Its hard to believe I shot this 22 years ago to the day. Oct 9, 1999 was the very last flight of an SR-71. I shot this with a Nikon FM-10 and an ISCO 180mm F2.8 manual focus lens from the mid '60s.
Will
Will
-
-
Re: 22 years ago, the last flight of the SR-71.
Sweet! Time Flies (pun intended).Originally posted by RAD2LTR View Post
What a ship. You could roll that beast out of the hangar today and it would still make you drop your jaw. Airframe, Intel gathering, fuel, powerplant, navigation...you name it, it was cutting edge.
From Oxcart to Obsolete in less than three decades. Funny thing...we're still flying B-52's after 50 years of service but this sled has been on the shelf for almost half that amount of time.
An amazing aircraft... -
Re: 22 years ago, the last flight of the SR-71.
1967. My family and I (ten years old) took my uncle to Beale AFB. From Beale to Hamilton AFB and for him it was on to Elmendorf Ak. The location at Beale were some buildings near the south end of the runway, they are no longer there.
While waiting for my uncle to come out of the building where he was reporting, mom was outside the car snapping away with the ole Instamatic 110. She got some shots but you can barely make out that it was an SR. I'm not sure but I think there was also some YF-12A action that day. I remember the bottom fin extended then folded for landing. Blurry memory of a ten year old.
P.S. We witnessed an SR being towed near the access road that went to where my uncle was to report. You would have thought they were moving the gold at Fort Knox. I remember my uncle tell my mom not to touch or move her hand toward the camera that was on the dash of the car.Last edited by Reever; 10-09-2021, 11:45 AM.Comment
-
Re: 22 years ago, the last flight of the SR-71.
Originally posted by Reever View Post
Good stuff...thanks for sharing that memory.Comment
-
Re: 22 years ago, the last flight of the SR-71.
Obsolete it wasn't, and still wouldn't be. Politics killed it. Nothing more. Pure 100% politics. General Welsh took over SAC. He applied to the Senior Crown program and was rejected due to incompetence. Once he came to power, he had an axe to grind, and so he did everything he could to make the program look bad, including falsifying official documents. It also didn't help that Sec Def Cheney was heavily invested in satellites that could not do what the Senior Crown program was doing. So, between the two of them, they killed the program. Oddly enough 6 months later, Saddam invaded Kuwait. SR-71 overflights were requested. Oh, we don't have any flying anymore. Sorry. (Actually NASA had 980 flying)Originally posted by Air Boss View Post
Nothing but politics killed the greatest airbreathing aircraft ever.
WillComment
-
Re: 22 years ago, the last flight of the SR-71.
My dad would occasionally take me to Beale AFB, and a lot of other airshows, when I was just a little knot4u. He was a photographer as well and in retrospect I suspect his motives for bringing me along had more to do with using my skateboard as a cart and me as manual labor to cart around his anvil cases. In any case I do recall the first time I heard a sonic boom at Beale, they used to launch an SR-71 during the show and it would go out, refuel and then do an overhead supersonic pass.
I was just a little monkey (probably 5-6 years old) and the thought of a "SONIC BOOM" scared me half to death. I can recall the airplane taking off and disappearing into the distance and some other airplanes farting around in front of the crowd.
And then the announcer said the SR-71 would be coming overhead and to expect the sonic boom. My dad was about 6'3" and I'm an even 6' now, I guess I was a late bloomer because I was a little guy at that age.
Once I heard the "BOOM" was coming I immediately wrapped both arms and both legs around one of his legs, squeezed my eyes shut and held on for dear life. Then I heard a distant thump from somewhere far away and my dad finally got me off his leg and said "That's it, nothing to be afraid of."
And then I stacked all of his cases on my skateboard and headed for the car, but I'd grown up a bit because I look forward to sonic booms ever since and I'm certainly not afraid.Comment
-
Re: 22 years ago, the last flight of the SR-71.
Obsolete is the wrong word...was trying to find something that started with an "O." It was indeed politics. But it was also satellite technology. Why put humans in harms way? At the time geo-sync sat's were capable and growing more so.Originally posted by RAD2LTR View Post
While I have the highest regard for the Bird (as a Docent I conducted numerous 90min "Tip to Tail" tours of Seattle's Museum of Flight MD-21 variant), it simply no longer made sense from an economic or resource perspective.Comment
-
Re: 22 years ago, the last flight of the SR-71.
Oh contraire my friend. Satellites couldn't and still can't do what it could do. You can figure out a satellite's orbit, you can't figure out when an Blackbird was going to appear over head, or from what direction, or if it will make a second pass from another direction. As for putting humans in harms way, flying an SR-71 was about the safest place in combat a pilot could be. Could one be brought down by a SA-6 SAM? On paper, yes. But it would have to be a 100% perfect shot, with all the perfect sets of circumstances, and a lot of bad luck on the SR-71s side. The odds of actually having a shoot down were very, very low. Gen. Welsh had a study done on this exact topic as he thought they stood no match for a SAM. A couple of the top pilots in the program proved otherwise. This enraged Welsh, and he gave them a choice, change their findings to meet his demands, or leave the Air Force. They chose to leave, and he falsified the documents and left their names on the reports.Originally posted by Air Boss View Post
Why do you think Senators Glenn and Byrd went to great lengths to bring the program back? They knew full well what it was capable of, and what the current abilities of the time were. The SR could still outperform all the UAV programs, and the satellites. The program never flew a mission because the same people who canned it in the first place were still in place. They simply didn't task them for any missions even though they were in high demand by the Navy and for activities in the Middle East. There was talk of transfering the program to the Navy, or even the Air National Guard, but even though SAC didn't want them (didn't drop bombs or shoot missiles) they also didn't want anyone else to have it. Instead they came up with every possible reason for it to be retired, and almost none were actually true. They sited a lack of spares. False. The program had more spares than at any other time in the programs history. They sighted cost, the cost was in line with its capabilities. The kicker was, the cost also included the costs for the KC-135Q tankers and their needs. No other program had to foot the bill for the tankers that kept that program in the air. If there was a way to make the program look more expensive, SAC found it and tacked it on. Then SAC reduced the funding for the program to a level they thought could never be reached. The SR guys made it happen. They had 3 mission ready aircraft and crew ready to go with the smallest budget they had ever had to work with, even with the extra bloated crap that was tacked on to jack the cost up. That still didn't get the AF brass to task the program with any missions and in the end it was offered up for the Line Item Veto that Clinton signed in '96. That was it, show over. As late as 2007 there were efforts to revive the program, however some of the same people who killed it in the first place were still in place and with that, the program was entirely dead.
If they are looking to revive the program in 2007, that says there was still a need for it.
WillComment
-
Re: 22 years ago, the last flight of the SR-71.
There's no doubt about the unpredictability of aircraft operations. Every time you inject the human element into the equation, you get unpredictability. Both good and bad. It's just how we're wired. Case in point, Neil Armstrong landing Apollo 11. Without that element, that landing is likely aborted.
And yes, Ben Rich felt the USAF screwed the pooch WRT this program. As expected...it was his and Kelly's baby!
That said, from an intellegence gathering standpoint one can argue that the three legs of our intellegence gathering now (human, drone/aircraft, and satellite) is quite capable. The KH's fleet has a declassified resolution of 10cm and have been around and been upgraded constantly since the Blackbird program began.
As for the "risk" factor, I completely agree with you re: the SR's "stealthiness" when it comes to avoiding SAM's. Too high and too fast equals survival. But the fact remains you're flying a highly complex aircraft over bad guy territory and...$#it happens. That was the risk I was referring to. Risk vs. Reward. The fact that it never happened (as was the case with the U-2 incident) doesn't mean it won't.
Politics played a very heavy role in the demise of the program, no question. But that's the case in the majority of military progams that end up on the scrap heap. Not all...but many.
It will be interesting to see how the Lockheed Martin SR-72 program folds out. I'd note that it's 2x as fast as the SR-71, carries stuff that goes "Boom", and...is UAV.
Believe me...I'd LOVE to see a 71 fly again! The Ben and Kelly show was not of this earth! But, if there's one certainty of life on this rock, it's change.Comment
-
Re: 22 years ago, the last flight of the SR-71.
Brian Schul is doing a presentation in a few weeks in Folsom CA on the SR-71 and his time in the program He's the author and photagrapher for his 2 books, Sled Driver.
Sorry for the facebook link but thats all i could find on the web for it
Comment
-
Re: 22 years ago, the last flight of the SR-71.
Met and spoke with Brian several times. He does a good job of telling the story. And his "story" is one of shear guts and determination. He exemplifies that...in spades.Originally posted by Arctic Cat View PostComment
-
Re: 22 years ago, the last flight of the SR-71.
He's also full of cow dung. There is a reason he is pretty much disowned by the rest of the Blackbird society. He is also the only pilot to be kicked out of the program. Why? Because he was repeatedly stupid, and lied about it.Originally posted by Air Boss View Post
That said I do have one of his books (The Untouchables) and I wish I had Sled Driver. The photography in both is pretty hard to say no to.
I have tremendous respect for what he went through to get into the program, but all my respect is then lost over the reasons he got kicked out of it.
WillComment
-
Comment
-
Re: 22 years ago, the last flight of the SR-71.
Here is a good example of him being stupid.Originally posted by Air Boss View Post
SR pilot David Peter's reply to it.
"I have some problems with this story. 1. 155kts was our base touchdown speed. You increased it for the remaining fuel weight. Touch down speed is very close to stall but you never land the SR71 in a stall. One reason a stall is not recoverable from any altitude because a stall in this airplane is sequential. The tail ( all flight controls) stalls first the nose stalls last therefore the result of a stall is an uncontrollable pitch up which is unrecoverable because the probability is extremely high that the bird will break up forward of the wings. I believe that getting in that situation would require some one to be asleep or brain unwired. If you got into the situation it would be very unlikely to recover even with the SRs incredible acceleration.
2. The teller of the tale."
Then there is this from Scott R Wilson. Note the reference to the incident mentioned above.
"I had a most interesting conversation with Col. Rich Graham, former SR-71 pilot, 1st SRS squadron commander and 9th SRW commander while I was at the Oshkosh EAA Airventure today. Recently in an Air Force Association Magazine letters to the editor section there were a few letters including one from General Patrick Halloran about Brian Shul, basically saying he was the only SR-71 pilot removed for cause and that he should not be regarded as any kind of hero Blackbird pilot. Nothing was said about what actually happened.
I asked Col Graham if he could tell me what that was all about, and he was happy to do so. It seems one evening the command post at Beale received several phone calls from people living in nearby Marysville saying a plane had crashed. There were only two jets airborne from Beale at the time, a KC-135 and an SR-71 flown by Shul. Both were contacted and reported no problems. When the SR landed, Col Graham, who was Squadron CC at the time, and another high-up from the wing were there to meet him. Shul and Walter Watson, Shul's RSO, told a believable story explaining what had happened and nothing else was said.
Months later Shul was in England and one evening at the Officer's Club was bragging about lying to the command staff and getting away with it. Word got back to Beale and Col Graham had the mission tapes pulled out of storage. He said that he, the Deputy Wing Commander and Wing Commander listened to the cockpit voice recording and heard Shul and Watson in the cockpit concocting what story they were going to tell. What really happened was that Brian Shul was starting his photography business and wanted photos of an inflight SR-71 lighting off the afterburners at night. He had a friend over at his house, and Brian made several low passes over his house lighting off the burners for the friend to get the photos. The noise is what made the citizens think there was a plane crash. Col Graham said while Watson went along with the story, it was Shul who was behind it. Col. Graham and the wing deputy commander wanted Shul permanently grounded, but the Wing Commander decided to cut him a break, so while removing him from the SR-71 he allowed Shul to continue flying the T-38.
Col Graham also said Shul was breaking regulations by taking a camera into the SR-71 and later T-38 cockpits, but the command staff was unaware he'd been doing that until Shul published his books after leaving the USAF, because everyone who witnessed it figured Shul had permission and so they never reported it. Shul most assuredly did not have permission! Col Graham told me that had he been aware, Shul would have been fired from the program immediately. And they were also unaware of the other things Brian Shul later wrote about, such as flying Mach 3.5 over Libya (Col Graham doubts that number but concedes it might be possible) and nearly stalling the SR-71 while flying an unauthorized fly-by at a small airport in England. Col Graham said had any of those things been brought to his attention Shul would have been immediately fired. Because of all these things Brian Shul is persona non grata to the Blackbird community.
Col Graham stressed that the SR-71 was considered a national treasure and that they all knew any pilot hot-dogging in the airplane could bring major embarrassment to the program, the Air Force and the Nation. Evidently most all of the other Blackbird pilots consider Shul a pariah and want nothing to do with him as well."
I've talked to Brian at Reno a few times. I've asked him questions about things that he talked about in his books and others have refuted. He stuck with his story.
WillComment
-
Re: 22 years ago, the last flight of the SR-71.
Yep...read those accounts, too. Also read others that tend to discount them.
Bottom line for me...it's basically a few Alpha male flight jockeys battling over who has the largest wheelbarrow in which to carry around their sack. I don't put one story over another.
I don't know...I wasn't there. Have Brian's accounts been embellished over time. Highly likely. It's human nature to some extent. But there's no denying he battled some pretty serious demons after Nam...and came out on top.Comment
Comment