From Anonymous Posts: Blackbird sighting???????????

Originally posted by 11Bravo
Wow, you seem pretty closed minded to be an ATS member.
I love how you say "anyone with a valid and genuine story would create an account"
So if they dont have an account like you then their views are not valid?

The wacked out postings I see about 'pregnent sun' and 'ghost does dishes' are valid and genuine because they are made by people that have accounts?

If you dont even read the anon postings you are by default ignoring a diverse source of information, and maybe you dont know this but to ignore something is the basis of ignorance.

I've already said what I think and I dont think Im being that small-minded, have you read the anonymous posts board recently? Its full of absolute rubbish!

Becoming a member and posting here allows feed-back and accountability for your posts. Its very easy to post complete fiction on the anonymous board because you can never be called to prove their statement or back it up with evidence. For this reason I think the anonymous board is best left unread and certainly not worthy of a long thread because it will be based purely on speculation and NOT discussion.

Originally posted by 11Bravo
They tell you they quit flying them and they show you a few old airframes and thats proof?

Yes it is proof. The information on the Blackbird is now largely declassified and we know exactly how many were built. If you have the funds you can go and see every single one of those. For me thats enough to be sure that one of them isnt flying.

Further to this all the tools were destroyed so no new blackbirds can ever be produced.

Originally posted by gfad
Becoming a member and posting here allows feed-back and accountability for your posts. Its very easy to post complete fiction on the anonymous board because you can never be called to prove their statement or back it up with evidence.

Hence the problem that we have here. The guy who posted (the anon not Bravo) is unable to back up anything he has said and now bravo the person who is hear it second hand is trying to tell people who are asking questions that can't be proven wrong by just plain statments. There is always the realm of what if but I try to base my openion on what I have seen etc.

Further to this all the tools were destroyed so no new blackbirds can ever be produced.

Do you have links for this info, pics that would provide a base for reproduction? Because I'm sure that some one like Bravo or myself would ask how can we be sure all were actually destroyed?

Oh and the SR-71 site you linked was great lots of great info all in one place.

Originally posted by Canada_EH

Further to this all the tools were destroyed so no new blackbirds can ever be produced.

Do you have links for this info, pics that would provide a base for reproduction? Because I'm sure that some one like Bravo or myself would ask how can we be sure all were actually destroyed?

Ive seen this quoted around the internet but I can quote it directly from the horses mouth. Heres a quote from Ben Rich's book Skunkworks:

One of the most depressing moments in the history of Skunk Works occurred on February 5, 1970, when we recieved a telegram from the Pentagon ordering us to destroy all the tooling for the Blackbird. All the molds, jigs and forty thousand detail tools were cut up for scrap and sold off at 7 cents a pound. Not only didn't the government want to pay storage costs on the tooling, but wanted to ensure that the Blackbird would never be built again.

[edit on 12/3/07 by gfad]

Beale AFB

548TH INTELLIGENCE GROUP

9th Intelligence Squadron

www.beale.af.mil...

Maybe they activated one or two again.? Check out the U-2 PILOT APPLICATION over in the right hand corner of there home page.

Maybe there sending them to Kadena AB ,again .?

Look at the defense budget
www.dod.mil...#

the U-2 Dragonfly is still being funded but sadly the SR-71 isnt.. If there was a slight chance i could see it fly, i would. I dont see any proof in public information to allow me to beleave it still flies. Now i will be taking a few trips down to edwards to take pictures. I dont plan on seeing anything but you never know. If not, the plane graveyard is always a good back up prize.

But then again you never know.

Sadly, there are no flyable Blackbirds remaining. There are no longer any qualified pilots. No tanker crews. No fuel tank sealant. The simulator is in a museum, undergoing restoration (it was inoperative for several years). The remaining spare parts are being given to museums or scrapped.

At least the surviving airframes are on public display. Most of them seem to be in California for some reason. For diehard Blackbird fans who want to touch a piece of history, there are plenty of crashed airframes scattered around the western U.S., as well.



[edit on 13-3-2007 by Shadowhawk]

A friend of mine is a high ranking officer in an european navy, and frequently acts as liason with the us airforce and naval forces and he told me that, as he was following military traffic to lebanon a few weeks ago there were blackbirds still in action, also verified by his liason in the us airforce

Originally posted by shasa
A friend of mine is a high ranking officer in an european navy, and frequently acts as liason with the us airforce and naval forces and he told me that, as he was following military traffic to lebanon a few weeks ago there were blackbirds still in action, also verified by his liason in the us airforce

Would it be possible for your friend to obtain the airframe numbers of the blackbirds still flying? Seeing as his liason is willing to discuss a massive massive secret program (to keep a blackbird flying for the reasons ShadowHawk detailed above) I cant see this being a problem.

It would also be interesting to know where they are based, where they fly to, what type of mission they are running and which agency is running them. Once the airbase is identified its pretty easy to verify such a claim.

Originally posted by gfad
Would it be possible for your friend to obtain the airframe numbers of the blackbirds still flying? Seeing as his liason is willing to discuss a massive massive secret program (to keep a blackbird flying for the reasons ShadowHawk detailed above) I cant see this being a problem.

I am also wondering the same.

Also, for the record, I'm wondering why people are arguing "Does! Does not!" over this. We have some people saying "the Blackbird still flies!" while others say "the Blackbird does not fly!". While I personally think that the Blackbird is grounded, I say it's really stupid to try and argue the idea, because no matter how much proof, evidence, and speculation you have, you will never be able to fully prove something. Particularly something shrouded in so many secrets for so many years, and there's always going to be someone who believes that there's something we don't know. This is the reason ATS exists, but I think the argument here is already becoming redundant.

Originally posted by Darkpr0
you will never be able to fully prove something. Particularly something shrouded in so many secrets for so many years, and there's always going to be someone who believes that there's something we don't know. This is the reason ATS exists, but I think the argument here is already becoming redundant.

I agree completely hence my stance the entire time has been what seems to be yours as well. That the airframes "seem" to be accounted for. The tools "seem" to be destoryed and the pilots "seem" to be all retired. I think any info people can supply that help with infromation about why either side maybe right is a good thing though. Hence the info from shadowhawk gfad and myself seem to be saying one thing but the officer in the other airforce is saying somehting else. anyways until we get get confirmation from him in basing and serial numbers all we can do is say its looking one sided for now.

Oh but I would love to be proven wrong I never saw the 71 in action and if it is still somewhere I'd have to stake it out.

[edit on 22/08/06 by Canada_EH]

Edwards airforce base !!!!! NASA could be still doing test on one or 2 airframes. Please look at my blackbird thread for great manufacturing processes

All of the Blackbirds at Edwards are museum pieces now. None are being used for research by NASA or the Air Force. Article 2006 (ser. no. 61-7955) is on display at the Air Force Flight Test Center Museum and Article 2031 (ser. no. 61-7980) is on static display at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. The last operational trainer SR-71B trainer, Article 2007 (ser. no. 61-7956) was sent to a museum in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

There were some spare engines at Dryden in outdoor storage. One of these was kept for static display purposes. The simulator was recently dismantled and shipped to a museum.

I have been in the two warehouses at the Marine base near Barstow that contained all the spare parts and materials. It looked a little like that scene at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." The Air Force and NASA are trying to dispose of all the spare components, raw materials (metal and composites), engines, ground support equipment, cockpit instruments, etc., but there are environmental issues with the parts that contain asbestos.

Honestly, more facts point to all blackbirds accounted for. But might i remind you, models can be faked with all the serial numbers and one put away for certain test or tasks. Never forget the power of money. They can always use a blackbird for more advancements in technology. Remember it is able to go Mach 3 plus for over an hour. There are plenty of test that require high speed high altitude testing.

And they honestly tried to get people to come forward that needed that sort of testing but hit road blocks form the Goverment etc. I agree that things can be faked but it seems like so much work (not that they wouldn't do it) and it would be much more easy to just say it crashed or was scrapped.

[edit on 22/08/06 by Canada_EH]

Well to agree to disagree, unless we see current pictures, that arnt made by photoshop, the SR-71 no longers flies!!!

Originally posted by Canada_EH
The problem here ghost is that the poster here was a guy that found an anonymous posting and put it here for us to see. We would need to contact this guy some how but I have a feeling it would require a bit of work.

Very true!

I was only offering a point for discussion. I'm not sure how my post came accross, but it was intended as more of a Hypothetical "What If" statement. My goal was to get everyone to think for a moment beyond the Obvious answer to this question.

Thanks,

Tim

as any one thought of black ops (cia,nsa) taking photos of irans nuke plants. And most tankers in the air force have fuel badders that hold different types of fuel dad was a boom man in the air force (kc135 &kc10's) maybe theres a new aircraft from lockheed based on the frame of the blackbird like the mastjic 12 just my two cents

Originally posted by truthman
as any one thought of black ops (cia,nsa) taking photos of irans nuke plants. And most tankers in the air force have fuel badders that hold different types of fuel dad was a boom man in the air force (kc135 &kc10's) maybe theres a new aircraft from lockheed based on the frame of the blackbird like the mastjic 12 just my two cents

They could easily do that surveillance with satellites. Although at Area 51 they wheel the aircraft indoors when the satellites are going over, it's somewhat more difficult to stuff a nuke plant into a nearby hangar. Since the plant can't move, surprise surveillance is likely not going to reveal anything that a satellite wouldn't. And, for surveillance, the Predator UAV is likely to be better for round-the-clock surveillance.

Also it doesn't matter if you have a tanker that can hold the Blackbird's fuel if you haven't got any of the fuel itself. The JP-7 fuel used in the advanced engines (Pratt and Whitney J-58s, I believe. Someone might want to check that.) was made only for the Blackbird. When the Bbird was retired almost everything was demolished so that people couldn't create any more of them, keeping the technology out of enemy hands. Since this also includes the devices used to make the fuel there hasn't been any more (also since we don't need it; I don't believe any other aircraft uses this type of fuel).

Moving on, chances are that there is a successor to the Bbird around. The Magic 8 Ball says it's the Aurora, but that's just my 2 cents. Chances are that even if the Aurora really is the real deal and is in service that it won't be using JP-7. There are a bunch of theories on the fuel it uses, but I think that the current accepted one is hydrogen slush. Once again, I could be wrong. but if it really is a slush mixture it is likely a bit difficult to get through the boom of a tanker.

And I thought that the Majestic 12 was not an aircraft, but rather a secret shadow government?

Originally posted by Darkpr0
Since the plant can't move, surprise surveillance is likely not going to reveal anything that a satellite wouldn't.

Except maybe Iran or NK trying to sneek a Nuclear Bomb out the back door of that nice "Peaceful" nuclear plant that is for electrical power only!

Come on, other countries aren't stupiid, they can figure out how to hide secret stuff from a sattelite. Here in the US, we do it at places like Area 51 every day.

Underestimating your enemy is a Great way to get you A** kicked. That why I don't recomend it!

Tim

I think the point I tried to make earlier was that the speed and quality of photos the blackbird took made it possible for the prez etc to deside they needed a photo this day and have it in their hands the next with some safety that the blackbird provided. A slow drone or satalitte that is stuck in its orbit can't due that. Even the U2 isn't as good at the speed hight and safety like the 71. I'm not saying the 71 didn't have problems like every fighter bomber etc has, but what I'm saying is that the benifit that it provided was huge.

Oh and Ghost your first popst on here was fine just people that don't know you as much probably would of miss-read it.