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Blackbird SR-71 Flight Manual (2010)
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- breck 7y agoIs there a single page PDF?
- simongr3dal 7y agoI've created a pdf based on the available scans I could find on the site. Added blank pages according to the a, b, and c pages. Added table of contents for the major sections. Also tried to do some ocr on it, it seems good enough for searching at least. https://bayfiles.com/N9m6nbtfnc/SR-71_Blackbird_Flight_Manual_sr-71.org_ocrmypdf_pdf https://bayfiles.com/N9m6nbtfnc/SR-71_Blackbird_Flight_Manua...
- CamperBob2 7y agoI hate to sound like a choosy beggar, but any chance of putting it on a less-skeevy download site? How about a Dropbox link?
- simongr3dal 7y agoSure thing: https://www.dropbox.com/s/i5eucyo7gm67bv6/SR-71%20Blackbird%20Flight%20Manual%20%28sr-71.org%29%20ocrmypdf.pdf?dl=1 https://www.dropbox.com/s/i5eucyo7gm67bv6/SR-71%20Blackbird%... I don't really use dropbox any more so bayfiles was just the first thing that came to my mind, it's better than most free file hosting sites (no waiting and no excessive throttling)
- CamperBob2 7y agoAwesome, thanks! That worked.
- Tempest1981 7y agoChart of speed vs altitude: https://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/manual/5/5-9.php https://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/manual/5/5-9.php
- ben7799 7y agoThat's the flight envelope chart, I went right to that page as well.
- fladrif 7y agoDoes anyone know what the break in the Minimum Airspeed Restriction at Mach 1 is about?
- t0mas88 7y agoYes, Google for "Mcrit" or critical Mach number. It's the free stream airspeed at which any part of the airflow over the aircraft first becomes sonic. Usually the inner part of the wings near the root, the thickest section. Airliners have the same but it happens below M1.0 because of the thicker wings. And it causes a much bigger change in drag and lift compared to an aircraft capable of super sonic flight, enough to make it impossible to take an airliner super sonic without losing longitudinal control and crashing.
- fabiensanglard 7y agoI remember being reported that SR-71 missile evasion procedure was simply to "accelerate and outpace". But I cannot find it in the manual :( !
- jimktrains2 7y agoI just finished "Skunk Works" by Ben Rich. I believe he said something similar in there, but I would have to find the exact quote.
- cblades 7y agoI don't know if that would be in the flight manual. Presumably that's more a tactical/combat doctrine type thing.
- sandworm101 7y agoWould totally depend on the missile and where it is coming from. Anything behind ... acceleration wouldn't matter as few missiles would have been fast enough to close the gap. Missiles to the side would be outrun. Missiles from the front are another story. A missile rising up from a point in front of the aircraft is a deadly threat. It doesn't even have to match velocity to make a kill. In short: acceleration for missiles below and to the sides. Stuff in front, time to turn. Stuff behind, forget about it.
- iscrewyou 7y agoThis is what you are looking for: http://www.onceagreenberet.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/sr71.html http://www.onceagreenberet.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/sr...
- apk17 7y agoTo think of it - I might have heard these two pass by. Not on that flight, but I lived with my parents in northern germany, not far from the danish border, and en route from the north to the baltic sea and on to russia. I often heard the badam, accompanied by a creak of the wooden roof.
- ColinWright 7y agoA comment[0] by ehnus[1] from last time this was submitted[2] said: > 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" ======== [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1338777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1338777 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ehnus https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ehnus [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1338504 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1338504
- toomuchtodo 7y agoIf you enjoy such gems, check out the procedures for C130 transport aircraft. An old colleague used to be a load master on them (before going into tech), and said the action required for a situation where your load is jammed on exit and you can’t cut the chutes deployed to extract the load from the cargo hold is “prepare for crash landing”. I do enjoy the bluntness of military checklists.
- na85 7y agoI just checked a modern copy I have lying around and couldn't find that particular phrasing. However there are lots of other gems such as "a malfunction of the extraction system that causes cargo to move can be extremely hazardous." Oh really. You don't say.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoMight have been a C17A/21/26 instead of a C130. I’ll dig tonight to find it.
- yutyut 7y agoRelated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Airlines_Flight_102 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Airlines_Flight_102
- jedberg 7y agoThe maintenance manual is a fun read too. A lot of the repair procedures end with PTF. That means “Pound to Fit” (with a hammer or mallet). The panels flexed so much that they would come back a different shape than they were manufactured and had to be hammered into place.
- alexis_fr 7y agoWhy were instruments (instruments? or panels?) so flexible? Was ut to sustain altitude, pressure, G and speed?
- bojo 7y agoIf I recall correctly the plane was built to stretch at high speeds, so the panels were designed to be loose, and the plane would leak a lot of fuel until it reached optimal speeds.
- masklinn 7y ago> Was ut to sustain altitude, pressure, G and speed? Heat expansion. That's also why it would leak fuel when on the ground (fuel lines would expand at speed so they needed expansion gaps when on the ground). Outside emergency situation, the crew had to wait inside the plane after landing, waiting for the surfaces to cool down enough that they could safely get out without melting their gear.
- Theodores 7y agoThis is a remarkably slow website for such a fast plane.
- balabaster 7y agoXD
- bdamm 7y agoAppears to be crushed under the load of the flight enthusiasts found on HN.
- mdturnerphys 7y agoIt's probably being overloaded by HN readers right now. Try this: http://web.archive.org/web/20190509220204/https://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/manual/ http://web.archive.org/web/20190509220204/https://www.sr-71....
- SmokeGS 7y agoThis is one of the reasons I love Hacker News
- dmix 7y agoThere's a video walking you through the SR-71's cockpit which I found really interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj9UwKQKE3A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj9UwKQKE3A
- oconnor663 7y ago13m04s: "Some guys were getting bank angles up around 60 degrees of bank at mach 3 and it just, uh, that's not good. Come very very close to losing the airplane." [He then proceeds to talk about a lamp.]
- coolspot 7y agoIs content of this site a subject of ITAR restrictions?
- starpilot 7y agoNo, everything about the aircraft is obsolete which is why no other country has attempted to develop anything similar. The J58's are really dated, though most of the thrust is generated by the inlets when supersonic.
- ovi256 7y agoThat does not mean that this manual is not subject to ITAR restrictions.
- rwmj 7y ago> most of the thrust is generated by the inlets when supersonic I've often heard this (also about the bypass in Concorde's engines), but I've never heard a clear explanation about how some element of an engine which doesn't involve burning fuel can generate thrust. Can anyone explain it?
- saganus 7y agoIf I remember correctly, in the book Skunkworks they explain that it would increase the air pressure. The analogy made was that it was similar to putting a finger on a garden hose to partially block it, thus increasing the water pressure. Obviously there must be some complex physics going on but that was the gist of it. Probably someone with more knowledge can confirm or correct me :)
- russb 7y agoHere's a great answer on avation.stackexchange.com that answers that exact question: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/27024 https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/27024
- ThenAsNow 7y agoSince the SR-71 is a perennial HN favorite: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13567554 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13567554 I think the StackExchange answer linked below covers interesting aspects of supersonic inlet behavior, but doesn't do a great job answering your specific question.
- zackbloom 7y agoSkunkworks [1] is a really great book by the designer of the propulsion system (and subsequently the first stealth airplane). I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know how many drill bits you burn through trying to build a titanium airplane. 1- https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/skunk-works_ben-r-rich_leo-janos/250049/ https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/skunk-works_ben-r-rich_leo-jan...
- alex_suzuki 7y agoI‘d like to second that recommendation. The book certainly won‘t win any literature prizes, but it does tell a fascinating story and gives a glimpse into the „wild west“ engineering culture that created the Blackbird.
- iamtheworstdev 7y agoIf it's the plane equivalent of "Blind Man's Bluff" then I'm in.
- hef19898 7y agoSkunkworks is a legend in aerospace, and rightly so. Shows what's possible if give brilliant people a common goal, some resources and leave them otherwise alone. The fact that the F-117 was developed in time and within budget says a lot. As usual nobody drew the right lessons from it. I got my fingers on a report about the F-16 development from the eighties from the budget office. Funny to read it, especially the questioning of staggering spare part needs today when you know that Skunkworks "sourced" the F-117 material from the F-16 and F-15 programs.
- codr7 7y agoI once got around two thirds through a certificate for flying ultralight planes. It sort of stopped making sense to me when we were practicing emergency landings over forest and I was told to aim for trees with thinner trunks. This is sitting inside a cramped metal can with the engine in your lap and propeller in your face. There are so many ways to die in that situation that focusing on the diameter of tree trunks was just too much for me.
- duxup 7y agoI would think you'd want a good clump of green tree canopy to hopefully take the impact "slowly" and stop the plane without the sudden smashing associated with crashing. Such as: http://www.fox5ny.com/news/plane-stuck-in-tree-idaho http://www.fox5ny.com/news/plane-stuck-in-tree-idaho
- acid__ 7y agoPerhaps the smaller trees would be more likely to bend/snap, absorbing more energy
- duxup 7y ago1. Scout out some good softwood.
- oasisbob 7y agoThat rescue is truly remarkable. Not only did the plane remain stable in the tree, one of the volunteer first-responders had the appropriate tree climbing experience and equipment to reach the accident site. That experience could have easily gone to waste - arborist climbing techniques and standards are very different from what is used for vertical rescue. The fact that the rescuers made the pragmatic decision to go ahead with borrowed techniques is very unusual.
- joncrane 7y agoMy favorite part is >Officials are trying to determine how to remove the plane from its perch and warned people to stay away from it.
- lostlogin 7y agoThis thread is lacking the Blackbird ground speed check. https://oppositelock.kinja.com/favorite-sr-71-story-1079127041?_gl=1*12qhykb*_ga*YW1wLUR6RjBSdkdUWVJicnBDOFo3UHdrQkx6bUxnclZfX3plYUdNaVZXS0MwTE5HeVRFSm9ISlItX0V3ZV9DbmthOU4 https://oppositelock.kinja.com/favorite-sr-71-story-10791270....
- adolph 7y agoNo Blackbird post is complete without a link to the Speed Check story: https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/speed-check https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/speed-chec... It all had lasted for just moments, but in that short, memorable sprint across the southwest, the Navy had been flamed, all mortal airplanes on freq were forced to bow before the King of Speed, and more importantly, Walter and I had crossed the threshold of being a crew.
- nominatronic 7y agoExecutive summary: Cessna: How fast. Tower: 6 Beechcraft: How fast Tower: 8 Hornet: Yo how fast bro Tower: Eh, 30 Sled: mfw Sled: How fast sir Tower: Like 9000 Sled: More like 9001 amirite. Tower: ayyyyy Sled: ayyyyy
- ziddoap 7y agoAyyyy. Succinct summary of a timeless story.
- linsomniac 7y agoYes, but the telling is well worth listening to, as are his longer speeches. Including this gem: Navy pilots: "What did YOU do today?" Sled pilots: "Nebraska in 4.5 minutes, which is the best way to do Nebraska."
- avmich 7y agoI've heard the ending (lots of static, Russian accent) How is my velocity Tower: about 27 Machs
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- collinf 7y agoPosting this here hoping that someone with more knowledge can enlighten me about this. After going down a bit of the rabbit hole, I see that the SR-71's first flight was in 1964. It has held the record for fastest air-breathing manned aircraft[0] since 1976. What is the reason that given all of the technological advances that record hasn't been broken? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_airspeed_record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_airspeed_record
- iscrewyou 7y agoI want to go out on a limb and say two things: (i) It probably is broken. (ii) That table doesn't show when the data was listed as public. The reference on the top speed is "Taylor 1988, p. [51]."
- knute 7y agoThere are faster air-breathing aircraft (e.g. [0]), but none of them are manned because with modern technology there's no need to put a person in them, and the people funding these developments aren't interested in spending lots of money just to chase records. There's also the outside possibility that faster manned aircraft exist, but remain classified [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-51_Waverider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-51_Waverider [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(aircraft) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(aircraft)
- golergka 7y agoI just love how this super-hightech, experimental military aircraft has parts secured with duct tape in this Wikipedia photo: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/X-51A_Waverider_on_B-52_2009.jpg/1280px-X-51A_Waverider_on_B-52_2009.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/X-...
- lb1lf 7y ago-Wholly uneducated guess: many of the tasks handled by the SR-71 is adequately handled by satellites today. Additionally, if someone had indeed broken the record in some black project or the other, chances are they would keep mum about it rather than calling Guinness Book of Records.
- PorterDuff 7y agoJust to throw my one cent in on these matters. http://www.avialogs.com/index.php/en/aircraft/usa/northamericanaviation/xb-70/to-1b-70xa-1-interim-flight-manual-xb-70a.html http://www.avialogs.com/index.php/en/aircraft/usa/northameri...
- throwaway_jaded 7y agoIt doesn't load for me, anyone else having the same issue? :(
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- MaupitiBlue 7y agoWhat's the procedure for runaway trim?
- erickhill 7y agoIn 1990/91 I was stationed at a base that once was a home for the SR-71. By the time I got there, though, they'd been retired. Some of the spoken-word mythology that was shared with me by some of the AF elders: * Each flight cost about $1M * The SR-71 was so loud and created such massive sound waves, the crew chiefs had to be really far away from the ship when talking to the pilots inside so that their internal organs wouldn't be damaged... * The engine cowling of the Blackbird would get so hot that the metal would be slightly transparent, where you could see moving parts _inside_ the engine. * All of the pilots wore astronaut suits. Worth noting all the above could be entirely false. But it made a big impression on me.
- NortySpock 7y agoPoint 3 goes against normal behavior of hot metals, which emit infrared or visible light as they get hotter. It's called black-body radiation, and it's why iron and steel glow in a blacksmith forge. The "moving parts" may be due to heat waves moving through the air (see also: mirage at a distance)
- serf 7y ago>Point 3 goes against normal behavior of hot metals, which emit infrared or visible light as they get hotter. You're right. People refer to it as 'transparent' because it begins to glow the same color as the jet plume under afterburner use. https://gizmodo.com/this-is-an-image-of-the-very-last-test-of-the-pratt-w-1484943138 https://gizmodo.com/this-is-an-image-of-the-very-last-test-o...
- ncmncm 7y agoDifferential heating could give the illusion of transparency; really it would just be the metal glowing brighter where something hotter is on the other side.
- greatcircle 7y agoI wonder how the pilots managed to consult this manual while wearing big bulky astronaut gloves. There's so much raw data in the manual, I can't imagine they were expected to memorise it all. Though I'm sure you need to have a very good memory to qualify as an SR-71 pilot.
- danburbridge 7y agoThread needs a link to this great story about the sr71's slowest speed : https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-sr-71-blackbirds-most-spectacular-flyover-was-also-1719654907 https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-sr-71-blackbirds-most-...
- cyberferret 7y agoFor some not so heavy reading for SR-71 enthusiasts, I highly recommend Brian Shul's book "Sled Driver". They are out of print now I believe, and I've seen them on eBay for about $3000 at one stage, but I think they are more generally available at reasonable prices now second hand. I was lucky enough to be given a copy as a gift by a friend a couple of decades ago. Beautiful book with amazing pictures and stories by a long time SR-71 pilot. A lot of the 'urban legend' stories going around about the Blackbird come from that book. "Skunk Works", as mentioned by other posters here is also a good read.
- samstave 7y agoI liked "Maximum altitude is 85,000 feet. Do not fly over 85,000 feet unless you have prior authorization" "No turns are allowed over 70,000 feet. Descend 2,000 feet prior to making any turns is recommended"
- CamperBob2 7y ago"The ANS is an inertial navigation system employing a star tracker to eliminate gyro drift and to limit position error." Not your run-of-the-mill airplane, that's for sure...
- DalekBaldwin 7y agoI once took a filmmaking class from Robert Mehnert who directed a documentary about the SR-71 at a time when its production was at risk of being discontinued. At first only a few hundred people in Congress saw it, but based on the size of the order for new planes, he called the highest-grossing opening weekend of all time. (I haven't been able to find the film online anywhere.)
- PappaPatat 7y agoI tried too, but since the documentary is simply called "SR-71 Blackbird", it makes it hard. The subtitle "To keep the peace they fly alone... unarmed... into the unknown" ist cool but yields one result: an auction of the movie poster [0] In turn, the movie poster however let me to a reverence to the movie in the book "SR-71 revealed the inside story" by Richard H. Graham, Col. USAF (Ret). 0: http://auctions.emovieposter.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=5161625 http://auctions.emovieposter.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detai...
- orthoxerox 7y agoIt is safe to travel to Georgia after having read and downloaded this?
- rajdottoday 7y agoSite's crashed apparently, does anyone have a mirror or a PDF?
- fauria 7y agoI recently saw the one exhibited in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, close to IAD airport: https://airandspace.si.edu/udvar-hazy-center https://airandspace.si.edu/udvar-hazy-center It got there from LA, and on it's way set 4 speed records: https://airandspace.si.edu/udvar-hazy-center https://airandspace.si.edu/udvar-hazy-center