't know the part where the plane was retired shortly after the Soviets managed to put together an aircraft and missile combo, along with well-organized operations, that could plausibly shoot down the SR-71.
- throwaway456321 9y agoConsider that not much more than a decade before the SR-71 project started the state of the art in plane design was canvas over a wooden frame with a V12 engine that went at 300mph. How much technology did they have to invent from first principles to build a plane which flew at Mach 3 at the edge of space? Using slide rules and chalk boards?
- throwaway456321 9y agoI read the Ben Rich book "Skunk Works" about 15 years ago. I've never forgotten the ending. Towards the end of his life Kelly Johnson suffered from dementia. They wheeled him out on a runway and there was a fly-past of SR-71s. Ben asks Kelly "Did you see that? They were saluting you!" I was bawling when I read first that and I am tearing up now. Talk about Epic Men.
- amenghra 9y agoThe hunt for the A-12[0], "its sneaky black older brother", is a fun read. [0] http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strange-places/bluefire-main/bluefire/the-hunt-for-928/ http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strange...
- oasisbob 9y agoOh no! That site is such a fun magnificent time suck. I lost the link, guess it's time to take another dive back in.
- cyberferret 9y agoA nice video tour of the SR-71 cockpit (front and rear) by a former pilot. A must watch for any Blackbird enthusiast. - https://youtu.be/tj9UwKQKE3A https://youtu.be/tj9UwKQKE3A
- sdfjkl 9y ago> the supersonic SR-1 Blackbird spy plane is the stuff aviation legend. Does nobody proofread these articles anymore? A missing word in the first sentence. This sort of sloppy publishing really doesn't leave a good first impression with the reader.
- doctorRetro 9y agoOh good, I'm not the only one who gets really bothered by this! I hate seeing these kinds of errors. It happens to everyone, I understand that. But when you're an internationally read journal, you should really be holding yourself to a higher standard than, say, the twice-a-week village newspaper or your aunt's emails.
- sytelus 9y agoOne of the most amazing fact I'd learned was that invisibility to radars was not mostly due to the absorbing material but rather a specific geometry of the plane! The materials certainly enhanced it but it was still like 25% or so contribution. Even more amazing fact was that this possibility was first discussed in a Russian research paper but that was never followed through because it was too complex to compute such shape and no one believed it would actually work. The folks at Stunkworks got hold of the paper, hired a mathematician and used computers to do the computation to actually find the shape that would have invisibility property to radars. No one in army at the time believed that some special shape can just become invisible to radar. They did the demo to army to prove it and landed their contract. Considering all these was in 1960s, its just amazing.
- vlehto 9y ago>because it was too complex to compute such shape and no one believed it would actually work I don't want to put down your enthusiasm, but this is not very exact info. Stealth design never makes the plane invisible, it just increases the detection distance or the power requirement of the radar. You get relatively long way by simply avoiding corner reflectors. There are rumors that Avro Vulcan used to disappear from friendly radars accidentally just because of that. One of the features that increases stealth is the radar. Because radars tend to show on radar. SR-71 had "side looking radar" which might have been optimized not to show the array towards any hostile ground stations.
- engi_nerd 9y agoThose side looking radars were primarily used for gathering imagery through synthetic aperture radar mapping.
- mikeash 9y agoUnfortunately they didn't quite count on the radar reflectivity of the exhaust plume, which apparently made it a pretty big target in the end: https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/sr-71.htm https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/sr-71.htm
- zaarn 9y agoI think I learned about this plane through the abridged version of Hellsing Ultimate... and then sucking up every detail about it I could... Quite an amazing piece of engineering indeed. "Do you even read my christmas list?"
- valuearb 9y agoThe M-21 was the most bad-ass of the bad-asses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_D-21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_D-21