SR71 Blackbird veteran tells all about from waking up to flying a mission to touchdown.

This is something else... this coolcat SR71 wing commander gives us an insight of how it was to be a Blackbird pilot during the coldwar. I did a quick search if anybody posted this before but I am not certain. Anyways.. this interview is a must see for every SR 71 fan.

Because practically all is disclosed about the SR71 project this is very interesting. It is also interesting to hear how this US national hero got to fly one and ended to be the wing commander of many jetfighters and the SR71.

a reply to: zatara

Here is the code to put to make your video work:

CeBu6mRDaro

I'll go watch it now cause I'm bored..

I've never heard much about these planes. Only when I was little my brother had a poster with one on it, and I saw some cartoon where some guy gets in and flys to Russia somewhere in 90 minutes.. Have no idea if that's accurate or not, maybe it was G I Joe.. Hmm?

a reply to: gfad

Thanks for posting the vid...

I see this interview as a historical document... real cool and because of dedication a hell of a soldier.

I wonder if mods can merge threads? This video goes along with another recent thread made by Sammishman? sorry cannot remember the full name.

Very few aircraft come close to rivaling the beauty of this bird, the XB-70, YB-49, and the one known in some circles as the "Brillant Buzzard" or Testors SR-75 Penetrator w/ ThunderDart come close but they will have to take second place. You just cannot beat first hand stories from the pilots that were there.

a reply to: StratosFear

You were close.

originally posted by: KnightLight
a reply to: zatara

Here is the code to put to make your video work:

CeBu6mRDaro

I'll go watch it now cause I'm bored..

I've never heard much about these planes. Only when I was little my brother had a poster with one on it, and I saw some cartoon where some guy gets in and flys to Russia somewhere in 90 minutes.. Have no idea if that's accurate or not, maybe it was G I Joe.. Hmm?

According to the wikipedia entry, it could fly at Mach 3.4 . It also had an astro-inertial navigation system that allow the bird to determine it's location using a quartz lens and a database of stars:

en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: stormcell

The navigation system used an onboard atomic clock. The aircraft carried the most accurate clocks in the country. They were synchronized with the US atomic clock before each mission.

awesome vid! I was blown away at their development of radio silence. From staging, multiple refuels, return all completely radio free. Very cool stuff. I also didn't realize they overlapped the a-12's at Okinawa for a while. totally informative.

a reply to: howmuch4another

A number of aircraft on display at museums are actually A-12s. Most people don't even know about Oxcart.

a reply to: Zaphod58

this was a little history lesson for me. cleared up a bunch of misconceptions like fuel leakage,mission times,crew rotation etc.. what a great gig.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I guess they'd have to be or he time dilation from travelling so fast would start to make a difference!

a reply to: gfad

I could be wrong, but I think the atomic clock on the SR-71 was used for precise celestial navigation, similar to how the 18th century mariners needed an accurate clock to calculate longitude via the stars.
Time dilation due to speed and distance from Earth's gravity well is measured in nano seconds. Too small I believe to be of consequence for mach 3 navigation but critical for GPS satellites in orbit.

a reply to: Sammamishman

I figured that the reason they'd have to resynchronise every flight was because the time dilation would build up over time.

Just a round the world trip in a comercial airliner can put you out by 250 ns www.npl.co.uk...

a reply to: gfad

There was some time dilation, but it was more to be as precise as possible over the target.

a reply to: Zaphod58

By the 70s atomic clocks were good enough that they were only losing nanoseconds, so the majority of the inaccuracies will have come from the time dilation.