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Pilot explains how he Survived Blackbird Disintegration at Mach 3.2

• iammru 4y ago
  I'm also curious how Marevick survived the destruction of Darkstar going Mach 10.
  • bell-cot 4y ago
    Plot armor.
  • phkahler 4y ago
    One fan theory is that he didnt survive. The rest of the movie is him resolving past issues in his mind when he dies.
• bell-cot 4y ago
  tldr version: pilot was extremely lucky, in a situation where he had no control and/or was blacked out
  • Overtonwindow 4y ago
    That was more than just luck, descending in the pressurize suit and having the presence of mine to understand the situation, ascertain limitations and abilities, saved his life. He could’ve easily panicked on the way down especially with the oxygen line the way it was.
    • bell-cot 4y ago
      Well, yes. But "Lockheed test pilot assigned to fly SR-71's" kinda guarantees that he's got "great presence of mind", "never panics", etc. down cold.
    • gxs 4y ago
      Right, for example he said he took off his mask so that he could see his altitude and manually deploy his shoot if necessary. The whole story sounds horrific and it's very unfortunate the co-pilot died. The other bit I found interesting was how they were able to replicate the accident in a flight simulator. Can you imagine the work that went into that simulator as well? Would be awesome to see the systems involved. Very cool story - makes you wonder what the state of the art is.
      • geocrasher 4y ago
        The sim also struck me as very interesting, especially for 1960's technology! How much do you want to bet that they ran every test flight through the simulator first after this accident?
      • hermitdev 4y ago
        > he took off his mask He didn't take off his mask, he took off his visor (or rather held it out of the way). The flight crew of an SR-71 wear pressure suits very similar to that of astronauts. The helmets they were are also similar in appearance, at least. They've got a "sunglass" visor that slides down over the transparent bubble of the helmet. This is likely what he was "removing". It sounded like the latch that would normally hold it in its stowed position broke, necessitating him holding it out of the way (mentioned several times). You can see a close up of the helmet here [0], full body view [1], side view with the visor up [2]. The crew doesn't wear a mask light you'd see in, say, a fighter jet. The entire suit is pressurized. I'm not even sure a crew member is capable of removing their helmet without assistance. They certainly need help getting the entire suit, gloves and helmet on & sealed. [0] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brian_Shul_in_the_cockpit_of_the_SR-71_Blackbird.jpg#/media/File:Brian_Shul_in_the_cockpit_of_the_SR-71_Blackbird.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brian_Shul_in_the_co... [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SR71_crew.jpg#/media/File:SR71_crew.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SR71_crew.jpg#/media... [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brian_Shul_in_the_cockpit_of_the_SR-71_Blackbird.jpg#/media/File:Brian_Shul,_self-portrait,_SR-71_Blackbird.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brian_Shul_in_the_co...
  • robonerd 4y ago
    Luck and great engineering. You're right, by the pilot's admission he was only along for the ride once the plane disintegrated. The headline could be seen as a bit misleading, but the story as told by the pilot is pretty interesting.
    • TrevorJ 4y ago
      Reminds me of a quote attributed to Picasso: Inspiration exists, but is has to find us working. The hard engineering work and planning is what enabled the good luck to exist.
    • moritonal 4y ago
      "along for the ride" as 100 engineer's work simultaneously attempt to keep him alive.
      • robonerd 4y ago
        The work of the engineers that kept him alive was all done before the accident, not simultaneous to it. When the accident was unfolding, the engineers were either unaware or assumed the pilot was dead.
        • dtparr 4y ago
          I parsed it the way you did at first, but on second reading, I believe it could be rephrased to "the work of 100 engineers simultaneously attempt" to make it clear the simultaneity referenced all the various systems working together.
        • moritonal 4y ago
          Ah, my dyslexic brain might have misused an apostrophe? My belief is that "engineer's work" changed the subject to the work. Whilst "engineers work" makes the subject the engineers. Is that right or wrong?
          • seoaeu 4y ago
• mattlondon 4y ago
  I love hearing these stories about these little automatic backups and failsafes kicking-in and heroically doing their jobs in the case of unthinkable situations (e.g the flight suit emergency oxygen, automatic parachute etc here). I get kinda goose pimples thinking about all the systems that were probably spasmodically firing off in that last second or two or flight (and perhaps in the split seconds after breakup if they had power still?), trying their damn best to valiantly do their final important tasks, even when doomed to fail. Kudos to all the engineers involved. Anyone got any other first-hand stories or links to similar stuff?
  • austinl 4y ago
    I'd highly recommend the book Skunk Works by Ben Rich. It's about the engineering team at Lockheed Martin that designed the Blackbird (and the U-2, and several other amazing planes), and describes many of the engineering challenges in detail.
    • jeffdn 4y ago
      Such a fascinating read! I particularly enjoyed the part where they are testing the radar cross section of Have Blue, the initial design for the F-117. They had put it up on the test stand, but think the radar is malfunctioning, as they don't see any returns on the scope. Finally, they get a tiny return -- a bird had landed on the test object!
      • hef19898 4y ago
        The F-117 is such great plane, and defense project. Developed as complete black project, it was delivered in time and, allegedly, in budget. The latter point is hard to verify, after all they used parts from the F-15 and F-16 programms. Up to the point where congress challenegd the spare needs for those programms. Plus, it was a beautiful plane.
        • bee_rider 4y ago
          The B-2 and F-117 are so bizarre and alien looking compared to everything that came before and after (in a good way). If we were picking planes for a space opera, IMO the big villain guy would fly around in a B-2, his minions would get F-117s, and probably the hero would get a Blackbird (although, with a less menacing paint job).
• Overtonwindow 4y ago
  Considerably related: if you enjoyed this article, you need to see Top Gun Maverick for its SR
  • aliswe 4y ago
    SR?
    • forbiddenlake 4y ago
      The article is about the SR-71 Blackbird. The new Top Gun features a plane based on the unreleased SR-72.
  • royalewithchees 4y ago
    "Pete Mitchell explains how he survived his SR disintegration at a speed of Mach 10.4."
• kurthr 4y ago
  “On the planned test profile, we entered a programmed 35-deg. bank turn to the right. An immediate unstart occurred on the right engine, forcing the aircraft to roll further right and start to pitch up. I jammed the control stick as far left and forward as it would go. No response. I instantly knew we were in for a wild ride." ... at Mach 3.2 and 78k ft.
  • eismcc 4y ago
    “unstart” - while a terrifying euphemism - is there is reason “stall”, or similar, is not used?
    • corrral 4y ago
      Looks like it's a technical term for a particular type of supersonic behavior: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unstart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unstart
      • eismcc 4y ago
        The semantics is start/unstart are definitely more interesting in this context and seem less dramatic in the context of wind tunnel tests
    • sigstoat 4y ago
      > “unstart” - while a terrifying euphemism - is there is reason “stall”, or similar, is not used? "stall" has a specific meaning, and it isn't what happened.
    • kurthr 4y ago
      The supersonic shockwave-cone would enter the engine intake, which leads to an un-start. The weird cones that stick out the front of the engines can be manipulated to slow down the incoming air and keep it below supersonic at the intakes, which is normally done automatically with little analog computers that apparently failed somewhat regularly and in this case spectacularly during a banking turn.
• loeg 4y ago
  This particular copy-pasta of the story is dated to 2022, but the story is much older (I mean, obviously it happened in the 60s, but I think the word-for-word copy is more recent). The story was published online at least as early as 2007: https://web.archive.org/web/20071201072335/http://www.916-starfighter.de/SR-71_Waever.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20071201072335/http://www.916-st... Previously discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=133282 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=133282 (2008) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=519337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=519337 (2009) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4652643 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4652643 (2012) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21500153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21500153 (2019)
  • epc 4y ago
    The Aviation Week article is dated 8 August 2005: https://aviationweek.com/sr-71-disintegrates-around-pilot-during-flight-test https://aviationweek.com/sr-71-disintegrates-around-pilot-du... (subscription req'd).
  • ThinkingGuy 4y ago
    Also recommended: an interview with a former SR-71 pilot on the Omega Tau podcast: https://omegataupodcast.net/91-flying-the-sr-71/ https://omegataupodcast.net/91-flying-the-sr-71/
  • jacobsievers 4y ago
    In 2009, 3 Quarks Daily credited this excerpt to an article in Aviation Week & Space Technology. What date exactly, I couldn't determine. See https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/03/sr71-disintegrates-around-pilot-during-flight-test.html https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/03/sr71-disintegr...
  • logbiscuitswave 4y ago
    I’ve read all these SR-71 stories dozens of times before, but they are just so fascinating that I don’t mind reading them again.
• pupppet 4y ago
  Having already read this account I chortled to myself after watching Tom Gun's Maverick... Deleted after people crying spoiler but an event within the first 10 mins seems like a bit of a stretch.
  • enlightens 4y ago
    Or! https://www.vulture.com/2022/05/theory-top-gun-maverick-is-mostly-a-death-dream.html https://www.vulture.com/2022/05/theory-top-gun-maverick-is-m...
    • geocrasher 4y ago
      I watched this movie just a couple of nights ago, and I have to admit that this looks very plausible. At the same time, this very SR-71 breakup story may be the inspiration for the Darkstar breakup, considering that Lockheed Martin was involved in the production.
      • racnid 4y ago
        I hate the "it was all a dream" take. You see it for literally every movie and it's a completely lazy way to analyze a film. I like this idea better; that maybe, just maybe, they took inspiration from a real life event where the pilot did survive. There's numerous stories from the 50's and 60's of pilots landing in farmers fields having ejected from their disintegrated aircraft.
  • JackFr 4y ago
    Spoiler alert!
  • jquery 4y ago
    Spoiler alert…
  • omnicognate 4y ago
    Hey, some of us haven't watched it yet!
  • 4y ago
• the_watcher 4y ago
  Randall Munroe references this in an answer to a What If? question (my very quick Google of it doesn't find it on the site, so it might be book only).
• sbehere 4y ago
  Here’s another awesome copy-pasta about the SR-71: The speed check story https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blackbird-speed-check-story https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blac...
  • shagie 4y ago
    Another story - Buzzing the tower at Sacramento as told by Pilot Maury Rosenberg - https://youtu.be/xTJYNq4GQAE https://youtu.be/xTJYNq4GQAE
  • mckirk 4y ago
    That's what I immediately thought of as well; for some reason the people telling SR-71 stories seem to be great story tellers, and despite having read the Speed Check Story probably a dozen times by now, it's hard to resist when it pops up again.
    • fmajid 4y ago
      My favorite SR-71 story is how the CIA set up shell companies to buy Soviet titanium for it because US production was insufficient. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/crazy-story-how-russia-helped-build-sr-71-blackbird-187431 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/crazy-story-how-russi...
      • KennyBlanken 4y ago
        More specifically, we could mine it and refine it, but Russian titanium metallurgy was far superior.
        • dredmorbius 4y ago
          Titanium is actually surprisingly abundant in Earth's crust. I'm not sure what the limitations on actually extracting and refining it are.
          • 4y ago
• 1shooner 4y ago
  >“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." When he says 'flight profile', is he referring to the full flight plan/mission (i.e. it could have been simulated beforehand and prevented the crash), or does he mean the specific circumstances that arose during the flight (the malfunction)?
  • hinkley 4y ago
    Educated guess they mean the moments leading up to the accident. FTA this was an incident during a test flight. If they lost the plane during a normal mission then they'd need repro steps, but in this case the flight was itself an experiment, so the distinction between the two is pretty fine. > On Jan. 25, 1966 Lockheed test pilots Bill Weaver and Jim Zwayer were flying SR-71 Blackbird #952 at Mach 3.2, at 78,800 feet when a serious engine unstart and the subsequent “instantaneous loss of engine thrust” occurred. A bit later he says: > “On the planned test profile, we entered a programmed 35-deg. bank turn to the right. An immediate unstart occurred on the right engine, forcing the aircraft to roll further right and start to pitch up. I jammed the control stick as far left and forward as it would go. No response. I instantly knew we were in for a wild ride."
• rvba 4y ago
  > I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but the suit’s pressurization had also provided physical protection from intense buffeting and g-forces What is "buffeting"?
  • 83 4y ago
    Just wind hitting the body. If you've ever ridden a motorcycle in high winds (or high speeds) it's amazing how much force it exerts on your body. It typically "buffets" or feels like a rapid series of someone pushing or lightly hitting your body. That's at ~70mph, I can't imagine what it's like at mach 3.
  • etrevino 4y ago
    Basically getting banged around. It's like a series of rapid blows. In the case of aircraft it's where everything just rapidly swings from side to side.
    • H8crilA 4y ago
      Eh, no, the pre-stall buffeting in small aviation is more like driving on small rubble, or like touching some of that vibrating paint marking the side of a highway, maybe a bit stronger than that. Some aircraft do not buffet at all when approaching critical angle of attack, which is actually worse for safety - you're deprived of a useful signal. And regardless of whether they buffet or not the standard stall warning in big aviation consists of shaking/vibrating the stick/yoke (called a "stick-shaker"). Every professional pilot is intimately familiar with that kind of feedback from their training on smaller aircraft and will instinctively push on their controls mostly without thinking. Unless they actually want to stall the plane, for example for aerobatics.
  • myself248 4y ago
    I believe it's related to the phenomenon that makes whistles work. A flow instability produces an oscillation, which results in intense pressure fluctuations adjacent to a surface which then experiences corresponding mechanical forces.
  • Justin_K 4y ago
• labrador 4y ago
  If like me you have a hard time reading this low contrast text, here's a bookmarklet to bold it javascript:(function(){let list = document.getElementsByTagName('p'); for (let element of list) { element.style.fontWeight = 'bold'}})();
• FredPret 4y ago
  For more like this, read Skunk Works, by Ben Rich, former director of the same. Brilliant book
• cm2187 4y ago
  To those interested in the blackbird, the museum of flight had a series of panels on their youtube channel, including actuals sr71 pilots and mechanics [1] Lots of more minor annecdotes (including a brown pants one). One thing I learned is that the idea that the sr71 flew faster than anti-air missiles is a misconception. But the missiles at the time couldn't be reprogrammed once launched, so what made it safe is that because the sr71 flies so fast and so high, between the time the missile is launched and the time the missile reaches the expected sr71 position and altitude, the sr71 will have had time to change course and be far away. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbuOD6bgPc4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbuOD6bgPc4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1uq-qOzf5o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1uq-qOzf5o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54FEBBPCZ-Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54FEBBPCZ-Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmiX_JPuir0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmiX_JPuir0
• dboreham 4y ago
  The unstart problem was eventually solved by microelectronics becoming sufficiently advanced to add a digital computer controlling each engine spike, I believe based on a 68k.
• beagle3 4y ago
  Tangentially related: An F-15 pilot managed to land an F-15 with (essentially) one wing. https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/that-time-an-f-15-landed-without-a-wing/ https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/that-time-an-f-15-landed-withou... , and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxJcEz3h4tU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxJcEz3h4tU
• munchler 4y ago
  Good story. I think this line was the most surprising to me: > The SR-71 had a turning radius of about 100 mi. at that speed and altitude
  • s1artibartfast 4y ago
    Keep in mind it is traveling at 2,200 MPH so it both has an immense amount of inertia, and also travels through that turn faster than it might sound. At speed, that is about 4 minutes to make a 90 degree turn, traveling an arc length of 160 miles.
    • dredmorbius 4y ago
      I suspect the minimum turn radius is also g-limited. If I'm using this calculator right, at 2,200 mph (~1,000 m/s) and 100 mi (161,000 m), the aircraft, and pilots, are experiencing 6Gs of acceleration. The airframe could probably handle more. Pilots probably not, especially for a sustained maneuver. https://www.engineersedge.com/physics/centrifugal_force.htm https://www.engineersedge.com/physics/centrifugal_force.htm
      • gshubert17 4y ago
        Using 2200 mph (not 22,000) I get about 0.6 g acceleration. What surprised me is that to do a 180 would take 314 miles / 36 miles per minute or 8.5 minutes.
        • dredmorbius 4y ago
          Wups. I'd misplaced a comma & added a zero. 1,000 m/s ~= 2,200 mph, and that's what I'd used in calculating. That said, I'm still not sure I'm using the calculator correctly, though I've checked against a few alternate methods and designs (e.g., the Stanford Torus, at 1.8 km / 1 RPM) and results check out.
      • s1artibartfast 4y ago
        I think we're saying the same thing. Inertia and G forces are coupled
• more_corn 4y ago
  This is the most exciting story I’ve read this year. What a ride. The bit at the end about his copilot wondering if he’s still there was awesome. Netflix should make a series about this.
• Flatcircle 4y ago
  wait so did his copilot survive?
  • dgritsko 4y ago
    No, unfortunately he did not survive: > After helping me with the chute, Mitchell said he’d check on Jim. He climbed into his helicopter, flew a short distance away and returned about 10 min. later with devastating news: Jim was dead. Apparently, he had suffered a broken neck during the aircraft’s disintegration and was killed instantly. Mitchell said his ranch foreman would soon arrive to watch over Jim’s body until the authorities arrived.
• anonAndOn 4y ago
  This story is missing one important detail. It may have seemed superfluous at the time, but we now know it's not. Did Jim have a son?
  • calstad 4y ago
    Could you expand? What does Jim having a son have to do with the story?
    • rmelton 4y ago
      It's a Top Gun reference. Goose, similar to Jim, dies in the first movie, and his son is a main character in the new movie.
• iisan7 4y ago
  reminded me of this captivating tale of tracking down wreckage from a destroyed A-12 Oxcart in the Nevada desert. https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strange-places/bluefire-main/bluefire/the-hunt-for-928/ https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strang...
• drpixie 4y ago
  For Blackbird fans, the Intrepid museum in New York (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrepid_Sea,_Air_&_Space_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrepid_Sea,_Air_&_Space_Muse...) has a real one on display; technically it's an A-12, the reconnaissance version. That's in addition to a Concorde, that you go over :) and a space shuttle that you can't :( Perhaps it was due to the aircraft's larger-than-life reputation, but the real thing was rather smaller and must less striking that I was expecting :(
  • logbiscuitswave 4y ago
    The Seattle Museum of Flight also has an A-12 Blackbird (an M-21), and a Concorde that you can actually walk through. No space shuttle, but they do have a Shuttle Trainer Crew Compartment that you can walk through. It’s well worth a visit if you’re in the Seattle area and are into aviation or space stuff.
• K33P4D 4y ago
  wait, don't the USAF claim they haven't lost a single SR-71 ever? or is that caveat "haven't lost during combat"?