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It is a shame to retire these at all. Surely there is a great deal more that could be done with them.
by ncmncm 5y ago
It is a shame to retire these at all. Surely there is a great deal more that could be done with them.
- jhugo 5y agoEventually the cost of maintenance exceeds the value you can create with them.
- V_Terranova_Jr 5y agoYou can imagine how sad some of us were when the last remaining flyable SR-71s, maintained in flyable storage by NASA Dryden for flight experiments, were finally retired for good. Here's a NASA page on them, but I haven't seen anything explicitly published on when in the early 2000s the decision was made to pull the plug: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-030-DFRC.html https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-03... One year they were still doing J58 runs, another they were on static display out of the hangars. @jhugo's comment is right.