Is this real??

My god, there's a real lack of knowledge around here for a place supposed to be full of 'plane geeks'.

Firstly, to whoever said the sr71 was too heavy for a regular road... Think about it. It's made of titanium - it was designed to be as light as possible...so it's not very heavy and the wheels spread the load.

Secondly, the debate about it looking to small? - I live right near Duxford museum in the uk and i've seen the sr71 there many times. It's nose is level with my nose and you need to duck to walk under it. It's not very long and is nowhere near the size of a passenger plane. It could easily fit in the space left by about 4 average sized cars.

Thirdly, there really is no secret surrounding the sr71 anymore. it was declassified years ago and left service a while ago too now. They also remove all the classified avionics before they go giving them to museums - so there's nothing worth protecting, apart form the plane itself from a historic point of view.

So stop getting your conspiracy pants in a twist - it's just an old sr71 being towed to a new home. Not everywhere has a runway y'know....and have you seen the fuel costs for the sr71....damn, it's cheaper to go by hummer.

R

Notice how the plane is off center; and is not directly on the Runway this is because if any of you have ever taxied down a runway you know that you do not do very much turning and maneuvering around. Hence look at the road behind the plane it would have landed behind itself in the picture and would not have turned around.

It also appears the road is about to turn which suggest to me that the road before was straight the plane was straihgt which looks true as far as the picture is concerned.

Gimmie a break!! Forget about the plane or the cars or the people. This is so blatantly fake it's unbelievable that any1 would even consider it as real. Although the shadow angles appear to be perfect for both the plane and the vehicles it is obvious the shadows for the tailing vehicles were artificially added.
1) The plane's shadow is real (notice how it matches the shape of the plane exactly). However the shapes of the shadows for the vehicles, likewise shud match vehicle shapes exactly, are only black distorted squares which would mean the vehicles wud have to be boxes only the large truck shadow at the back was altered to give appearance of part of the shadow being higher than the rest. The car shadows would vary in shape due to the roof of the vehicle being higher than the hood and trunk (Just like the shadow of the plane's tow vehicle does). Walk out to your driveway around 12:30-1:30pm on a sunny day when the shadows are about the same angle as this pic and tell me the shadow of your sedan cast a perfect square or if it changes shape going from the shadow of the hood to the roof then back down to the trunk.
2) Although the arguement that dirt was blown onto the road may sound reasonable this is very selective dirt. It's so thick on the road shoulder on the left side of the pic that it shows tire ruts yet it apparently managed to avoid covering up the white line but managed to cover the road on the other side of that line. Maybe the military hires umpires to run out and brush the lines clean prior to towing planes. The line on the left side of the plane when viewing the pic has been artificially added or retouched also. It looked so out of place after they did it they retouched a few more lines elsewhere in the photo to make it seem not so out of place.
3) If you study the high angle from which the pic was taken then look closely at the dirt (or dead grass) on the far left edge of the pic that appears to cross in front of the off ramp you can tell that the dirt (or grass) is approximately 18 inches to 2 feet high (or tall). Now... looking at the far edge of that section of dirt u can tell that the level of that area stays fairly constant, even dipping lower in the center. At most the northwest corner of it rises very slightly. However, the off ramp is flat/level and straight. At this viewing angle there is no way a road approx. 16-20 feet wide cud disappear completely behind a 2 foot high mound of dirt (or grass) unless it was banked at a fairly good degreeand turning right sharply. If this ramp was indeed banked the white lines on either side of the ramp wud get closer together as the road banked to turn right as it approached the dirt mound. They do not!!! Therefore it is a flat/level ramp that just dead ends at the mound of dirt. That is a poorly blended seam in the overlay. There is no way the line marking the left side of the lane on the ramp could possibly turn enough to avoid hitting that dirt area nor could the ramp turn sharp enough to go to the right of it. The dirt area extends too far left for that to be possible.

[edit on 8-10-2004 by SAGraver]

Take those 100% opaque conspiracy glasses away.
Shadows of the cars are just what they should be for cars with cabs which aren't boxes with 90 degree angles.
external image

And because of way way too hard compression it's b******t to say anything about tallnes of grass.

And fact that registration and posting dates are same makes your opinion even more dubious...

I don't see what the big deal is?

I grew up in Omaha, NE about 20 miles outside of Offutt Airforce Base Stratcom (father retired airforce if your wondering). When they decided to move their aging planes for museum display, guess how they did it. There's nothing wrong with the pic.

Here's a link to the SAC museum I did a little research on their SR-71A
www.sacmuseum.org...

Notice this (I'm assuming they are using English units, feet, because every other dimension stated is in its English standard unit)
Dimensions: Wingspan 55'7", Length 107'5", Height 18'6"

Not as big as we all thought?

Let us deal with your last remark first shall we? HELLO!!! I've read these forums off and on for a long time. However, since my profession is dealing with computer enhanced photos every day, it wasnt until someone ask the simple question "Is this pic real?" that i thought i might be able to inject a small amount of professional opinion into this forum. How does one accomplish this you may ask??? BY REGISTERING!!! DUH!! But i suppose it's possible you didn't know this. It does not matter that it is routine for the military to transport old planes over public roads. That does not mean that ALL photos of this nature are authentic. Nor does it matter whether the planes or cars are the proper scale. Previously in this forum topic someone mentioned the difference in grain between the objects in the foreground and the objects in the background. This was a legitimate argument that I felt was so obvious it needed no mention in my previous post. As far as the shadows on the cars I would venture to say that i've seen my car shadow thousands of times in past years and haven't ever once seen it cast a basically square shadow when the sun is hitting it from the side. Haven't ever seen that in a genuine photo either. But i'll give you that remark since observing the time you made your post i assume you didn't even bother to wait for the sun the following day to at least test my suggestion that you look for yourself at your own car. Car shadows when cast to the side of a vehicle will be the exact same shape as the top surfaces of the car. Another fault with todays "gotta do and say everything right now" premature climaxing youth. If you actually remembered anything you read of my post more than 5 seconds after you read it you would have remembered me mentioning the shadow cast by the vehicle that is towing the SR-71. It shows the true way a vehicle whose roof is higher than its front or back will cast a shadow. Once again DUH!! It's NOT a basically square box it matches the design of the top surfaces of the vehicle perfectly. It IS a true shadow of the vehicle. Next... if you cant distinguish the approximate height of grass that is a mere fifteen feet away from a car i can only feel sympathy for you. I can... it's called scaling. There are more than enough objects in that pic to accomplish this. I have to wonder why you didnt offer any dispute over the notion that the military hired umpires to sweep the heavy layer of dust from the white line on the far left of the photo. I assume you actually agreed with that assertion. Or was it you just didn't remember that part either. And, finally... sigh... I believe the subject of my post was discussing the validity of a photo. Where you got conspiracy from is beyond me... it appears to me to be nothing more than someone with photo software having a good time creating a somewhat unique photo. If you see a conspiracy anywhere i would suggest you seek professional help immediately. Isnt the level of education in todays youth wonderful? Hope your not finished with school yet. Would be a shame to have wasted all this time you've spent trying to learn something. Two weeks is a fairly large life investment to walk away with nothing. And by the way.... cute pajamas.

[edit on 9-10-2004 by SAGraver]

[edit on 9-10-2004 by SAGraver]

[edit on 9-10-2004 by SAGraver]

why cant i see the picture?

Why are you saying its fake if the people that took it there tell you its real?
The very people who own that plane are telling you its a real photo!
If you dont believe E_T here or ANY member then you need to get out of your box.

Why would anyone think there's some kind of conspiracy at work in this pic? It's real. When they retired them (the second time) they were flown or shipped to their museum display locations. It's probably a retired SR-71 being towed to a permanent display location, which is why they wouldn't be too concerned about the sandy conditions on the road. If it was still operational, they'd never consider anything but clean, debris-free taxiways. Active SR's were treated with kid gloves.

Contrary to uninformed statements in this forum, all sensitive equipment is stripped before they're turned over for display (as is the case for any aircraft used for museum display purposes). Other than physical hazards, there's no reason any person would be prohibited from climbing onto or inside these display birds.

Oh, and by the way, I did work on them in the early 80's.

Actually, it is 2 years and 10 months since anyone *SEEMED* to think it was a fake.

Is that what is known as a delayed reaction?

Same here, tried most of the links now and all I get is various 404 errors, thought it could just be in firefox (got a couple of addons I got to get shot of) but MS explorer is the same.

Is our internet being censored? *looks furtively round the room for covert surveillance and catches the cat watching me*

Come on everyone...don't you read the whole thread.

ATS member 'spectre' had the definitive answer way back on page one of this thread that should have ended the discussion. It's a real picture of a Blackbird which was being towed as a museum piece for Robins Air Force Base in Georgia. According to the article, it was flown to Robins AFB in 1990, then towed into it's present location. The photo we see is them towing it.

Here's the link provided by 'spectre' to the website which shows various photos of this particular Blackbird (No. 958), including the photo in question: www.habu.org...

Habu.org is the "Online Blackbird Museum."

Here is spectre's original post way back on page one:
www.abovetopsecret.com...


EDIT to add:
I'm Sorry...I should follow my own advice and look at the whole thread more closely...I see now that the last guy who thought this was fake posted almost 3 years ago...My fault

But still, how could those people 2-3 years ago continue to be so thick headed in the face of the evidence that this was a real photo of a plane being simply towed somewhere?

[edit on 10/2/2007 by Soylent Green Is People]

The pic is 100% real. My old squadron helped fix up aircraft for display at the local air museum and the entire squadron building had all kinds of pictures of aircraft being towed. Roadways are the only was to get them there sometimes.

Also to make room they dismantle any signs or light poles on the sides of the road to make room for the tow.

Just an old pic of a Blackbird going to a museum.

reply to post by PLaprad

---

For most aircraft execpt extreme cases the road can bear the loading its only a problem when landing. A runway is built for the land for a reason (won't get into the details) but its clear enough to say that the forces of a tons of aircraft at high speed on a couple wheels for disturbution calls for up to 5 meter thick runway in the touchdown zones for an aircraft. to roll one though down a highway would present no issues espesailly with empty weight.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

---

You could take this sentence and apply it to LOTS of threads on ATS

Is it this picture?

If so I have finally seen it (all links I tried prev wouldn't work, I was feeling left out)

And all the fuss was for?

Nice pic of an SR being toed along a road - may she rest in peace at her current museum.

my mom has a newspaper clipping of this, so im assuming its real lol. I grew up starring at the picture in awe as a child