It's well over 50 years old and it's still completely astonishing. The Concorde is it's only equal in the 'How the hell did they ever do that?' stakes.
Nice presentation. Excellent narration voice timbre. The sled was budgetary displaced by satellites not drones, but that is a nitpicky detail. Thanks for the great video.
Technically, it never “outran” any missiles in terms of speed. ATA and SAM missiles travel at much higher speeds than the SR71 (obviously, as they are rocket propelled). It had to do with altitude and energy. Missiles don’t have an unlimited amount of propellant, and they run out rather quickly. After that, it’s all about energy. They are still tracking the target, but are quickly running out of energy. At lower altitudes, the SR71 would be very vulnerable to SAM attack or ATA attack. It’d be a sitting duck against a fighter or SAM station at lower altitude. You can’t outrun an active missile traveling at Mach 5+
To je, ale hrozný údiv, že tohle navrhli bez počítačů. To právě v dnešní době jsme tak blbý, že na všechno potřebujeme počítače. V tý době lidi nepotřebovali PC, protože lidi byli chytřejší než dnes.
The strangest thing is their compromise in standards above all , integrity , and favortisim towards the quick and abundant dollars to gain , all stars and bars for those contracted cars ,
Should mention the JP-7 fuel that this bird used. It's flash point is so high that it can be used as both a coolant and an engine lubricant before it is finally injected into the combustion chamber for burning. Yet another bit of genius.
Man.... thinking that the SR-71 and his engines were designed without computers , just paper and pencil is something that makes me admire this bird even more!!!
SR-71 blackbird is the best plane ever made. It was made to outrun missiles. I need not say more. It was made to outrun frikin missiles on the edge of space. and it worked. I want one
+Shinji Hirako Actually no, the Mig-25 puts loads of effort to just touch Mach 3.1 or 3.2 and then it can't hold it for more than a couple of minutes till it destroys its engines completely. The Mig-25 was a deathtrap for the pilots that flew it. It was unsafe to fly as is and on top of that it's safety mechanisms and ejection seat was removed to give performance which made little difference.
***** The Mig-25 certainly was great for what it was, it was a high speed interceptor built to intercept a bomber that was also an absolute marvel but sadly never went into production. However even though the Mig-25 was good the way it was, it too was extremely overrated and was miserable at safety, that was it's biggest downfall.
Spoke to an old air force officer at an air show probably 12 years ago... mentioned the SR-71 and its insane top speed of around mach 3.5 (even being 12ish at the time I knew most of its stats). He laughed and told me that its real top speed was closer to mach 5, but the airframe would overheat and fail if it sustained that speed.
At the Udvar - Hazy museum I asked an SR7-71 Pilot what the coolest unclassified thing he ever saw was and he said and I quote "Seeing the sun rise three times in one day". Watching the look on his face, it was pretty apparent that he was not making that memory up.
Only one? :-) If I recall correctly it was shot at several thousand times, and when the pilots found out that a missile was in the air, they just opened the throttle and waved in the rear view mirror so to speek....
I would like to share an excerpt from the book sled driver by Brian Shul. "One day, high above Arizona , we were monitoring the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes below us. First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers to check his ground speed. 'Ninety knots,' ATC replied. A twin Bonanza soon made the same request. 'One-twenty on the ground,' was the reply. To our surprise, a navy F-18 came over the radio with a ground speed check. I knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, he had a ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the bug-smashers in the valley know what real speed was 'Dusty 52, we show you at 620 on the ground,' ATC responded. The situation was too ripe. I heard the click of Walter's mike button in the rear seat. In his most innocent voice, Walter startled the controller by asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace. In a cool, professional voice, the controller replied, ' Aspen 20, I show you at 1,982 knots on the ground.' We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast."
This video simply outclasses any other SR-71 video. The amount of quality, interesting content I just watched in these 7 and a half minutes would have been stretched out and dumbed down to fill up an hour long documentary. You even have a separate video on the engines physics! I could cry :'D
The engineers made use of Le Chateliers principle in the conversation from a turbo jet into a turbo ramjet via the 6 bypass tubes that directs compressed air around the middle engine directly into the burner/after burner cycle. The aim is to maximize the amount of desired product thrust by maximizing the use of one limited component fuel through the increase in concentration of another component air so as to make the thermodynamic equilibrium shift left/right, maximizing thrust-- that was real slick only in the U S of A .
***** first of all nimrod i was commenting on the technical facets of the planes engine.Second no where have i read about any french involvement in the design of the plane albeit my research on that ground was minimal thus confirming the fact that i am more interested in how it functions than who or what made it. And oh it was not a fighter jet, look who doesn't know anything about the blackbird.
***** you are an idiot. And what makes you think i am hating on France! Please do ban me, because your incompetence is overwhelming especially on this subject not to mention your lack of intuitiveness into my area of interest as dictated in my earlier posts.
At cruising speed...Mach 3.2...it was a mile every 1.5 seconds. When they were flight tested back in 1964, they were clocked at mach 3.4...so we know it will go at least that fast. Brian Shul claimed to have hit mach 3.5 running from a Libyan SAM. Given the verified speed of 3.4, 3.5 is believable. One SR-71 pilot claimed the top speed was probably close to mach 4, but nobody ever pushed it that far. Assuming the mach 4 speed was possible, that's about a mile very second. Do the math.
I seem to remember reading that in attempting one of the final speed runs they calculated that it could hit Mach 3.5, but the engines would be toast after. However, a bigger problem was that they determined that if there was a problem, keeping the pointy bit facing forward would be a bigger issue. So they abandoned the idea. So it's unlikely that the sr-71 would have been pushed to those limits on an operational sortie.
Despite of all the tech information, the fact is that this airplane is the most beautiful machine the humans ever made. She looks PERFECT, just like dream!
The Eagle module may look ugly to all of us airplane enthusiasts... but it's the greatest achievement of the entire human race. The Sr-71 is cool and all, for a plane, but nowhere as comparable to the Saturn rockets, or the Lunar module... hell, not the ISS, The supercollider, or any other machine gets any closer to what humans did with the Apollo program...
Much like the A-10 is a gun with a plane attached, an SR-71 is a camera with a plane attached. I got to see one in person at the SAC museum a few years ago. Those engines are staggering in size and the plane is long as hell. Just for a camera to go on a trip. My father in law was in intelligence in Vietnam and specialized in aerial photographs from the SR-71. He said that if someone called in a battlefield review, he'd have pictures within the hour or so even though the SRs were flying out of Japan.
I really like this comparison, mostly because it's both really accurate and really funny to think about. The A-10 was actually designed /around/ the GAU-8, and the SR-71 was designed around its camera and cruising and altitude. Everything that is remarkable about the SR-71 is because they were required to make the most badass, most effective spy plane probably ever created. I have mad respect for the guys at Skunkworks. (go Kelly!)
+William Tannery I disagree; I don’t like this comparison, it’s backwards. The SR-71 should be described as an aircraft with a camera attached. The aircraft was the project that the Pentagon allocated the majority of funds to, not the camera.
I'm not saying your father-in-law was wrong, but that does not square with this quote from Wikipedia: Rob Vermeland, Lockheed Martin's manager of Advanced Development Program, said in an interview in 2015 that high-tempo operations were not realistic for the SR-71. "If we had one sitting in the hangar here and the crew chief was told there was a mission planned right now, then 19 hours later it would be safely ready to take off." That same wiki article says the USAF would fly missions about once per week on average.
Helium Road I'm late to this but another factor not in its favor over satellites was lack of real time intelligence transfer. All the data had to be taken by aircraft to the end user to analyze after the Blackbird landed. One of the pilots mentioned the Pentagon needing detail from a Blackbird that set down in Mildenhall after a mission which required another jet to fly the material from the UK to Washington.
Great video with lots of nice tech and a splash of whit. The SR-71 is still to this day the coolest plane ever made. If someone said that plane was released in 2014 with the newest and best tech there is not a person who would not believe that was the new age of planes. A timelessly spectacular shape and performance that STILL will leave any plane made well and truly in the dust. A true expression of "If it looks right, it is right"
Some people claim that the classified top speed of the SR-71 is about Mach 3.5 but honesly i think it is way higher than that. Why? Look at the XB-70, an amazing aircraft but didn't have much of the "go faster" bags of tricks that the SR-71 have, the XB-70 also used the fuel for cooling but not to the extreme extent that the SR-71 did, SR-71 pilots have stated that even the inside of the glass was so hot after the flight that it was impossible to touch it, the XB-70 have much fewer heat related stories, the only one is the failure of a honeycomb structure at mach 3 suggesting that the SR-71 cruise speed was much higher than the XB-70. The SR-71 uses the awesome J58, 2 turboramjets that uses the highly complex spike, nacelle, bypasses and alot of other stuff, the XB-70 uses regular turbojets. The SR-71 was leaking on the ground, only after speedruns when the airframe and fuel tanks and everything had expanded due to the heat; the SR-71 would stop leaking, never heard the same story about the XB-70, the list goes on and on, and still, the XB-70 was a mach 3+ airplane. The XB-70 doesn't look as refined either as the SR-71 which every inch of the airplane looks to be designed for super high speed runs. So yeah, comparing the 2 airplanes and keeping all the technology in mind and all the extreme solutions for speed in the design of the SR-71, to me atleast, it would seem like the SR-71 is much faster than the declassified mach 0.2 or (0.4 suggested classified) difference between the 2 airplanes. Also, the MIG-25 can do mach 3.2, sure, it destroys itself while doing it but yeah, XB-70 and MIG-25 looks almost "ordinary" compared to the SR-71 but the difference is just mack 0.2 and 0.1? Also, the difference between the declassified top speed of the SR-71 and the claimed top speed of mach 3.5 is not big enough to keep it classified, if the true top speed was 3.5 i think they would have declassified that number instead. Doesn't make sense to keep mach 0.2 difference a secret. So yeah, i don't think mach 4+ is that far fetched.
@Flip465 you dont have to go mach 5+ to outrun a mach 5 missile. Missiles dont chase you, they meet you at a point in space. They calculate that point and fly an intercept course. To evade sams, the sr pilots would simply accellerate because that would force the missiles to change that ip faster than they were able to. There are plenty of stories from sr pilots of sams passing close by, fired by clever operators. These claims of mach 4 plus are unfounded. The difference between mach 3.2 and 3.5 is massive. At these extreme speeds, its not a linear increase in stresses and power requirements.
@flip465 ummmm you misunderstand. any guided missile will change direction, that's how they calculate and effect an intercept point. however, it is still an intercept point, ie they calculate where you will be and fly the shortest course to that point to meet you there. they do not and cannot get up behind you and chase you down. if you change your course or speed, the missile has to change its IP and if you force the missiles IP to change more than its performance allows it to adjust, it will miss. The SR71 at speed cannot turn sharply at all. Its turning radius at mach 3 is hundreds of miles. In order to force a change in IP, it simply accelerated quickly. it also utilised a jammer to interrupt communication between the missile and guidance radar on the ground.Also, you cant just make wild claims about top speed and say, its classified so it must be true. The true top mach number of the SR is not likely to be much more than 3.6, because at that point the shock cone from the nose is likely to be sharp enough to start touching the wing tips and causing problems.
My dad was stationed at Edwards in the 80's when I was a kid, I got to see this plane up close all the time and even sit in one, I'm still in awe to this day
I've been blessed to see this fly, it is truly an amazing invention. The way it navigated was truly cool as well. Everything about it is just so weirdly advanced in thought and design that it almost seems impossible. No cad, no computerized simulations, just well thought out and executed designs. With what we know about the SR-71, it would be interesting to rebuild one in concept with modern engineering techniques just to demonstrate if nothing else, the sheer magnitude if the ingenuity involved in creating something that operates in excess of mach 3 and 80k feet. In fact if someone tried to design this today, they'd label him mad.
The SR-71 Blackbird is an engineering MASTERPIECE!! Its capabilities are truly AMAZING!! It is an outstanding testimony to what the human mind can do with NO help from computers at all!! It's outward physical appearance is so futuristic and/or modern looking, even by today's standards, that you could probably very easily fool someone who doesn't know that much about aircraft into believing that it is a brand-new airplane that was just finished a week ago!! It definitely does NOT LOOK like its age AT ALL!!
I've been lucky enough to see the Blackbird a handful of times....it's a truly astonishing plane. I had been under the impression the SR-71 was still being used by NASA, but evidently that program has been also closed... One designer gave me a contributing factor for their retirement: the pending end-of-lifespan limits on the KC-135 tankers that are needed for refueling after takeoff....they were all being changed from turbojets, to turbofans, which dropped their top speed to below the slowest the SR-71 could maintain with any real stability. Without tanker top-off after take-off, the SR-71's range is significantly reduced..... There's always the Aurora, but that's still up for debate.
not sure how that is even relevant....yes, Aurora is reportedly the blackbird follow-on....there's some evidence it is likely uses a hybrid pulse-detonation engine.. However, there has been little actual confirmation about it, and until we get some, we're only speculating. It's revealing to look at the F-19 models issued by various model companies in the mid-late 80's, (the blended tear-drop shape with canards and center tilted tail fins) and how much they differed from the actual F-117. If seems clear someone leaked the F-19 "design" deliberately as an obfuscation, though it would appear to be a "second generation" design, having more akin to the B-2, than to the F-117... My personal opinion is the Aurora is may be more closely related to the "wave-rider" concept, but that would also give it a hellacious heat signature.... In the end, we'll just have to wait for them to tell us, what's been flying out of Groom Lake
They will never fly it again anyway. Its been over 20 years. Even if they could remake parts etc from drawings. Guys that worked on it and flew it are 20 years older and I bet they were older guys the time it stopped flying. Chemical exposure for the mechanics. Quite a few mechanics die early from cancers etc. I just think the secrets and knowledge of this plane will disappear.
I'm not sure if the KC-135 was a big factor since Blackbird pilots mentioned preferring the KC-10 which was able to more safely refuel the SR-71 due to a higher top speed.
Parvesh V. Merchant - it's because you use it as a crutch. The brilliance was in the minds of the engineers at NACA that invented the ramjet engine. I grew up with slide rules, you make a lot of mistakes. With a simple calculator you can check your work 3 times in the same time. Yes I was an aerospace engineer that made parts for flying machines, it wasn't the computer that designed them.....
WTF, I just ran a bunch of quick calculations and the SR-71's fuel efficiency is better than even today's jetliners. The SR-71 took ~12000 gallons of fuel and had a range of 3300 miles on it, so about 0.275 mpg. Compare to the very state of the art in fuel efficiency on commercial jetliners like the 787 Dreamliner, which gets 0.27 mpg and the atrocious fuel efficiency Concorde got at only 0.144 mpg. One would think that this disparity arises from the SR-71 being extremely light-weight and stripped down, but that's not necessarily the case. The SR-71 had a ratio of empty-to-MTOW of 36% (meaning, 36% of MTOW was the plane itself). By comparison, Concorde had a 42% empty-to-MTOW ratio, an A380 is at 48% and a 787 is at 51%. While certainly light, it's not in the insane region that aerospace technology can produce (e.g. Saturn V rocket at just a touch below 6%, Falcon 9 at around 5%). At first glance these numbers seem to suggest that a modern commercial derivative of the SR-71's technology isn't that unfeasible. Even if we lost part of the fuel efficiency in the process, I'd bet there'd be quite a sizable market willing to pay 2x the regular fare price to arrive at their destination over 3 times faster.
beeroosterm The limited passenger capacity simply comes by virtue of being relatively small. What you need to look at as well is the ratio of dry mass to MTOW and it wasn't all that far off for any of these planes. Blow up the size of the SR-71 to something like the Concorde and increase its dry mass to MTOW proportion to 42% like for the Concorde (using that to install seats and a passenger cabin) and you could probably still get a very capable M2+ passenger airliner. My point is the *weight proportions* are fairly similar.
+totoritko Air drag. You're comparing 10kft hammer to a 80kft razor. Air density exponentially decreases with altitude. They are going for space travel to go >M1 for passenger stuff now because the public was dissatisfied with the sonic booms.
The SR-71 didn't have to carry several tons worth of people, seats, air conditioning, luggage and entertainment systems. It had to carry 2 people, a camera and a communications system
You make a great point, it is surprising how little fuel it uses at 3.2 mach. Now here is what will blow your mind. it holds 80,000 lbs of fuel, but after refueling it consumes 17,000 pounds of fuel to climb to 70,600 feet!
👏🏼 Outstanding, this reviewer is the first one that's acknowledged that the SR71 top speed is STILL classified. Mach 3.2 is the publicly acknowledged max speed. In all likelihood, it was most likely capable of Mach 5 to 7 speeds. The key is "RAMJET" mode. Ramjets are good up to about Mach 6. The SR71 could probably tweak out more speed for brief periods. Excellent review ❤👏🏼 (And for all the haters out there, look up the D21 drone. It's a pure ramjet drone that started flying at mach 3 .)
The skin of the plane was so hot from the air friction that it would have to circle the airfield for 30 mins before it could land. Otherwise it wasn't safe to get near it. The pilot used the time to practice touch and goes a few times before landing.
I worked at Lockheed (N. Hollywood) after the SR-71 was built, but my supervisor who did work on the project said it was designed in 1958. No doubt the electronics was upgraded many times. Is this information incorrect?
1958 marks the start of the OXCART program for the CIA and the design of the Lockheed A-12, the direct precursor to and sister of the SR-71. 1962 marked the completion of the A-12's design and its first flight, as well as the approximate time when the USAF took interest in the plane and redesigned the aircraft to be a two-seater fighter plane (the YF-12), and then a two-seater reconnaissance plane, rather than a single seater. The first YF-12 flew in 1963, the first SR-71 in 1964.
78 tons? The Udvar-Hazy museum in Dulles Virginia has an SR-71 on display as soon as you walk into the place. It is a long plane sure but 78 tons? The copy at Udvar-Hazy is very well used. It has lots of wear. Awesome machine. Is it the fuel that makes it that heavy? I wonder what the classified actual top speed is. I bet a dollar it is mach 4. Very intimidating aircraft I like it a lot. The A-12 is supposedly faster and higher flying. I do not buy for a second that no computer(s)were used in either planes design but that is just my opinion.
80,000 pounds of the 78 tons was fuel. No computers were used in the design however the SR-71 did have computers on board. There are many factors that prevent the plane from a speed greater than approx 3.5 mach.
Sigh :/ the wonder of planes and aeronautics that it was, and all those bloody Russo fanboys keep yapping about how that junk Mig-25 and Mig-31 were able to repel it. Well, they only go lucky enough to get into weapons parameter but still never downed this amazing masterpiece which they never can touch :')
Stormsquad Considering it was locked on to several times...sometime, you don't have to press the trigger to make the statement. And, you don't have to be Russian to do it either.
***** Getting a lock and shooting down the plane are two completely different things. The SR-71 could outrun even those missiles. In the SR-71, at startup on the runway, it normally takes a long time to spool up, but once the afterburner is on, the plane flies and accelerates like any other fighter upto Mach 1.5 or 1.6, after that, if you keep the engines at full burner and keep the nose about 15 to 20 degrees above the horizon, I can promise you there wouldn't be a missile in those days that could catch it, cause after that, the plane just shoots like it was fired from a gun. Its like in barely 2 seconds you reach from Mach 1.6 to Mach 2.5, and then it just increases from there and reaches Mach 3.70 in yet again a couple of seconds!
Stormsquad " The SR-71 could outrun even those missiles." Yeah....tell me, what's the weather like on YOUR planet? "reaches Mach 3.70" Here on earth, it's late spring in the northern part of the globe.
I used to know the navigator who rode on the 1st and 2nd operational sorties of the Blackbird. His statement to me was that New York to California speed record could easily be 1 hour if they didn't have to refuel. I don't recall what New York & California air strips he was referring to. I have not seen him since the late 80's, and honestly he's probably no longer alive. He used to love to tell about a moth that was caught in the aircraft. When they were at altitude, their cockpit was pressurized to a certain level and their suit (a pressurized space suit) was pressurized for the gap between the cockpit and survivability. He claimed that this crazy moth survived at altitude in the cockpit. He also had some very hair raising stories about watching anti-aircraft missiles run out of fuel as they tried to shoot the BB down over Viet Nam during the "conflict". I was really young when I knew him and wish I had kept in touch with his daughter and her husband - the reason I knew him. In fact, his son-in-law was my best man at my wedding.
+Bryan Johnson the last "for the record" run from California to virginia, was less than an hour, and that INCLUDED a mid-air refuel stop right after take off....(which was normal procedure for SR-71 flights; they take off with mostly empty fuel tanks)
The narrator said the Airforce stated the SR71 top speed was "classified". My late uncle was an engine mechanic on that plane who actually got to take a test flight. He told me 3.2 was the rated top speed but if you pushed the throttle she'd do 5.5 or better......... but not for long. As sleek as the plane is, it still couldn't withstand the stress of that kind of speed. He wore a Skunkworks tattoo on his arm.
When I was stationed in Okinawa I was able to sit down with two pilots that fly the ha-bu, SR-71. I learned it can fly higher then 95,000 ft. And fly faster then what this video is telling you. I also learned they will even shut engines down to get even better images recorded on film. They refuel many times to fly one mission. Seen them launch and recover at Kadena Air Force Base many times. When they come in from a mission the aircraft is so hot, it looks white! They bring in these huge fans to cool down the engines, skin of aircraft. They use a gantry crane to remove the pilots, due to the heat emanating from the aircraft. They wear a pressured suit, just like an astronaut would wear in space. Hint: Now what does this tell you? They have a variety of countermeasures to use to keep from being successfully attacked. Lets just say more then emitting chaff and flares! Now there is a newer platform even faster then the SR-71. If you do some history research on when top secret weapons systems have been declassified. You can figure out, there is flying technology platforms at least 30 years in the future, that are flying black top secret missions over your heads, and in other countries, and in outer space!
No more Blackbird? Awww, that was my favourite jet aircraft of all time this side of the Tomcat! That's it I'm downloading this bad boy for Flight Sim...
I simply adore the fact that you are also providing subtitles for the one or two words which are hard to pronounce. This channel is a true treasure for every engineering enthusiast! I would totally support you guys on patreon or in a similar way. Especially if I am done with my Bsc.
it really is the most beautiful and just amaizing and iconical and special and and and plane evver built in my opinion... just 78 tons of pure awesomeness!
I don't think we will ever see that information declassified. A Blackbird pilot said on one mission his mach indicator was at 3.6 at 80% throttle. The Sr-71 is the Magnum Opus of manned flight. 1000 years from now space aliens will be looking at it wondering how the hell we did it.
No not carefully! They designed it while taking massive risks and pushing the boundaries of what was normal! They were putting themselves in a position to fail massively or win big, and it paid off.
A lot of planes can circumnavigate the globe with enough tanker support but it would be near impossible for the Blackbird because only a few tankers can support it, and it wouldn't be doing mach 3.
Cool video. If you don't mind some nitpicking, at Mach 3.2 the SR-71 is not just getting warmed up; actually that is at or very nearly at its designed max speed. It's top speed is not classified - or at least I haven't found any document indicating it is classified (I can't find any documentation that says "top speed: classified"). Perhaps consider saying that many believe the top speed is beyond what is advertised. The airframe was titanium alloy, not titanium. The chines were for aerodynamics, stowage, and shaping to reduce RCS. SR-71s did not outrun missiles; it evaded them. A SAM-2 at stage 2 is around 2,600 mph. As for flying around the world nonstop, that may have been possible but would have been extremely difficult. First, crew fatigue would have played a role (for example, some pilots mentioned that the face being exposed to 100% oxygen was extremely fatiguing on long missions). Keep in mind also there were no faculties to accommodate going #2 (sorry to be blunt). Second, the reservoirs of TEB (for A/B ignition after refueling) and LOX (for fuel tank purging) may have needed additional capacities. Third, and perhaps the real showstopper, would be the nightmare of refueling logistics. The refueling portion of mission planning was surprisingly complicated and burdensome. Just procuring air bases to stage the KC-135Q's would have been a serious endeavor. There's also the issue of having usable airfields in proximity during the entire flight in case an emergency landing was needed. It wasn't designed to fly around the world nonstop but I'd guess it was capable - albeit at great expense and perhaps undue risk. The navigation system was ingenious, but doesn't render pinpoint location - the documentation I read indicated "guaranteed accuracy to 1,000 feet", which is still amazing at that speed (I've heard 300 feet but never seen documentation other than 1,000 feet). Anyway, just being picky...thought you might find it interesting.
The most amazing thing in my mind. Project oxcart and the 13 a-12's that came before the sr-71 was done totally on the CIA's budget. Only the production of the 32 sr-71's was on the DOD budget.
I remember seeing an sr-71 flying over my neighborhood on my way home from an elementary school field trip in 1989. I couldn't believe my eyes lol. Easily one of the most special moments I've ever had.
The Black Bird wasn't retired because it was expensive to operate. The US doesn't care about the cost of operation of anything. It was retired because something more advanced was ready to take it's place. And it's been photographed and witnessed in the air by myself and many others .
stood right under one, its the tr3, 2 known sizes and operates like a ufo. roswell was our first attempt the resulting bullsh&t story was a cover. haha aliens gotta love it. oh, Kenneth arnold was clowns in America that there tells all.
Still the coolest looking aircraft ever made (not to mention all of it's incredible superlatives). So sleek and menacing it looks like it's going 10,000 miles an hour when it's standing perfectly still.
The SR-71 is my favorite aircraft. Maybe not as heavily armed as the Eagle but it's gonna sneak up on them MiGs real quiet like and shoot them with its camera. My neighbor is an old F-4 Phantom pilot. He saw a little action in Vietnam. I keep telling him to write a book. He had his share of close calls and narrow escapes from MiGs. These are my 3 favorite aviation books: - Her Majesty's Top Gun by Sharkey Ward - Topgun Days by Dave Baranek - Great Fighter Jets of the Galaxy 1 by Tim Gibson
Yea, it's a shame that Lockheed can't build anymore. No, seriously, they can't. They found out that the cadmium-plated tools used to build other aircraft actually make titanium brittle, so they had to construct new tools made out of titanium itself to build the SR-71. When they stopped making SR-71s and other aircraft like it (such as the A-12(which the SR-71 was actually based off of; shorter range than SR-71), YF-12(which was supposed to be a fighter; held previous speed record), M-21 (drone launcher SR-71 variant; only one left)), the tools used to build them where destroyed. Kinda sad, really.
Kelly Johnson is the Mozart of Aviation. Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G Minor comes to mind, beautiful, flowing, flawless, as if God had created it himself.
UA-cam keeps recommending me SR71 videos. I can't complain since it is my favorite plane of all time. I created some Blackbird based photographic artworks. This is a real plane by the way: fineartamerica.com/profiles/dario-infini?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=799138
The genius of the SR-71 was the inlets, designed by Ben Rich, former Vice-President of the Skunk Works, and at the time designated by Kelly Johnson to be in charge of its propulsion. Rather than being classified as a ramjet, the unique combination of inlet, engine, and ejector would more appropriately be classified as ram recovery. When at Mach 3.2 and 82,000 ft. the inlet is providing 54 % of the total thrust, while the ejector is producing 29 % and the engine is producing 17 % of the total thrust! How is this possible? The inlet generated internal duct pressures of 18 psi, while the ambient air pressure was only 0.4 psi at 82,000 ft. This extremely large pressure gradient is capable of producing an extremely large forward thrust vector. Picture a balloon with an internal pressure of 18 psi, pushing against the air of 0.4 psi, exhausting its air while constantly maintaining its internal pressure. The spike of the inlet would be the front of the balloon, being pushed forward as the entering Mach 3.2 airstream is compressed and slowed down to 600 mph, increasing its pressure to 18 psi and its temperature from -65 degrees F. to 800 degrees F., all in the space of 20 ft., produced by the spike's shock waves, being captured, just inside the inlet. The ram air pressure has been recovered to provide additional forward thrust. Just like the balloon, which will pop, if its pressure becomes too great, the inlet will expel its shock wave, called an "unstart", if its internal pressure becomes too great, creating an immediate loss of that 54 % thrust. The six bypass tubes were used to keep the compressor from stalling by overpressure, exiting the air from the fourth stage of the compressor to the front of the ejector, providing cooling and additional thrust. The front of the compressor actually has a small negative forward thrust vector, while at speed. As Ben so aptly described his efforts, "Designing the inlets took 20 of the best years off my life!"
The SR-71 is not a Mach 3+ jet it’s speed is 2198 mph Mach 2,85 I know that at 85,000 feet the temperature changes the speed of sound but is mean flat speed is Mach 2,85 to have a mean flat speed of Mach 3,5 it would need to go about 2700 mph about 500 mph more then is top speed speed of sound is 767 mph that’s the speed of Mach 1 ( the mark )
I'm sure the Sherman staff at Mobil 2315 s.euclid ave in Ontario California , and their certified mother land mechanical recoginance and bud light reclamation staff could point you in the right direction
At mach 3.2, the blackbird is NOT just getting warmed up, in fact that's almost to the floor. The blackbird is just barely faster than the Mig, it just does it for 1 1/2 hours instead of 3 minutes.
The SR-71 couldn't be designed today because engineers today don't have what it takes. We rely too much on computers which makes us lazy and less capable. What we get out of computers is less than what we lost in intellect. Until AI is advanced enough to design things for us, we will forever be more impotent.
The SR 71 has a Cruise Speed of Mach 5 and is capable of Mach 8 in a short Burst Seed. It has a Service Ceiling above 120,000 feet. Get the facts right. Tired of hearing Mach 3.2,
I remember trying to understand this plane when I was a kid and not having a very good time of it, but even before I was able to get how it went so fast I thought it was the coolest plane ever on account of the appearance and performance, to think it was designed and built just around 2 decades after WWII and with old fashioned pencils and slide rulers just blows my mind
Allways wonderd why the Blackbird was not used as a bomber? Can you imagine 50 or 100 Blackbirds on the attack? Yikes. I know it's a recon bird but it looks like it could hold some bombs. Just asking..
One minor technicality: Thrust isn't from the exhaust exiting the engine but from the reaction of the fuel/air mixture burning in the combustion chamber (or cans).
Well sir!!! It’s fair to say that black bird had overrun mig 25 at that era with technology was at its commencing stages and it was a had of it’s time though after notorious incident of hijacking the plane to Japan hakodati airport the plane want into a series of modis, development, and new concepts though maintaining the initial design. Thus, it was a birth of a new aircraft and i believe if they were to compete each this the tides will in the favour of the mig’s one…..though thanks for your efforts in making this video 😀
This guy is a good narrator. But you should never have shown him, and more importantly, his mannerisms while he speaks. Made me cringe several times, and I doubt I'm alone.
Good information and a good video, but you need to spend less time on camera. Your head shaking style of projecting your excitement is obnoxious and I found myself frequently looking away from the monitor to avoid it. Dial it back a bit on the head shots and goofy bits and you'll be fine. You've got the ideal voice for narration, so capitalize on that. Let the topic provide it's own visuals.
SR-71....the SEXIEST piece of...machinery ever created by the hands of man!
You obviously don't know about the mighty Po 2, filthy casual.
@@asiftalpur3758 Hehehe, no. The SR-71 is hands down the best aircraft in the world. By far.
@@DonVigaDeFierro don't make me melt you with jet fuel bro.
Exactly.....it's sexy
It’s my second fav behind Concorde
It's well over 50 years old and it's still completely astonishing. The Concorde is it's only equal in the 'How the hell did they ever do that?' stakes.
Nice presentation. Excellent narration voice timbre. The sled was budgetary displaced by satellites not drones, but that is a nitpicky detail. Thanks for the great video.
I can't stop admiring my sr71 model everyday
I love this plane so very much
With such good explanations, you have my attention! Give us some more SR-71!!!! Please... :)
Technically, it never “outran” any missiles in terms of speed. ATA and SAM missiles travel at much higher speeds than the SR71 (obviously, as they are rocket propelled). It had to do with altitude and energy. Missiles don’t have an unlimited amount of propellant, and they run out rather quickly. After that, it’s all about energy. They are still tracking the target, but are quickly running out of energy. At lower altitudes, the SR71 would be very vulnerable to SAM attack or ATA attack. It’d be a sitting duck against a fighter or SAM station at lower altitude. You can’t outrun an active missile traveling at Mach 5+
Does anyone know its span efficiency or Oswald's efficiency ?
To je, ale hrozný údiv, že tohle navrhli bez počítačů. To právě v dnešní době jsme tak blbý, že na všechno potřebujeme počítače. V tý době lidi nepotřebovali PC, protože lidi byli chytřejší než dnes.
The strangest thing is their compromise in standards above all , integrity , and favortisim towards the quick and abundant dollars to gain , all stars and bars for those contracted cars ,
Should mention the JP-7 fuel that this bird used. It's flash point is so high that it can be used as both a coolant and an engine lubricant before it is finally injected into the combustion chamber for burning. Yet another bit of genius.
Good point--JP7 isn't even a distillate fuel.
holy cow that's crazy!
You could literally light an entire book of matches, drop it into a container full of JP-7 and the fuel would put it out.
that's awesome hahaha
love this kinda shit
I"ll ask God after I die if we can have at least one SR-71 in heaven. Just as a reminder that we could do one or two things right.
TalkingMotors Tell me about it!!
That’s funny.
And when He says " no"?
I love how they used the design in star wars!
Very iconic!
Man.... thinking that the SR-71 and his engines were designed without computers , just paper and pencil is something that makes me admire this bird even more!!!
they used a slide rule & a protractor
Who needs computer aided design when you have Kelly Johnson! not my opinion but a FACT proven by history
@@rotax636nut5 He used his Michigan Computer
SR-71 blackbird is the best plane ever made. It was made to outrun missiles. I need not say more. It was made to outrun frikin missiles on the edge of space. and it worked. I want one
+Shinji Hirako Actually no, the Mig-25 puts loads of effort to just touch Mach 3.1 or 3.2 and then it can't hold it for more than a couple of minutes till it destroys its engines completely. The Mig-25 was a deathtrap for the pilots that flew it. It was unsafe to fly as is and on top of that it's safety mechanisms and ejection seat was removed to give performance which made little difference.
***** The Mig-25 certainly was great for what it was, it was a high speed interceptor built to intercept a bomber that was also an absolute marvel but sadly never went into production. However even though the Mig-25 was good the way it was, it too was extremely overrated and was miserable at safety, that was it's biggest downfall.
***** Every plane has its flaws. But I prefer planes that have non fatal flaws unlike the Migs
***** IT OUTRUNS MISSILES ON THE EDGE OF SPACE
+Shinji Hirako Cheap and Robustness doesn't garuntee success
Spoke to an old air force officer at an air show probably 12 years ago... mentioned the SR-71 and its insane top speed of around mach 3.5 (even being 12ish at the time I knew most of its stats). He laughed and told me that its real top speed was closer to mach 5, but the airframe would overheat and fail if it sustained that speed.
At the Udvar - Hazy museum I asked an SR7-71 Pilot what the coolest unclassified thing he ever saw was and he said and I quote "Seeing the sun rise three times in one day". Watching the look on his face, it was pretty apparent that he was not making that memory up.
Wait what how what
samuel caldwell Either he flew around the earth 3 times or it has something to do with the planes high speed in relation to earth’s rotational speed
Brian Shul SR-71 pilot said he saw three sunrise and sunset s on a single mission over the artic circle.
One soviet SAM operator disliked this video
Only one? :-)
If I recall correctly it was shot at several thousand times, and when the pilots found out that a missile was in the air, they just opened the throttle and waved in the rear view mirror so to speek....
HAH!!!
Legend has it that missile is still chasing the blackbird.
And 158 UCBerkley students...
Flip465 ?
I would like to share an excerpt from the book sled driver by Brian Shul.
"One day, high above Arizona , we were monitoring the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes below us. First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers to check his ground speed. 'Ninety knots,' ATC replied. A twin Bonanza soon made the same request. 'One-twenty on the ground,' was the reply. To our surprise, a navy F-18 came over the radio with a ground speed check. I knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, he had a ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the bug-smashers in the valley know what real speed was 'Dusty 52, we show you at 620 on the ground,' ATC responded. The situation was too ripe. I heard the click of Walter's mike button in the rear seat. In his most innocent voice, Walter startled the controller by asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace. In a cool, professional voice, the controller replied, ' Aspen 20, I show you at 1,982 knots on the ground.' We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast."
Ben James That's one of my favorites!
+Ben James Im getting this book!
+Ben James It just does not get any better than that... thanks for making my day!
+Ben James I LOVE that bit of the book!!! =D
+Ben James As a former Army pilot/bug smasher from the Vietnam era, I got nothin' but love for sled drivers. Thanks for retelling a great story.
Essentially 3,500 feet per second. That’s faster than most full length rifles can move a bullet. Crazy. .662 mps
Or 1km/s
in another video it was demonstrated that the sr71 could beat a .308 bullet @ max velocity from coast to coast by about 5 minutes =/
the SR-71.... What an achievement! And the best part is it never shot or killed anyone... :) It was just one fast mother. :)
PantsWizard lol missiles had to land somewhere.
Unfortunately I believe 2,maybe 3 pilots/RSOs were killed during the program.
@@patch5859 only one pilots
This video simply outclasses any other SR-71 video. The amount of quality, interesting content I just watched in these 7 and a half minutes would have been stretched out and dumbed down to fill up an hour long documentary. You even have a separate video on the engines physics! I could cry :'D
Pity there's so few videos though.
The engineers made use of Le Chateliers principle in the conversation from a turbo jet into a turbo ramjet via the 6 bypass tubes that directs compressed air around the middle engine directly into the burner/after burner cycle. The aim is to maximize the amount of desired product thrust by maximizing the use of one limited component fuel through the increase in concentration of another component air so as to make the thermodynamic equilibrium shift left/right, maximizing thrust-- that was real slick only in the U S of A .
***** no they were not you MORON!
***** first of all nimrod i was commenting on the technical facets of the planes engine.Second no where have i read about any french involvement in the design of the plane albeit my research on that ground was minimal thus confirming the fact that i am more interested in how it functions than who or what made it. And oh it was not a fighter jet, look who doesn't know anything about the blackbird.
***** you are an idiot. And what makes you think i am hating on France! Please do ban me, because your incompetence is overwhelming especially on this subject not to mention your lack of intuitiveness into my area of interest as dictated in my earlier posts.
This the best run down I've seen of the SR 71 and your enthusiasm for it is contagious. Nice work.
So this plane would reach New York from London in less then 1.5 hours (90 min)! Astonishing !!
Fucking crazy! 90 min in 2018 is Amsterdam to London with a normal plane.
Just think. That's just the "official" top speed.
Capt_Kaplan I would bet money that it can go faster than that 😉
At cruising speed...Mach 3.2...it was a mile every 1.5 seconds. When they were flight tested back in 1964, they were clocked at mach 3.4...so we know it will go at least that fast. Brian Shul claimed to have hit mach 3.5 running from a Libyan SAM. Given the verified speed of 3.4, 3.5 is believable. One SR-71 pilot claimed the top speed was probably close to mach 4, but nobody ever pushed it that far. Assuming the mach 4 speed was possible, that's about a mile very second. Do the math.
I seem to remember reading that in attempting one of the final speed runs they calculated that it could hit Mach 3.5, but the engines would be toast after. However, a bigger problem was that they determined that if there was a problem, keeping the pointy bit facing forward would be a bigger issue. So they abandoned the idea. So it's unlikely that the sr-71 would have been pushed to those limits on an operational sortie.
I had the privilege of seeing one of these in an air show in 1988. Magnificent piece of engineering.
I'd pay money to see this one
Despite of all the tech information, the fact is that this airplane is the most beautiful machine the humans ever made. She looks PERFECT, just like dream!
Juan Adrover I love her but dont forget the space shuttle.
The Eagle module may look ugly to all of us airplane enthusiasts... but it's the greatest achievement of the entire human race. The Sr-71 is cool and all, for a plane, but nowhere as comparable to the Saturn rockets, or the Lunar module... hell, not the ISS, The supercollider, or any other machine gets any closer to what humans did with the Apollo program...
Blackbird was such an amazing plane. I wouldn't suprise me if the real, "classified" top speed was closer to mach 4.
Much like the A-10 is a gun with a plane attached, an SR-71 is a camera with a plane attached. I got to see one in person at the SAC museum a few years ago. Those engines are staggering in size and the plane is long as hell. Just for a camera to go on a trip. My father in law was in intelligence in Vietnam and specialized in aerial photographs from the SR-71. He said that if someone called in a battlefield review, he'd have pictures within the hour or so even though the SRs were flying out of Japan.
I really like this comparison, mostly because it's both really accurate and really funny to think about. The A-10 was actually designed /around/ the GAU-8, and the SR-71 was designed around its camera and cruising and altitude.
Everything that is remarkable about the SR-71 is because they were required to make the most badass, most effective spy plane probably ever created. I have mad respect for the guys at Skunkworks. (go Kelly!)
+William Tannery
I disagree; I don’t like this comparison, it’s backwards.
The SR-71 should be described as an aircraft with a camera attached.
The aircraft was the project that the Pentagon allocated the majority of funds to, not the camera.
gefiltepaprika lol no. More like two engines with a cockpit attached. Most or the body actually contained fuel.
I'm not saying your father-in-law was wrong, but that does not square with this quote from Wikipedia: Rob Vermeland, Lockheed Martin's manager of Advanced Development Program, said in an interview in 2015 that high-tempo operations were not realistic for the SR-71. "If we had one sitting in the hangar here and the crew chief was told there was a mission planned right now, then 19 hours later it would be safely ready to take off." That same wiki article says the USAF would fly missions about once per week on average.
Helium Road I'm late to this but another factor not in its favor over satellites was lack of real time intelligence transfer. All the data had to be taken by aircraft to the end user to analyze after the Blackbird landed. One of the pilots mentioned the Pentagon needing detail from a Blackbird that set down in Mildenhall after a mission which required another jet to fly the material from the UK to Washington.
Great video with lots of nice tech and a splash of whit. The SR-71 is still to this day the coolest plane ever made. If someone said that plane was released in 2014 with the newest and best tech there is not a person who would not believe that was the new age of planes. A timelessly spectacular shape and performance that STILL will leave any plane made well and truly in the dust. A true expression of "If it looks right, it is right"
Very well said! Truly an incomparable plane.
Some people claim that the classified top speed of the SR-71 is about Mach 3.5 but honesly i think it is way higher than that. Why?
Look at the XB-70, an amazing aircraft but didn't have much of the "go faster" bags of tricks that the SR-71 have, the XB-70 also used the fuel for cooling but not to the extreme extent that the SR-71 did, SR-71 pilots have stated that even the inside of the glass was so hot after the flight that it was impossible to touch it, the XB-70 have much fewer heat related stories, the only one is the failure of a honeycomb structure at mach 3 suggesting that the SR-71 cruise speed was much higher than the XB-70. The SR-71 uses the awesome J58, 2 turboramjets that uses the highly complex spike, nacelle, bypasses and alot of other stuff, the XB-70 uses regular turbojets.
The SR-71 was leaking on the ground, only after speedruns when the airframe and fuel tanks and everything had expanded due to the heat; the SR-71 would stop leaking, never heard the same story about the XB-70, the list goes on and on, and still, the XB-70 was a mach 3+ airplane.
The XB-70 doesn't look as refined either as the SR-71 which every inch of the airplane looks to be designed for super high speed runs. So yeah, comparing the 2 airplanes and keeping all the technology in mind and all the extreme solutions for speed in the design of the SR-71, to me atleast, it would seem like the SR-71 is much faster than the declassified mach 0.2 or (0.4 suggested classified) difference between the 2 airplanes. Also, the MIG-25 can do mach 3.2, sure, it destroys itself while doing it but yeah, XB-70 and MIG-25 looks almost "ordinary" compared to the SR-71 but the difference is just mack 0.2 and 0.1?
Also, the difference between the declassified top speed of the SR-71 and the claimed top speed of mach 3.5 is not big enough to keep it classified, if the true top speed was 3.5 i think they would have declassified that number instead. Doesn't make sense to keep mach 0.2 difference a secret.
So yeah, i don't think mach 4+ is that far fetched.
lol Are family n friends (few USAF) have always said the same thing!
***** It is not built and look like that for a meager Mach 2.5 lol Like you said easily double that. Can only imagine what's flying now.
@Flip465 you dont have to go mach 5+ to outrun a mach 5 missile. Missiles dont chase you, they meet you at a point in space. They calculate that point and fly an intercept course.
To evade sams, the sr pilots would simply accellerate because that would force the missiles to change that ip faster than they were able to.
There are plenty of stories from sr pilots of sams passing close by, fired by clever operators.
These claims of mach 4 plus are unfounded. The difference between mach 3.2 and 3.5 is massive. At these extreme speeds, its not a linear increase in stresses and power requirements.
@flip465 ummmm you misunderstand. any guided missile will change direction, that's how they calculate and effect an intercept point. however, it is still an intercept point, ie they calculate where you will be and fly the shortest course to that point to meet you there. they do not and cannot get up behind you and chase you down. if you change your course or speed, the missile has to change its IP and if you force the missiles IP to change more than its performance allows it to adjust, it will miss.
The SR71 at speed cannot turn sharply at all. Its turning radius at mach 3 is hundreds of miles. In order to force a change in IP, it simply accelerated quickly. it also utilised a jammer to interrupt communication between the missile and guidance radar on the ground.Also, you cant just make wild claims about top speed and say, its classified so it must be true. The true top mach number of the SR is not likely to be much more than 3.6, because at that point the shock cone from the nose is likely to be sharp enough to start touching the wing tips and causing problems.
We need a national Kelly Johnson day to celebrate genius.
My dad was stationed at Edwards in the 80's when I was a kid, I got to see this plane up close all the time and even sit in one, I'm still in awe to this day
I've been blessed to see this fly, it is truly an amazing invention. The way it navigated was truly cool as well. Everything about it is just so weirdly advanced in thought and design that it almost seems impossible. No cad, no computerized simulations, just well thought out and executed designs. With what we know about the SR-71, it would be interesting to rebuild one in concept with modern engineering techniques just to demonstrate if nothing else, the sheer magnitude if the ingenuity involved in creating something that operates in excess of mach 3 and 80k feet. In fact if someone tried to design this today, they'd label him mad.
And yet Kelly Johnson and the rest of the SkunkWorks team were geniuses.
The SR-71 Blackbird is an engineering MASTERPIECE!! Its capabilities are truly AMAZING!! It is an outstanding testimony to what the human mind can do with NO help from computers at all!! It's outward physical appearance is so futuristic and/or modern looking, even by today's standards, that you could probably very easily fool someone who doesn't know that much about aircraft into believing that it is a brand-new airplane that was just finished a week ago!! It definitely does NOT LOOK like its age AT ALL!!
if you think that the Sr 71 can only go mach 3.5 your in for a big shock
I've been lucky enough to see the Blackbird a handful of times....it's a truly astonishing plane. I had been under the impression the SR-71 was still being used by NASA, but evidently that program has been also closed... One designer gave me a contributing factor for their retirement: the pending end-of-lifespan limits on the KC-135 tankers that are needed for refueling after takeoff....they were all being changed from turbojets, to turbofans, which dropped their top speed to below the slowest the SR-71 could maintain with any real stability. Without tanker top-off after take-off, the SR-71's range is significantly reduced.....
There's always the Aurora, but that's still up for debate.
I know im posting this comment nearly a year after you but the Aurora is REAL.
not sure how that is even relevant....yes, Aurora is reportedly the blackbird follow-on....there's some evidence it is likely uses a hybrid pulse-detonation engine.. However, there has been little actual confirmation about it, and until we get some, we're only speculating.
It's revealing to look at the F-19 models issued by various model companies in the mid-late 80's, (the blended tear-drop shape with canards and center tilted tail fins) and how much they differed from the actual F-117. If seems clear someone leaked the F-19 "design" deliberately as an obfuscation, though it would appear to be a "second generation" design, having more akin to the B-2, than to the F-117...
My personal opinion is the Aurora is may be more closely related to the "wave-rider" concept, but that would also give it a hellacious heat signature....
In the end, we'll just have to wait for them to tell us, what's been flying out of Groom Lake
True probably won't know about the aurora til 2030AD
They will never fly it again anyway. Its been over 20 years. Even if they could remake parts etc from drawings. Guys that worked on it and flew it are 20 years older and I bet they were older guys the time it stopped flying. Chemical exposure for the mechanics. Quite a few mechanics die early from cancers etc.
I just think the secrets and knowledge of this plane will disappear.
I'm not sure if the KC-135 was a big factor since Blackbird pilots mentioned preferring the KC-10 which was able to more safely refuel the SR-71 due to a higher top speed.
A masterpiece.... designed with pencil, paper and slide rule...now a days we need a super computer for everything...
Parvesh V. Merchant - it's because you use it as a crutch. The brilliance was in the minds of the engineers at NACA that invented the ramjet engine. I grew up with slide rules, you make a lot of mistakes. With a simple calculator you can check your work 3 times in the same time. Yes I was an aerospace engineer that made parts for flying machines, it wasn't the computer that designed them.....
WTF, I just ran a bunch of quick calculations and the SR-71's fuel efficiency is better than even today's jetliners. The SR-71 took ~12000 gallons of fuel and had a range of 3300 miles on it, so about 0.275 mpg. Compare to the very state of the art in fuel efficiency on commercial jetliners like the 787 Dreamliner, which gets 0.27 mpg and the atrocious fuel efficiency Concorde got at only 0.144 mpg.
One would think that this disparity arises from the SR-71 being extremely light-weight and stripped down, but that's not necessarily the case. The SR-71 had a ratio of empty-to-MTOW of 36% (meaning, 36% of MTOW was the plane itself). By comparison, Concorde had a 42% empty-to-MTOW ratio, an A380 is at 48% and a 787 is at 51%. While certainly light, it's not in the insane region that aerospace technology can produce (e.g. Saturn V rocket at just a touch below 6%, Falcon 9 at around 5%).
At first glance these numbers seem to suggest that a modern commercial derivative of the SR-71's technology isn't that unfeasible. Even if we lost part of the fuel efficiency in the process, I'd bet there'd be quite a sizable market willing to pay 2x the regular fare price to arrive at their destination over 3 times faster.
beeroosterm The limited passenger capacity simply comes by virtue of being relatively small. What you need to look at as well is the ratio of dry mass to MTOW and it wasn't all that far off for any of these planes. Blow up the size of the SR-71 to something like the Concorde and increase its dry mass to MTOW proportion to 42% like for the Concorde (using that to install seats and a passenger cabin) and you could probably still get a very capable M2+ passenger airliner. My point is the *weight proportions* are fairly similar.
+totoritko Air drag. You're comparing 10kft hammer to a 80kft razor. Air density exponentially decreases with altitude. They are going for space travel to go >M1 for passenger stuff now because the public was dissatisfied with the sonic booms.
The SR-71 didn't have to carry several tons worth of people, seats, air conditioning, luggage and entertainment systems. It had to carry 2 people, a camera and a communications system
But it is only a two seater ride!
You make a great point, it is surprising how little fuel it uses at 3.2 mach. Now here is what will blow your mind. it holds 80,000 lbs of fuel, but after refueling it consumes 17,000 pounds of fuel to climb to 70,600 feet!
👏🏼 Outstanding, this reviewer is the first one that's acknowledged that the SR71 top speed is STILL classified. Mach 3.2 is the publicly acknowledged max speed. In all likelihood, it was most likely capable of Mach 5 to 7 speeds. The key is "RAMJET" mode. Ramjets are good up to about Mach 6. The SR71 could probably tweak out more speed for brief periods. Excellent review ❤👏🏼 (And for all the haters out there, look up the D21 drone. It's a pure ramjet drone that started flying at mach 3 .)
Slide rules were the only tool back then , the SaturnV was designed the same way, both amazing achievements.
More than speed, what fascinates me about the SR-71 it’s the human ingenuity… we are amazing!
What about “project Aurora”.eyewitnesses have seen in the UK from 87-93
One of man's greatest accomplishments ...RIP Kelly Johnson !
years after now we will have faster "bye bye machine" than sr71 and its also all electric
Man this is the greatest channel on youtube!!! I could watch your videos all day
this plane and today B2 spirit bomber were made using alien technology for sure.
Set the speed record with one engine.1 yes one engine.built with a slide rule and a brain.no computers.
Absolutely fascinating piece of unimaginable technology. Love it.
The Blackbird can do no more than Mach 5.. any faster the skin will burn up on the craft.
Trust
The skin of the plane was so hot from the air friction that it would have to circle the airfield for 30 mins before it could land. Otherwise it wasn't safe to get near it. The pilot used the time to practice touch and goes a few times before landing.
I worked at Lockheed (N. Hollywood) after the SR-71 was built, but my supervisor who did work on the project said it was designed in 1958. No doubt the electronics was upgraded many times. Is this information incorrect?
1958 marks the start of the OXCART program for the CIA and the design of the Lockheed A-12, the direct precursor to and sister of the SR-71. 1962 marked the completion of the A-12's design and its first flight, as well as the approximate time when the USAF took interest in the plane and redesigned the aircraft to be a two-seater fighter plane (the YF-12), and then a two-seater reconnaissance plane, rather than a single seater. The first YF-12 flew in 1963, the first SR-71 in 1964.
This plane needs a successor to its name ; Faster ; sleeker& invisible.
78 tons? The Udvar-Hazy museum in Dulles Virginia has an SR-71 on display as soon as you walk into the place. It is a long plane sure but 78 tons? The copy at Udvar-Hazy is very well used. It has lots of wear. Awesome machine.
Is it the fuel that makes it that heavy? I wonder what the classified actual top speed is. I bet a dollar it is mach 4. Very intimidating aircraft I like it a lot. The A-12 is supposedly faster and higher flying. I do not buy for a second that no computer(s)were used in either planes design but that is just my opinion.
80,000 pounds of the 78 tons was fuel. No computers were used in the design however the SR-71 did have computers on board. There are many factors that prevent the plane from a speed greater than approx 3.5 mach.
Sigh :/ the wonder of planes and aeronautics that it was, and all those bloody Russo fanboys keep yapping about how that junk Mig-25 and Mig-31 were able to repel it. Well, they only go lucky enough to get into weapons parameter but still never downed this amazing masterpiece which they never can touch :')
Stormsquad Considering it was locked on to several times...sometime, you don't have to press the trigger to make the statement. And, you don't have to be Russian to do it either.
***** Getting a lock and shooting down the plane are two completely different things. The SR-71 could outrun even those missiles. In the SR-71, at startup on the runway, it normally takes a long time to spool up, but once the afterburner is on, the plane flies and accelerates like any other fighter upto Mach 1.5 or 1.6, after that, if you keep the engines at full burner and keep the nose about 15 to 20 degrees above the horizon, I can promise you there wouldn't be a missile in those days that could catch it, cause after that, the plane just shoots like it was fired from a gun. Its like in barely 2 seconds you reach from Mach 1.6 to Mach 2.5, and then it just increases from there and reaches Mach 3.70 in yet again a couple of seconds!
Stormsquad " The SR-71 could outrun even those missiles."
Yeah....tell me, what's the weather like on YOUR planet?
"reaches Mach 3.70"
Here on earth, it's late spring in the northern part of the globe.
***** Yeah and Aliens don't mess with earth because of Russia, happy?
Stormsquad Oh, absolutely. Aliens can be scary.
Don't quite see how that's relevant to your inventions, though, but it's all good.
why did this give me the feels ;-;
I used to know the navigator who rode on the 1st and 2nd operational sorties of the Blackbird. His statement to me was that New York to California speed record could easily be 1 hour if they didn't have to refuel. I don't recall what New York & California air strips he was referring to. I have not seen him since the late 80's, and honestly he's probably no longer alive. He used to love to tell about a moth that was caught in the aircraft. When they were at altitude, their cockpit was pressurized to a certain level and their suit (a pressurized space suit) was pressurized for the gap between the cockpit and survivability. He claimed that this crazy moth survived at altitude in the cockpit.
He also had some very hair raising stories about watching anti-aircraft missiles run out of fuel as they tried to shoot the BB down over Viet Nam during the "conflict".
I was really young when I knew him and wish I had kept in touch with his daughter and her husband - the reason I knew him. In fact, his son-in-law was my best man at my wedding.
+Bryan Johnson the last "for the record" run from California to virginia, was less than an hour, and that INCLUDED a mid-air refuel stop right after take off....(which was normal procedure for SR-71 flights; they take off with mostly empty fuel tanks)
The narrator said the Airforce stated the SR71 top speed was "classified". My late uncle was an engine mechanic on that plane who actually got to take a test flight. He told me 3.2 was the rated top speed but if you pushed the throttle she'd do 5.5 or better......... but not for long. As sleek as the plane is, it still couldn't withstand the stress of that kind of speed.
He wore a Skunkworks tattoo on his arm.
When I was stationed in Okinawa I was able to sit down with two pilots that fly the ha-bu, SR-71. I learned it can fly higher then 95,000 ft. And fly faster then what this video is telling you. I also learned they will even shut engines down to get even better images recorded on film. They refuel many times to fly one mission. Seen them launch and recover at Kadena Air Force Base many times. When they come in from a mission the aircraft is so hot, it looks white! They bring in these huge fans to cool down the engines, skin of aircraft. They use a gantry crane to remove the pilots, due to the heat emanating from the aircraft. They wear a pressured suit, just like an astronaut would wear in space. Hint: Now what does this tell you? They have a variety of countermeasures to use to keep from being successfully attacked. Lets just say more then emitting chaff and flares! Now there is a newer platform even faster then the SR-71. If you do some history research on when top secret weapons systems have been declassified. You can figure out, there is flying technology platforms at least 30 years in the future, that are flying black top secret missions over your heads, and in other countries, and in outer space!
No more Blackbird? Awww, that was my favourite jet aircraft of all time this side of the Tomcat!
That's it I'm downloading this bad boy for Flight Sim...
I simply adore the fact that you are also providing subtitles for the one or two words which are hard to pronounce.
This channel is a true treasure for every engineering enthusiast! I would totally support you guys on patreon or in a similar way. Especially if I am done with my Bsc.
but yet it has been seen higher than 100,000 ft
it really is the most beautiful and just amaizing and iconical and special and and and plane evver built in my opinion... just 78 tons of pure awesomeness!
It goes way faster that Mach 3 .... the government just won't say it
I don't think we will ever see that information declassified. A Blackbird pilot said on one mission his mach indicator was at 3.6 at 80% throttle. The Sr-71 is the Magnum Opus of manned flight. 1000 years from now space aliens will be looking at it wondering how the hell we did it.
jimy walker I’ll just say I know for a fact ... it hits m5 without breaking much of a sweat
No sir, the government has not classified or anything...SR-71 was built for mach 11, however, it could only do 7!
@@nicholasmorrow2601 highly unlikely
@@ahmedshinwari just wrong
Great video! I quite enjoyed it!
No not carefully! They designed it while taking massive risks and pushing the boundaries of what was normal! They were putting themselves in a position to fail massively or win big, and it paid off.
Ah, so they haphazardly designed it then?
Idiot...
A-12 OXCART was 3.35 Mach. This is an actual spec from a Lockheed spec sheet in Blackbird Airpark in Palmdale, CA.
You made me almost cry man.
The storie about the pilot who shit his protected space suit.
Best
Even worse, it was his boss's suit on loan! I believe the story goes that he violated diet rules and ate seafood the night before.
When art and technology meet
A lot of planes can circumnavigate the globe with enough tanker support but it would be near impossible for the Blackbird because only a few tankers can support it, and it wouldn't be doing mach 3.
4:50 “Total thurst”. 😜
..ful engines ..very more smoke..incomplet combustion..inrandament..low randament..complet combustion without smoke grows speed..//dok
Can we all just take a second and say a bigs thanks to the greatest aviation mind ever to grace the skies...Thank you Mr Kelly Johnson...!!!!
Cool video. If you don't mind some nitpicking, at Mach 3.2 the SR-71 is not just getting warmed up; actually that is at or very nearly at its designed max speed. It's top speed is not classified - or at least I haven't found any document indicating it is classified (I can't find any documentation that says "top speed: classified"). Perhaps consider saying that many believe the top speed is beyond what is advertised. The airframe was titanium alloy, not titanium. The chines were for aerodynamics, stowage, and shaping to reduce RCS. SR-71s did not outrun missiles; it evaded them. A SAM-2 at stage 2 is around 2,600 mph. As for flying around the world nonstop, that may have been possible but would have been extremely difficult. First, crew fatigue would have played a role (for example, some pilots mentioned that the face being exposed to 100% oxygen was extremely fatiguing on long missions). Keep in mind also there were no faculties to accommodate going #2 (sorry to be blunt). Second, the reservoirs of TEB (for A/B ignition after refueling) and LOX (for fuel tank purging) may have needed additional capacities. Third, and perhaps the real showstopper, would be the nightmare of refueling logistics. The refueling portion of mission planning was surprisingly complicated and burdensome. Just procuring air bases to stage the KC-135Q's would have been a serious endeavor. There's also the issue of having usable airfields in proximity during the entire flight in case an emergency landing was needed. It wasn't designed to fly around the world nonstop but I'd guess it was capable - albeit at great expense and perhaps undue risk. The navigation system was ingenious, but doesn't render pinpoint location - the documentation I read indicated "guaranteed accuracy to 1,000 feet", which is still amazing at that speed (I've heard 300 feet but never seen documentation other than 1,000 feet). Anyway, just being picky...thought you might find it interesting.
Total "Thurst"?
The most amazing thing in my mind. Project oxcart and the 13 a-12's that came before the sr-71 was done totally on the CIA's budget. Only the production of the 32 sr-71's was on the DOD budget.
I remember seeing an sr-71 flying over my neighborhood on my way home from an elementary school field trip in 1989. I couldn't believe my eyes lol. Easily one of the most special moments I've ever had.
oh yes she is a dream and she will ever be a dream
a real dream
many thx for this great video!
I love the engines. A combination turbo jet and scram jet!
The Black Bird wasn't retired because it was expensive to operate. The US doesn't care about the cost of operation of anything. It was retired because something more advanced was ready to take it's place. And it's been photographed and witnessed in the air by myself and many others .
stood right under one, its the tr3, 2 known sizes and operates like a ufo. roswell was our first attempt the resulting bullsh&t story was a cover. haha aliens gotta love it. oh, Kenneth arnold was clowns in America that there tells all.
Nice video. The SR-71A BlackBirds are still just as " Futuristic " today as in 66.
Still the coolest looking aircraft ever made (not to mention all of it's incredible superlatives). So sleek and menacing it looks like it's going 10,000 miles an hour when it's standing perfectly still.
The SR-71 is my favorite aircraft. Maybe not as heavily armed as the Eagle but it's gonna sneak up on them MiGs real quiet like and shoot them with its camera.
My neighbor is an old F-4 Phantom pilot. He saw a little action in Vietnam. I keep telling him to write a book. He had his share of close calls and narrow escapes from MiGs.
These are my 3 favorite aviation books:
- Her Majesty's Top Gun by Sharkey Ward
- Topgun Days by Dave Baranek
- Great Fighter Jets of the Galaxy 1 by Tim Gibson
Yea, it's a shame that Lockheed can't build anymore. No, seriously, they can't. They found out that the cadmium-plated tools used to build other aircraft actually make titanium brittle, so they had to construct new tools made out of titanium itself to build the SR-71. When they stopped making SR-71s and other aircraft like it (such as the A-12(which the SR-71 was actually based off of; shorter range than SR-71), YF-12(which was supposed to be a fighter; held previous speed record), M-21 (drone launcher SR-71 variant; only one left)), the tools used to build them where destroyed. Kinda sad, really.
Kelly Johnson is the Mozart of Aviation. Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G Minor comes to mind, beautiful, flowing, flawless, as if God had created it himself.
The same guys that built the pyramids probably built that plane. How could a guy without a calculator build something like that??
UA-cam keeps recommending me SR71 videos. I can't complain since it is my favorite plane of all time. I created some Blackbird based photographic artworks. This is a real plane by the way: fineartamerica.com/profiles/dario-infini?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=799138
The genius of the SR-71 was the inlets, designed by Ben Rich, former Vice-President of the Skunk Works, and at the time designated by Kelly Johnson to be in charge of its propulsion. Rather than being classified as a ramjet, the unique combination of inlet, engine, and ejector would more appropriately be classified as ram recovery. When at Mach 3.2 and 82,000 ft. the inlet is providing 54 % of the total thrust, while the ejector is producing 29 % and the engine is producing 17 % of the total thrust! How is this possible? The inlet generated internal duct pressures of 18 psi, while the ambient air pressure was only 0.4 psi at 82,000 ft. This extremely large pressure gradient is capable of producing an extremely large forward thrust vector. Picture a balloon with an internal pressure of 18 psi, pushing against the air of 0.4 psi, exhausting its air while constantly maintaining its internal pressure. The spike of the inlet would be the front of the balloon, being pushed forward as the entering Mach 3.2 airstream is compressed and slowed down to 600 mph, increasing its pressure to 18 psi and its temperature from -65 degrees F. to 800 degrees F., all in the space of 20 ft., produced by the spike's shock waves, being captured, just inside the inlet. The ram air pressure has been recovered to provide additional forward thrust. Just like the balloon, which will pop, if its pressure becomes too great, the inlet will expel its shock wave, called an "unstart", if its internal pressure becomes too great, creating an immediate loss of that 54 % thrust. The six bypass tubes were used to keep the compressor from stalling by overpressure, exiting the air from the fourth stage of the compressor to the front of the ejector, providing cooling and additional thrust. The front of the compressor actually has a small negative forward thrust vector, while at speed. As Ben so aptly described his efforts, "Designing the inlets took 20 of the best years off my life!"
The SR-71 is not a Mach 3+ jet it’s speed is 2198 mph Mach 2,85 I know that at 85,000 feet the temperature changes the speed of sound but is mean flat speed is Mach 2,85 to have a mean flat speed of Mach 3,5 it would need to go about 2700 mph about 500 mph more then is top speed speed of sound is 767 mph that’s the speed of Mach 1 ( the mark )
I'm sure the Sherman staff at Mobil 2315 s.euclid ave in Ontario California , and their certified mother land mechanical recoginance and bud light reclamation staff could point you in the right direction
Great videos.
At mach 3.2, the blackbird is NOT just getting warmed up, in fact that's almost to the floor. The blackbird is just barely faster than the Mig, it just does it for 1 1/2 hours instead of 3 minutes.
The SR-71 couldn't be designed today because engineers today don't have what it takes. We rely too much on computers which makes us lazy and less capable. What we get out of computers is less than what we lost in intellect. Until AI is advanced enough to design things for us, we will forever be more impotent.
The SR 71 has a Cruise Speed of Mach 5 and is capable of Mach 8 in a short Burst Seed. It has a Service Ceiling above 120,000 feet. Get the facts right. Tired of hearing Mach 3.2,
I remember trying to understand this plane when I was a kid and not having a very good time of it, but even before I was able to get how it went so fast I thought it was the coolest plane ever on account of the appearance and performance, to think it was designed and built just around 2 decades after WWII and with old fashioned pencils and slide rulers just blows my mind
Allways wonderd why
the Blackbird was not used as a bomber? Can you imagine 50 or 100 Blackbirds on the attack? Yikes. I know it's a recon bird but it looks like it could hold some bombs. Just asking..
One minor technicality: Thrust isn't from the exhaust exiting the engine but from the reaction of the fuel/air mixture burning in the combustion chamber (or cans).
Very nice. If the SR-71 was produced today having no existence before today, it would stand as a marvel.
Rip blackbird
Well sir!!! It’s fair to say that black bird had overrun mig 25 at that era with technology was at its commencing stages and it was a had of it’s time though after notorious incident of hijacking the plane to Japan hakodati airport the plane want into a series of modis, development, and new concepts though maintaining the initial design. Thus, it was a birth of a new aircraft and i believe if they were to compete each this the tides will in the favour of the mig’s one…..though thanks for your efforts in making this video 😀
If someone were to see the 71 from the ground it could be confused with Aurora. Maybe Aurora is the 71.
This guy is a good narrator. But you should never have shown him, and more importantly, his mannerisms while he speaks. Made me cringe several times, and I doubt I'm alone.
Good information and a good video, but you need to spend less time on camera. Your head shaking style of projecting your excitement is obnoxious and I found myself frequently looking away from the monitor to avoid it. Dial it back a bit on the head shots and goofy bits and you'll be fine. You've got the ideal voice for narration, so capitalize on that. Let the topic provide it's own visuals.