The SR-71 Blackbird is still the fastest acknowledged crewed air-breathing jet aircraft

[SKYLANE]

Buzz wrote:

Yeah, that's the biggest hunk of titanium I've ever seen.

About the titanium used in a plane:

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/did-you-...iet-union/

also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird

Excerpt from link above:

Acquisition of titanium

Titanium was in short supply in the United States, so the Skunk Works team was forced to look elsewhere for the metal. Much of the needed material came from the Soviet Union. Colonel Rich Graham, SR-71 pilot, described the acquisition process:

The airplane is 92% titanium inside and out. Back when they were building the airplane the United States didn't have the ore supplies – an ore called rutile ore. It's a very sandy soil and it's only found in very few parts of the world. The major supplier of the ore was the USSR. Working through Third World countries and bogus operations, they were able to get the rutile ore shipped to the United States to build the SR-71.

[freeradical]

My first assignment in the AF was at Beale AFB from 1978-81.

I worked in "NAVAIDS" (Navigational AIDS) AIDS is an acronym which stands for the transmission priority of the TACAN (Tactical Air Navigation) transponder, which is azimuth, identification, distance, and squitter.

I maintained the TACAN and the ILS (Instrument Landing System).

When an SR-71 was launched and I was at the Glideslope, me and my buds would get as close to the runway as we dared and got down on the ground to feel the aircraft take off.

When we were at the Localizer site, it would would make the shelter vibrate when it took off as it took off over us. When it flew at slow speed over the shelter, it looked like a UFO or something.

I got to go on a KC-135 tanker refueling mission for the SR-71. That was amazing...

[RAMd®d]

When we were at the Localizer site, it would would make the shelter vibrate when it took off as it took off over us.

Was that enough to lift the roof off of a guard shack?

[SKYLANE]

RAMd®d wrote:
Was that enough to lift the roof off of a guard shack?

Ha! I know your reference, I noticed that too!

[ztirffritz]

When I first moved to Washington I visited the Boeing museum of flight. They had a sample of planes arranged in chronological order. The SR-71(might have been an A-12) looked so out of place. It made me start to question rejecting Roswell as an actual event. The Blackbird started development WAY earlier than people think. It started in the 1950s. First flight was in 1962, about 18 years after the first US fighter jet went into service.

[JoeH]

Yeah, first flight of the A-12 was in 1962, it only was flown for surveillance missions for a couple years in 1967-68. The SR-71 was based on the A-12 design, but a bit larger to carry more fuel for longer range. That made it a slight bit slower than the A-12 with a maximum altitude that was a bit lower as well All SR-71s were twin seaters, except for the trainers the A-12 was a single seater. First flight of the SR-71 was about 2 1/2 years after the A-12 at the end of 1964.