How Was The Blackbirds Program Kept Secret?
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In the 1960s, secrecy, ingenuity and cooperation resulted in a series of airplanes that were invulnerable missiles, because they could outrun them. The best video on KZhead about the SR-71 and the rest of the Blackbird family, is #NotWhatYouThink #NWYT #longs
Music:
Are You Ready - Philip Ayers
Lead - Farrell Wooten
Family Badass - Rockin' For Decades
Flightmode - Chris Shards
This Is Not It - Philip Ayers
Hiding in the Shadows - Experia
Stellar Minds - DEX 1200
Cloak - Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen
What We Discovered - Philip Ayers
Solve It - Max Anson
There Is No Sequel - Philip Ayers
Torpedo - Tigerblood Jewel
One Last Drama - Philip Ayers
Sidelined - Dip Diet
Full Cycle - Jon Sumner
Footage:
Select images/videos from Getty Images
Shutterstock Enterprise
Videoblocks
Russian Ministry of Defense
National Archives
NASA
US Department of Defense
Note: "The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement."
REFERENCES:
www.nasa.gov/pdf/736495main_B...
• The Oxcart Story - Fra...
roadrunnersinternationale.com...
nap.nationalacademies.org/rea... JET
permitbook.com/trucking-compa...
/ how_the_thennew_topsec...
www.airandspaceforces.com/art...
www.thesr71blackbird.com/Airc...
• The Oxcart Story - Fra...
wisconsinmetaltech.com/16-sec...
nationalinterest.org/blog/the...
www.quora.com/When-was-the-SR...
theaviationgeekclub.com/black...
www.sandboxx.us/blog/project-...
www.blackbirds.net/sr71/srloc...
00:00 What's inside the box?
1:33 The Blackbird Family
3:36 Play War Thunder
4:58 Why were the Blackbirds built?
6:38 The Blackbird's performance
9:30 The Engineering Challenges of the Blackbirds
13:11 The Engines that powered the Blackbirds
15:19 Why did the SR-71 Blackbird leak fuel?
18:36 Blackbirds' missions and trolling other nations!
20:07 Why I couldn't pilot the Blackbird
21:43 Were any Blackbirds ever shot down?
22:51 What happened to the Blackbirds?
24:23 Play War Thunder
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Hello
Hell nah
bruh this game is absolute hell, it's either packet loss or pocket loss (as a great youtuber said recently)
Superb history review! Whatever happened to all the airframes and parts? I hope they are in mothballs indefinitely because they could be a vital asset to resurrect in case of the Kessler syndrome that we could soon face if Russia or China use anti-satellite missiles and it's snowballs out of control.
once you go down the war thunder pipeline its nothing but coping, pain and suffering. 11/10 would do it again
Imagine being the bus driver and accidentally scraping a wide load truck. You ask what's in the box and they joke it's an alien spacecraft, then men with suits and dark shades step in and give you thousands of dollars to fix your bus and say to not file an insurance claim.
M.I.B. !
Imagine being a passenger
at least they didnt ask him to look at the little flashy thing they were holding to wipe his memory lol
The base where it was tested was area 51 btw
They made good use of the Pecuniary Neuralizer. The 'Forget It Happened' lubricant can be very effective at times.
It's actually a myth that engineers couldn't get the Blackbird to not leak fuel. The engineers did develop a way to 100% stop leaks. The problem was the time it took to maintain it was longer than the required turn around time for the Blackbirds next mission. The Air Force just simply didn't have the time to do the required maintenance. Because of this the Air Force adopted acceptable drip rates before resealing the planes skin.
Yeah it's annoying that the same falsehoods keep getting promulgated. The truth is that the tank sealant would work fine initially, but then once subjected to the temperature difference in a mission of -70f to 600f it would begin to disintegrate. Hence, as you said, they would have to reseal the tanks after probably every mission, which wasn't feasible.
so you could say they couldn't get it to stop leaking fuel *within the time constraints*
@Garage Gamer soooooooo in other words, it's not a myth.. Sounds alot like the engineers tried to develope a way to keep the fuel from leaking but couldn't.
@@clayboi6939 no it's not a myth. The video says it's impossible to stop the plane from leaking fuel. It's not impossible to stop it from leaking fuel. The Air Force just didn't take the time to do it.
They literally did not invent a way to 100% stop leaks if it couldn’t by implemented into the plane. If their way to stop leaks stops working after being exposed to temperatures the plane regularly operates in, and can’t be maintained without impeding the mission of the plane, what exactly did the engineers solve?
The SR-71 and the Concorde are some of the most impressive feats of aviation engineering in the cold war era. What incredible machines, all developed with slide rules.
Only difference was the Concorde was a airliner
Cold war? Nah. Of all time. Don't forget the XB-70.
And amazingly. Were designed in the early 60’s
We landed on the MOON with slide rules & drafting tables. When they closed the Saturn V program, NASA compiled ALL the drawings & specifications needed to make every single part & system for it, & made 3 copies of the whole set (before Xerox machines were a thing - that's where the term "blueprints" came from). They were stored in 3 places spread around the nation, as a "just in case" we found some new reason why we needed to go back to the Moon. These were rather large troves of documents that needed to be stored under controlled climate conditions so they wouldn't degrade, so Hilson into them had a cost, & all 3 of them, without discussing their plan with the others, or NASA, decided 2 copies were enough & destroyed theirs, so the new program to put a woman on the Moon had to be re-engineered from scratch!
If I had a buck for every time I've seen this comment I'd be a millionaire. If there was a bonus 1000x multiplier for every time those comments mentioned slide rules, I'd be a billionaire. If there was a further 1000x bonus for every time somebody responded by mentioning that all the early feats of various space programs were also done with slide rules, I could probably afford to run my own space program by now.
My grandfather helped design parts of the Blackbird. He helped with some of the electronics on board. My dad loves to tell the story of when he was in a car with my grandfather and there was a bad driver and my dad had said something like "It would be really cool if we could read their license plate from space" and my grandfather said something like "we already can" before he realized he had to shut up because he wasn't supposed to talk about the plane at the time as it was a government secret.
Bs
@@henrybrink8799 Ok? Dunno why you think that lol
Why is it that most people's grandfathers here have worked on the blackbird project
@@stuartwheatley9867 I’m not sure. I’ve never heard of anyone else’s grandfather working on it. It probably did have thousands of people contribute towards it so I wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t too rare but nobody I’ve talked to has had their grandfather work on it maybe because while my grandfather lives in dc I live in Georgia so I guess im less likely to hear about it so it feels cooler to me
@@stuartwheatley9867 my friends grandfather supposedly worked on project aurora but its only credibly is that they found blueprints of a aircraft never seen before and had worked for skunkworks
It's 2022, some 60 years later, and you're still digging up content on the blackbird that I've never heard of before! Great job!
Thank you!
Ditto that for me. I thought I'd heard all the lore already, but not even close. Well said.
I never heard of black bird I now what a shortsword looks like from halo reach.
In some instances the creator of these videos is doing their version of presenting what may actually be well-known. But this channel is one of my favorite.
@@jaisummons2304 you’d have to learn better english too.
The irony of Titanium from the Soviet Union was, at the time, the Soviets themselves could not afford to use it in their top end aircraft - it was too valuable as a trade commodity to be sold to other nations. So their own aircraft would have things like strips of titanium to reinforce steel panels, rather than being fully titanium.
That and they were probably using all their other Titanium resources on submarine hulls
Enough of an oversupply on the market that other nations were building bicycles out of titanium
"Irony of Titanium" made me smile for some reason 😁
The Soviets were so obsessed with increasing their GDP they starved 10million people to death so they could sell the food for foreign currency.
@@nash6132 Oh, I just got it! 😁
I spent a fair amount of time at Air Force Plant 42 outside of Palmdale CA back in the 90's while working on a U-2 program. The U-2 and SR-71 were housed in the same hanger. The path through the hanger was marked in yellow tape on the floor and we were not allowed to wander outside of the tape. The SR-71 would make test flights a couple of times a week. Everything would stop as everyone on the ground would watch it take off. Absolutely amazing. I have many memories of working on our equipment in the U-2 super pods while the bird was parked behind the hanger. The slightest breeze would cause the wings to flap about 3 feet up and down. Also got to sit in the U-2 cockpit. There was an SR-71 engine test stand about a mile down the road from our trailer. When it would fire up, the vibrations felt like an earthquake in the trailer. Watching the SR-71 land was even more fascinating. It would come in pretty fast, smoke would pour off the brakes and then the drag chutes would deploy. Took more runway to land then it did to take off. The U-2 would kind of float into the sky on take off and quickly disappear. The SR-71 took off like a rocket in a steep climb.
*hangar
The knowledge provided by the Blackbird family of aircraft is invaluable. NASA used theirs as a Mach 3+ research platform. At one point they put early GPS tech onboard and flew it at altitude and tested the instruments.
The X-15 was extremely interesting as well lol
your employer would like to know your location
lol NASA
@@henkhenkste6076 lol flat earther
@@augl2702 how the **** did you ever jump to that conclusion
Yes! Blackbird is one of the coolest aircrafts ever built together with XB-70 Valkyrie
It's bizarre to look at WWII era piston airplanes, just barely past the biplane era in the 1940s, and compare them to this just 20 years later. It is an astounding level of advancement.
All because of the jet engine basically. Without the jet engine there’d be not much advancement
You see the new B21 raider it looks cool.
@@markchapman2585 it’s incredible. Looks like a ufo
The XB70 wasn't barely reliable... It was pretty much an ultra expensive, totally useless beautiful hoax
I knew a mechanic who worked on the Blackbird. He said the Blackbird airframe was stress tested up to Mach 7, and was expected to fly at Mach 5. He also confirmed they needed tools made of special alloys to keep from compromising the titanium skin.
The only thing my Dad won't talk about (except for classified missions,) is the Max Speed of the SR-71. That is still classified. "Mach 3+!" he says. (He has a ring with an SR, and 3+ on its silhouette.) He then smiles, and shakes that ring at me.
Friend of Dad's (RIP): "No matter how fast you think the SR-71 can fly, you're still not thinking fast enough."
how do you even test for mach 7!? a hyperturbowindtunnel??
u should be able to tell the max speed with the mach angle formula, and get the angle from the top view of the plane
The tools were cadmium free
as scuffed as the end result was, MAN that is a lot of engineering. you can imagine an entire department just to develop, study, and test the fuel, let alone the stealth, aerodynamic, manufacturing, temperature cycling resilience, materials, GD&T, sourcing, CAD, safety, secrecy, politics, budgeting, pilot insurance, pilot training,... and so many i can't think of...
My father was one of the CIA men at Groom Lake during the early 60's, when they were testing the A12s. I was a newborn baby at the time. I didn't know about this until about 10 years ago. Actually I knew he worked for the CIA, but not what he did until that time. Imagine finding out my own dad worked not only at A51, but also with my favorite airplane of all time. =) He has a lot of stories, such as being parked next to the runway one day when one of the planes crashed on landing right in front of him. One of the stories he told me was about the road-trips they took to transport the planes to A51. Just as was mentioned here, he told me that they got so tired of people asking what was in the giant boxes that they just started telling people, "Well... I shouldn't tell you this, but it's a crashed UFO we found". I'm 58 now and he's I think 78, and we still talk on the phone and the A12 frequently comes up. Next year he's going to fly up to visit with me for a while, and I plan to take him to the Seattle Flight Museum where he can see the M21 we have there - the only one in existence in the world. It will be interesting to see how he feels being in the presence of one of the very planes he once walked past or underneath on a daily basis, so many years ago, as a young man.
How v cool thank you for sharing 👍 These feel good stories are so wonderful, so appreciated, in such trying times as in the current geopolitical landscape ... or "airscape" as it were.
And you "reveal" all of that for what? A tiny dopamine hit from watching your comment get upvotes? Sad.
@@bollockjohnson6156 He's just telling his story man, don't be a dick about it.
@@bollockjohnson6156 ???? What you jealous their dad worked on awesome projects while yours was probably a deadbeat?
@@bollockjohnson6156 cry some more shittard
My Grandpa was an engineer on the SR-71 project at skunk works, he has some of the coolest diagrams & pictures I've ever seen of the aircraft. As well as some of the greatest stories from working on it.
My father worked on the Blackbird, in charge of a couple hundred and specialized on landing gears. They gave him a plaque with a model Blackbird on it and it’s the coolest thing
@@spino992 That's actually cool, I've got a couple pictures of the blackbird with pilots signatures and a giant blue print of the aircraft. Man is approaching 90 and he absolutely loves drawing out the engine nacelle moving process.
Yeah...and my grandpa had a baby Sasquatch in a box in his garage..
@@cunicularium5424 Look up Bill Majors SR-71, and maybe delete your comment.
@@TheConleyman That’s cool! I’ve seen a real Blackbird in person, but I’ve never seen the blueprints. And those pictures with the pilot’s signatures must be awesome.
1:49 “Relatively small scale” *oh yea they built the hubble 💀
I'm glad to see your still making regular length videos because this channel, and your voice are very entertaining and informative and I enjoy that there's always something that isn't what a person would normally think. I think there was only one video that I already knew the answer after being a fan of the channel for years. Y'all do a great job and make great content!
Thank you!
@@NotWhatYouThink you're welcome ❤️
I personally think that the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird is one of the coolest looking aircraft. I've actually seen it in a museum and it looks amazing.
Even the tools had to be designed with special metals as regular tools would degrade the materials the plane was made of.
Absolutely astonishing machine
Cadmium plating was a bitch.
@Auschwitz Soccer Ref. Based off what we've seen from them lately. I'd say whatever there equivalent to harbor freight is where they probably get there tools 😂
Knowledge from Real Engineering coming in clutch
@@auschwitzsoccerref.8582>> Russia “allegedly” makes entire submarines out of titanium.
This plane was groundbreaking In every sense of the word. The materials, engines, tools, and auxiliary equipment all had to be designed with this bird and the feats it was capable of in mind. Even the _starter carts_ had to be designed. They took two buick V8 engines (for each cart), coupled them together through a gearbox, and used that to start the blackbird’s engines. They blew up so many engines that they exhausted the supply and had to switch to chevy engines! From nose to tail the blackbird is just _crazy_
425 CID Nailheads. And the sound was apparently never the same after the switch to 454 (one reason was due to the Nailhead having smaller intake valves than the exhaust; the valves looked like the head of a nail, hence the name), so they had to run at max RPM to create any reasonable power, even with dual quads. Hence the high failure rate of the start cart engines.
@@Billhatestheinternet wow thats crazy
very useful and interesting konetnt , I also shoot the same videos rate
And now, satellites have taken the role the blackbird had. Still funny to see people imagining it with weapons though in various video games.
@@Billhatestheinternet besides that, those who ran the starter carts would “accidentally” let them over-rev because it sounded so good, leading to way too many blown engines.
My Dad programmed the SR-71 flight simulators - with punchcards. [Edit: HOLY MOLY - I think that's him at 20:31 , in white!!!] No mouse, no keyboard - they didn't exist yet. (And he's intimidated by Windows 10! I said Dad, Dad - computers with mice should feel like a cakewalk!) The computers were so large, they didn't fit in a single room. They had to be air conditioned. Dad - today you don't even have to change the drip pans on computers! (He thinks that's marvelous.) He told me, the first simulators were on trains. So top-secret, they didn't have a central location that could be found out. Later, gets moved to Beale. Our family had dinner parties with pilots and crew. My God I'd give anything to remember what was said. Took it all for granted. Today, Dad is shy about talking about it, and is reluctant for me to interview him. Could ya'll do me a favor, and tell him he's wrong? That you'd like to see this? He doesn't even understand the love the community has for this plane.
That’s not what it’s about… the interest is probably the reason he doesn’t say anything. There’s a lot about these planes (and their successors) we won’t be allowed to know about for decades, at a minimum
@@kylervoie yup. government life contract.
your dad is the best
Get him to write a journal about his time there or something, he probably can't say anything while hes alive
One of the simulators is now in a museum at Love Field in Dallas.
16:46 Thanks for the warning bro, I almost did that with my leftover JP-7 fuel.
Technology from the 60's that's still mind boggling. Can't imagine what they're making in 2022 behind closed doors
That’s what I always think.
They are building SR72 blackbird but it's unmanned
@@lotus9378 unmanned for sure,but the capabilities are what scares me!
Haha look at the b21 release from a week ago
So far there's rumours about a Successor of the SR-71 nicknamed "Aurora" I do know there's a render of it being slick and smooth, silver colored too
The only thing you forgot to mention, was the LA to DC trip of the last USAF Blackbird, in 68 minutes and 17 seconds- breaking 4 flight time records, as it flew into retirement and to the National Air & Space Museum's Steven Udvar Hazy Center.
My favorite story about the planes, is the pilot who called for a speed check from civilian ground control. Just to take a string of pilots down a peg, including a fighter pilot who did, for trying to pick on a Cessna pilot for doing it. Don't know if it was true, but it's the funniest story I've ever heard of about a USAF SR-71.
And also the New York to London speed record of less than 2 hours. Also one that not many people know is that James Sullivan (same pilot from the trans-Atlantic record) once buzzed his bosses house at mach 2 which shattered all the windows in the house. 😂
Wow I am glad the pilots opened that airplane up one last time. I still think that airplane had more speed to give and wish they would revisit the design with 2022 quality of life improvements and mechanical\engineering upgrades
How is that done, since flying over populated areas is no longer allowed in the U.S. ?
@@thebigdog2295 agree, great story, was sad to learn is was made up, another pilot came out and said was above their air space and did not monitor regular air space.
Thank you so much for the metric units on display! I'm not familiar with imperial units at all, so the inclusion really help me visualize!
Fun fact: An A-12 is sitting outside the California Sience Center in Los Angeles, seeing it in-person was so cool, just knowing how fast and how historic it is.
There are a pair of Blackbirds and a drone in an outdoor public museum at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. The museum is named "Blackbird Airpark". I drive pas⅞t it on my way to my bank or the mall or Walmart. Since my dad was an Avionics Electrician for Lockheed and worked on the prototypes they're rather special to me. In 1963 we attended the airshow at Edward's. As I stood under the XB70 displyed on the northern flightline, a Blackbird taxied out of a hanger in the south flightline and took off. The PA announced it was the 1st public showing of the type. Dad had previously worked on U2s. Of course, while I knew WHERE he worked, he was not allowed to tell me he worked on those projects until the 1980s.
I saw an SR-71 in airzoo
I saw the SR-71 fly at two different air shows both at Norton AFB. The first was 10/25/80, the second 11/08/81. The first show included two low passes with full power climbout, and and a few other low passes. The second show included one low pass with full power climbout a couple of lame flybys and an apology that they had run out of budget for anything more. Absolutely, the most thrilling thing I've seen at an airshow. I was invited to give tethered hot air balloon flights. We stopped everything while the SR71's were in the air not wanting to miss anything.
Blackbird might be my favorite plane ever. How it was designed, built, the materials acquired, the famous Speed Check at the Navy’s expense, that photo with all the pilots in full garb like it was the cover for the best album in existence, amazing piece of engineering
When I was in high school I was in an Air Force ROTC, and we had the first pilot to ever test fly this aircraft come in to give us a speech. It was great listening to his stories and experiences with this aircraft
I’ve watched many many videos on the Blackbird project and the history and tech details of SR-71 aircraft. This one is THE BEST! I especially enjoyed seeing the brief segments of movie footage of Kelly Johnson. Thanks! And good luck.
My favorite plane ever! All these decades later and it STILL looks like something from the future. And its performance is practically mythic.
Mine is personally the Concorde they’re so cool and complex inside
It really feels like a place you’ve been before and it’s really calming
Honestly, I am blown away by the engineering that went into this. Yet you get idiots saying the moon landing was faked. Lmao.
@@algebra358 play kerbal space and tell me about the difference between atmospheric flight and landing on mun lol
@@ron5521 well in the atmosphere you can pitch up very rapidly to bleed off speed (so long as your vehicle is controllable enough) and on the mun you won't be able to use control surfaces, wings, can't rely on air resistance for slowing down, and you can't use airbreathing engines. (so you'll be extremely inefficient with fuel and you'll run out of fuel pretty quickly) I would know. I've developed a KSP addiction in the last few days.
my cousin was an engineer for the SR-71 project. Not sure what section he was apart of but seeing his house for the first time was like a museum. Such an awesome accomplishment for its time.
Well done on this video! I have been a Blackbird fan all my life but I learned some new things about this beautiful jet from your video! Thanks!
I learned something today; not all planes are capable of gliding, the Blackbird had a glide ratio of a brick.
As does the Space Shuttle.
@@ferky123 The shuttle can glide?
it's more like a flying missle
@@allseeingeyezz flying missile? that’s like saying something is a driving car
@@sixty9inety yes, but missiles don't land or have landing gear
I was wondering if I'd ever be able to see one of these flying again at an airshow, but after watching this and seeing how much preparation and maintenance it takes to fly one my hopes aren't anywhere as high as they were a few minutes ago. Edit: apparently they don't make the JP7 fuel anymore either, so having that produced solely for the occasional airshow is gonna be a pain in the ass too :(
NASA retired theirs in 1999. The Borane for the ignition system would probably be harder to find.
It would be too difficult to fly it slowly enough to give people something to look at. The bird is made to go extremely fast, and at slow airshow speeds it would be too unmanouverable and potentially unsafe - especially with an aerodynamic profile like that.
@@allangibson8494 TEB is regularly used to start rocket engines.
yeah bud you missed out. theres literal 0 chance to see one considering the last one flew over 20 years ago.
I feel extremely fortunate to have been present for the "Last Flight" and a few flights leading up to that flight. Even got to watch an aerial refueling though tracking camera.
This is THE BEST blackbird documentary I have watched. Very enjoyable to watch and you cover all the information so well and in depth. Huge fan of this channel good work!! Maybe when I am employed again I can make donations to my favourite channels but right now I cannot afford it my broski.
The historical footage found for this video are breath-taking. Very well done !
One if the best vids on the Blackbird. Thank you.
Thank you :-)
@@NotWhatYouThink 00:50 Yes cause the guy driving the bus owned the Bus! and people couldnt see there was these big trucks on the road ROLL THE VIDEO! 🤦♂🤣
I just gotta say that this video and others are very well paced and organized. I actually enjoyed all of the segues to topics! For example, the fuel leaks leading to the panel gaps needed for the heating up of the aircraft!
I absolutely love your videos brotha, thank you for all the effort you put in.
My grandfather... well he's a cool man, while he did not worked with SR-71 himself. He was the driver on one of those trailers shipping blackbirds. Thought it's fine to share this since people's grandfather in the comments is surprising to have worked with SR-71. He's having a memory loss due to his age but he always had kept a portrait of him in the living room where he is shown smiling near the trailers he once drove. I didn't know what the cargo was, said he couldn't remember what's inside, just knew from the image that it is really a wide object in a seemingly weird shaped box. After watching this video I realized those were blackbirds! I wish I could show you the portrait in the comments.
I consider this the best and most detailed video on SR-71 with footage I haven't seen before.
Thank you! That’s what we were shooting for 😉
The air refueling while the planes are going operational minimum and maximum speeds is hilarious
I Absolutely Love These Videos and any Documentation I can find on THE SR71! I turned 65 this year and every year I become more nostalgic. Born in Torrance back in 1958 I can remember my father talking about this beautiful jet to my mother. In Spanish! 😂 We moved to Burbank later then to San Diego when I was 5 years old. Dad would come home on the weekends. He always brought me a Benjamin Franklin Half Dollar but, I remember one particular morning he said to me; "we're building a jet plane that will fly from Los Angeles to New York in about 2 hours. It stuck in my head because he was excited about having a part in welding it together! The sr71 Blackbird! I took my Benjamin coin and went outside to wait for the ice cream truck. 😇 The Rest is History! 😎
I just turned 66. Has anyone seen The SR71 up close?
This is my favorite plane ever. One time I was in florida and accidentally drove down a road that was a one way to a Lockheed Martin factory. Security was on us when we were leaving. No joke there
This is an incredible video. The sheer amount of effort and insane detail put into the generated and recreated footage is mind boggling.
I really enjoy the visuals on your videos, historical footage is so much more interesting than an illustration, and they’re applicable to the topic discussed!
Thank you, and yes, we do our best to find relevant footage as much as possible.
Im about to see the SR-71C this weekend and am so excited, it’s been my favorite plane my whole childhood. Perfect time to get recommended this video
This is the best review of the Blackbird family I've seen. Nicely done!
I love your longer videos like this. Your narration writing is excellent
There is one on display in Hutchison Kansas at the Cosmosphere. While the entire museum is worth a view, especially if combined with a visit to the salt mine, the Blackbird is in the lobby before you pay to enter. So if you just want to see a blackbird, you can, without charge.
And a space shuttle
@@N312RB IIRC, the "shuttle" is a scaled down replica that uses real shuttle tiles. But it is pretty cool too.
That was a GREAT video! Thanks!
Getting to see a Blackbird at my local airshows was a real treat, as a kid. Gorgeous bird. I knew nothing about it's capabilities, but still knew it was something special.
I'll never not watch a documentary on the SR-71, no matter how many times I've seen all the information before 😂It is one of the most impressive aircraft every developed.
I got to see the SR-71 when I was eight. Our third-grade class took a field trip to Tucson. I spend the entire time at the air museum looking and walking around the blackbird. The engines and cockpit electronics where missing, but it was still awesome. None of my classmates seemed to know anything about it. One even got mad at me on the bus ride back and told me to stop talking about it. It is one of the very few memories I have of third grade.
By far the most detailed SR-71 or Blackbird related video I've ever watched on KZhead, I almost watched every of them and none of them is as detailed.
0:27 literally where my mind goes every time I hear the question “what’s in the box?“ 😅
The real question is: how do you refuel that truck on the road if it happens to need more? Of course it would be fueled before but WHAT IF
Gas cans exist.
Tanker and fuel hose mainly. My fuel bowser has a 50ft long hose to reach my digging equipment in-situ.
@@andrewthomson that's quite spooky how often things happen to run out of gas haha. 50ft is no joke to be lugging around
@@kaing5074 meh, their fuel tanks are only so big and they run 16hrs a day. Gotta refuel somehow lol. We fabricated an air driven spool that rewinds them automatically when we throw a valve so it's not so bad lugging them around.
Detatch the container and drive to the nearest fuel station. Or have a tanker with you
I think this is my favorite KZhead channel. Would love a behind the scenes for the effort, research, number of people, the channel history, and information, etc
Awesome work as always keep it up thank you for keeping us informed on different things God bless you♥🙏
growing up during the 80s and 90s the blackbird was my favorite airplane.. so sleek and fast, it just looked tough and badass.. amazing design..
Great video. The SR-71 Black Birds are my favorite planes. I am lucky to live in Washington state. Seattle is just a little bit north of Federal Way where I live and I have gotten to and can go to the Boeing Museum Of Flight when I can - the Museum has the sole surviving M21 / D21 pair also there is a cockpit that was recovered from a crashed SR-71 and you can sit in the cockpit. The Museum has a lot of aircraft and other items - The "Red Barn" Boeings original headquarters can be gone through. :)
the MOF is cool but honestly I liked the McMinnville Evergreen aviation museum more. For anyone interested in cold war aircraft they let you get right up close and personal to them unlike the MoF which keeps you far away. Probably wasn't supposed to but you can easily get close enough to touch everything. So I gently ran my hand across the SR-71s paint because I wanted to see how it felt. It's a real shame that museum has been struggling so much
Are they all called SR-71?
@@WatchFelineSpine There all Black Birds - SR-71 is the model flown by the USAF.
Iconic bit of engineering. A subject of major fascination for me as a kid, along with the tornado, harrier and the vulcan. Manned flight at this level is such a phenomenal achievement, regardless of the machine’s true purpose.
2:22 To think that Kojima used this exact model in MGS3 is amazing, I always though he just made up the jet with a drone (Snake's second infiltration)
If you are ever near Blackbird park in California, go lay it a visit. There is a living legend who works there who has flown multiple sr-71 variants and even the test flight of the b-2.
If a family saw an accident involving some secret Russian project, I'm sure that instead of $25,000 they would have had to go live in the gulag
Great Video! Thank YOu!
“There were a lot of things we couldn’t do in an SR-71, but we were the fastest guys on the block and loved reminding our fellow aviators of this fact. People often asked us if, because of this fact, it was fun to fly the jet. Fun would not be the first word I would use to describe flying this plane. Intense, maybe. Even cerebral. But there was one day in our Sled experience when we would have to say that it was pure fun to be the fastest guys out there, at least for a moment. It occurred when Walt and I were flying our final training sortie. We needed 100 hours in the jet to complete our training and attain Mission Ready status. Somewhere over Colorado we had passed the century mark. We had made the turn in Arizona and the jet was performing flawlessly. My gauges were wired in the front seat and we were starting to feel pretty good about ourselves, not only because we would soon be flying real missions but because we had gained a great deal of confidence in the plane in the past ten months. Ripping across the barren deserts 80,000 feet below us, I could already see the coast of California from the Arizona border. I was, finally, after many humbling months of simulators and study, ahead of the jet. I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for Walter in the back seat. There he was, with no really good view of the incredible sights before us, tasked with monitoring four different radios. This was good practice for him for when we began flying real missions, when a priority transmission from headquarters could be vital. It had been difficult, too, for me to relinquish control of the radios, as during my entire flying career I had controlled my own transmissions. But it was part of the division of duties in this plane and I had adjusted to it. I still insisted on talking on the radio while we were on the ground, however. Walt was so good at many things, but he couldn’t match my expertise at sounding smooth on the radios, a skill that had been honed sharply with years in fighter squadrons where the slightest radio miscue was grounds for beheading. He understood that and allowed me that luxury. Just to get a sense of what Walt had to contend with, I pulled the radio toggle switches and monitored the frequencies along with him. The predominant radio chatter was from Los Angeles Center, far below us, controlling daily traffic in their sector. While they had us on their scope (albeit briefly), we were in uncontrolled airspace and normally would not talk to them unless we needed to descend into their airspace. We listened as the shaky voice of a lone Cessna pilot asked Center for a readout of his ground speed. Center replied: November Charlie 175, I’m showing you at ninety knots on the ground. Now the thing to understand about Center controllers, was that whether they were talking to a rookie pilot in a Cessna, or to Air Force One, they always spoke in the exact same, calm, deep, professional, tone that made one feel important. I referred to it as the “ HoustonCentervoice.” I have always felt that after years of seeing documentaries on this country’s space program and listening to the calm and distinct voice of the Houstoncontrollers, that all other controllers since then wanted to sound like that… and that they basically did. And it didn’t matter what sector of the country we would be flying in, it always seemed like the same guy was talking. Over the years that tone of voice had become somewhat of a comforting sound to pilots everywhere. Conversely, over the years, pilots always wanted to ensure that, when transmitting, they sounded like Chuck Yeager, or at least like John Wayne. Better to die than sound bad on the radios. Just moments after the Cessna’s inquiry, a Twin Beech piped up on frequency, in a rather superior tone, asking for his groundspeed. Twin Beach, I have you at one hundred and twenty-five knots of ground speed. Boy, I thought, the Beechcraft really must think he is dazzling his Cessna brethren. Then out of the blue, a navy F-18 pilot out of NAS Lemoore came up on frequency. You knew right away it was a Navy jock because he sounded very cool on the radios. Center, Dusty 52 ground speed check Before Center could reply, I’m thinking to myself, hey, Dusty 52 has a ground speed indicator in that million-dollar cockpit, so why is he asking Center for a readout? Then I got it, ol’ Dusty here is making sure that every bug smasher from Mount Whitney to the Mojave knows what true speed is. He’s the fastest dude in the valley today, and he just wants everyone to know how much fun he is having in his new Hornet. And the reply, always with that same, calm, voice, with more distinct alliteration than emotion: Dusty 52, Center, we have you at 620 on the ground. And I thought to myself, is this a ripe situation, or what? As my hand instinctively reached for the mic button, I had to remind myself that Walt was in control of the radios. Still, I thought, it must be done - in mere seconds we’ll be out of the sector and the opportunity will be lost. That Hornet must die, and die now. I thought about all of our Sim training and how important it was that we developed well as a crew and knew that to jump in on the radios now would destroy the integrity of all that we had worked toward becoming. I was torn. Somewhere, 13 miles above Arizona, there was a pilot screaming inside his space helmet. Then, I heard it. The click of the mic button from the back seat. That was the very moment that I knew Walter and I had become a crew. Very professionally, and with no emotion, Walter spoke: Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check? There was no hesitation, and the replay came as if was an everyday request. Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground. I think it was the forty-two knots that I liked the best, so accurate and proud was Center to deliver that information without hesitation, and you just knew he was smiling. But the precise point at which I knew that Walt and I were going to be really good friends for a long time was when he keyed the mic once again to say, in his most fighter-pilot-like voice: Ah, Center, much thanks, We’re showing closer to nineteen hundred on the money. For a moment Walter was a god. And we finally heard a little crack in the armor of the HoustonCentervoice, when L.A.came back with: Roger that Aspen, Your equipment is probably more accurate than ours. You boys have a good one. It all had lasted for just moments, but in that short, memorable sprint across the southwest, the Navy had been flamed, all mortal airplanes on freq were forced to bow before the King of Speed, and more importantly, Walter and I had crossed the threshold of being a crew. A fine day’s work. We never heard another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast. For just one day, it truly was fun being the fastest guys out there.”
Beautiful story! 😉
‘It still operates on a small scale… making the Hubble telescope’
Expounding upon the marriage requirement, it has been noted in many other sources that the spouse's of the pilots were unknowingly under surveillance as well during their day-to-day lives and instances were noted that a number of wives were having extramarital affairs yet the pilot husbands were not informed of it during the program for obvious reasons. The veils upon veils of secrecy for the project were absolutely boundless and in hindsight seem a little cold blooded, but such was the nature of the level of importance required and maintained toward not only loyalty, but also toward the emotional wellbeing and mental stability of the program's prized pilots. I can't imagine how torqued any of these guys would've been after realizing (if it was ever part of any debriefing) that the G-Men had known about these infidelities as they continued on with such harsh training and stress. Like, "My wife's bangin' the milkman while I'm being water-boarded in a simulated capture/torture by the guys who knew more about my wife than I did and didn't fricken tell me!!" 😂 Would love to hear some firsthand accounts from any of those pilots!
Lmao that's hilarious
@@joecoolio134 and it's certainly sad though, all these guys working their a$$es off just to get their wives banged by the by milkman.
@🐅Joe Coolio🐅 Gotta be Bob Lazar. I think I too remember having heard about this happening to him. But sometimes he tells it a bit differently, occasionally stating that they knew and didn't tell him but that he was fired due more because of a few cumulative reasons. Including how early on he would invite friends out with him at certain times of night where they would watch test crafts being flown, as well as not staying in his lane and wanting to "share notes" with people working on other compartmentalized aspects of the project. Compared to how it would be these days, seems like they weren't too rough on him all things considered. They didn't go too far with the whole 'character assassination' and reputation destruction to the extent that it would be these days.
@🐅Joe Coolio🐅 Sagan would've made for a much better Rogan interview of an astrophysicist than the Neil DeGrasse Tyson one. I respect the guy and his intelligence but (at least the one JRE interview with him I watched) he wouldn't stop going on random tangential subjects with a really hyper, staccato speech pattern. I swear he was coked up on the Rogan episode that I watched. It's as if, without a script or some type of moderation, Degrasse-Tyson can't stay focused. Joe was so patient and did a decent job of reigning him back in to finish the thoughts on the very subjects that Neil himself had brought up. Yet about halfway through, I could see Joe's face and he wanted to throw in the towel bad 😂 it was like 3.5hrs long
@🐅Joe Coolio🐅 that part of him was in fact highly present with Rogan because Rogan has the humility to sort of "let the smart men speak", and Tyson would not only interrupt, but he would do so with something completely off topic. My head was spinning with that mess and after awhile Joe realized just how much he had to work to keep Tyson engaged in each process of thought long enough to see it through to its natural conclusion. Tbh, I felt a bit sorry for Tyson because it almost seemed like he couldn't sit in thought and let his ideas ruminate with someone else longer than a moment. Even for a second of silence, Tyson looked as if he needed to fill that tiny void by vomiting up anything that came to mind without actually having a conclusion. Massive ADHD type if there ever was one. I started to wonder if people in his personal life pretend they're going out of state for Thanksgiving etc., so that they wouldn't have to feel as if a brain draining vampire was sucking their thoughts dry
We either have something today that will blow our mind or these guys were absolute geniuses.
Both true, we’ve always been this smart
I saw the SR-71 fly out of Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa in the daylight, spring of 1990. One of the most exciting things I've ever seen.
My grandfather, Robert Walker, was one of the head engineers that worked on the SR-71. He was always very quiet about it (he was a very humble guy). It’s fascinating learning more about the blackbird after his death. I wish he were still alive to talk about it.
Would've asked for $7,000 if they were so quick with $3,500.
Be careful with that, don't ask more than your life is worth, and with that I mean how much would it cost to hide ur dead ass lol
And then woken up in a CIA black site
@@Succccccccccccccthey would gladly pay 7k
@@mckusipaska7964 even 7k is like a pocket change for such angency.
@@Succcccccccccccc that doesn't track
I don’t really know anything about planes. (Even after watching this video.) But I think I can definitively say that I have a favourite plane now. What a beautiful piece of machinery!
i was sobbing the whole time, where do you get all these images and videos, so awesome man!
I never knew about the heat problem or all the specialty chosen materials. Idk why but I'm fascinated with testing things to their limits and then finding stronger replacements.
3:48 "if youre new to War Thunder" dont even think about installing it, save yourself a lot of future hair loss
Ye it makes you mald unless you spend money
too late I'm already top tier in the game no turning back
I wanted to get into it, my type of game, it's just too complicated to get into like I want to
World of warships/world of tanks is better for playing without paying. Have had years of fun in warships and spent less than what I would have for a typical AAA title, prob $20-30 total. Just don't buy shops outright and won't spend much to have ton of fun
I never understood people like you, the best planes are around BR 2.0, there's literally no point in going to BR 4.0 or beyond.
Our founders great grandfather was part of designing the black bird. It truly was a amazing aircraft for its time and still is.
My grandparents noth were SR-71's. The stories and photos they brought back from their flights were awesome.
A great vídeo telling a great history!!!
Such an amazing aircraft designed on a slide rule. Imagine if Kelly Johnson would have had the technology we have now , back then? Still an unmatched marvel.
I remember the story’s my grandfather told me when he worked on the SR-71, there is some crazy cool stuff.
You might think the hard bit was machining titanium, but it's not what you think. The hard bit was actually everything
What amazing aircraft.
SR71 wasn't a misreading, the head of the usaf liked it better then rs71 and lobbied for the president to read sr71. But since it was a last moment change the press thought he made a mistake.
Absolutely love going to see the one at the space and rocket center in Huntsville, I live like 2 hours away
My grandfather worked on this plane in the 50’s and was very excited to share everything he had done when it became declassified. His company made the repair and operation manuals for many Lockheed Martin aircrafts. He took secrets to the grave.
OMG That civillian footage at around 15:15 of the rare unstart to mach speeds was unbelievable!
To this day, this is in my opinion, the coolest looking, most literally awesome aircraft ever produced. It was so far beyond it’s time. Some say its too advanced and must have been reverse engineered from alien tech. I think that idea detracts from the mind-blowing work done by the ingeneers, scientists, materials researchers, test pilots, etc. It only took 60 years from first flight of the Wright brothers (thank god they weren’t the Wrong brothers)(yes I know it’s a bad dad joke), to the flight of this insane beast of a plane.
Agreed, it is a beauty. Go look up the SPRINT missile. Be prepared to be amazed, same time frame. How about zero to Mach 10, lower atmosphere, glowing MUCH brighter than and incandescent light bulb filament, from air friction alone, about three seconds into the flight. The temp problem there wasn't 600 degrees, it was six THOUSAND degrees, but for a few seconds only. Very different problems that the two programs faced, and some that were actually quite similar. It was designed to take out ICBM RVs coming in at close to Mach 20, and did, IIRC 19/19 in the final 19 tests. There were some SPECTACULAR failures during the testing phase, though. My father met one of those SR71 pilots once and the fellow said that no missile could take out an SR71. Dad laughed and said that he couldn't even tell him much of anything about the program he was working on, but that it would be declassified one day, and he would see that Dad's "it would be like fish in a barrel" was absolutely true. If you can hit something whit hot screaming down through the atmosphere at those speeds, hitting something flying straight and level at Mach 3 is cake. He also met one of the test pilots from the Bell X1 program that told him that Chuck Yeager was NOT the first to fly sustained controlled supersonic flight, that it was one of the test engineers. That guy wasn't the golden boy Chuck was, though, PR wise. I imagine there is a lot of that stuff that has occurred down throughout history.
I’ve never seen some of this footage. Great job man.
There's a Blackbird event that not too many mention or seem to know of. In '95 or '96 (I can't remember now) an SR-71 had developed some kind of engine trouble and had to land at the Mitchell international Airport in Milwaukee. I believe they said they had to use the commercial runway because the nearby military one wasn't long enough for the Blackbird. As far as I know, it was one of the only times that an operational Blackbird was able to be seen landing and taking off a few days later by the general public. By operational, I mean not part of a display or airshow. I was about 5 years old at the time, and it flew right over me as I sat on top of my dads white jeep Cherokee, that was at the end of the runway. There were a lot of other people there too, but I don't know if any had camera's. I've never seen any pictures or videos surface from that event. If anyone else who was there happens to see this, say hi.
I was at that Oct 9th, 1999 airshow. It was bittersweet being there for the last flight.
That must’ve been epic to hear that bird!!!
It’s a badass plane when you dare an enemy to shoot at you just to collect data on the missile.
20:35 =] =] =] gotta love the candor and humor.
My grandpa worked on Lockheed L-1011s and they still had curtains up at the factory left over from the SR-71 project
"please do not try this at *home* " Ah yes I have a SR-71 fuel at home
Fun fact - there is a custom user mission (created by a player) in War Thunder where you can fly SR-71 and you have a purely spy mission.
Reminds me of the greatest copypasta ever made "There were a lot of things we couldn't do in an SR-71, but we were the fastest guys on the block and loved reminding our fellow aviators of this fact..."
Share the name of the copy pasta? Or a link? I would like to read it
I was able to see a blackbird at the Steven F. Uvdar-Hazy center, sadly, I wasn't there for long, but I still got some nice pictures with my DSLR
One of the two yf12 planes that crashed serial number 61-6934 suffered a fire while landing and destroyed her internal systems but the rear fuselage survived and became sr71c 60-7981 which is now at hill air force base.
Is that what that is? I haven’t been to hill since I was a kid, and can hardly remember if we had one, I’ll have to go visit next time im in utah, I only lived but a couple miles, when I was SUPER young, probably 6-7, I got to see a B-2 fly above me coming from base
@@brandonogden4272 yes that's the only sr71 that couldn't fly straight after the accident