Darryl greenmayer f104 rb(red baron) ??

[Tin Man]

Re: Darryl greenmayer f104 rb(red baron) ??

RE SR71
If you Google Earth Edwards AFB you will see two of them sitting on the ramp next to a hanger.
Tom
Northern California

[jarrodeu]

Re: Darryl greenmayer f104 rb(red baron) ??

I don't think that's true today, although some data on the Blackbirds IS still classified.

I had a book all about the Blackbird that listed every SR-71 and A-12 made and their current status/location at the time the book came out. I think we also had a discussion a year or 2 ago in this forum about the status and location of each aircraft.

I have a book on the blackbird that shows every mission ever flown. I can't remember the name though.
I believe that a general ordered the tooling destroyed for fear that the russians would get ahold of it and that was part of the reason for retirement, but I could be wrong.
Cost wise it is kind of hard to justify operating special KC-135Q's just for a few aircraft instead of operating much cheaper aircraft that can do almost as good of a job as the SR-71.
Performance wise though, the SR-71 was way ahead of its time.

Jarrod

[MRussell]

Re: Darryl greenmayer f104 rb(red baron) ??

I have a book on the blackbird that shows every mission ever flown. I can't remember the name though.
I believe that a general ordered the tooling destroyed for fear that the russians would get ahold of it and that was part of the reason for retirement, but I could be wrong.

It was fmr Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara.

...operating much cheaper aircraft that can do almost as good of a job as the SR-71.

Debatable.

[matt]

Re: Darryl greenmayer f104 rb(red baron) ??

debatable, but not wrong. the airplane if i recall correctly is nearing 50 years old. there are no new parts, it's expensive and it's (from what i've heard) not the easiest aircraft to fly. now given that, would you A.) keep an outdated aircraft that has few spare parts or B.) go with a newer aircraft that you are still producing parts for and would probably cost about the same to develop (factoring in inflation) like you know the air force is developing?

[MRussell]

Re: Darryl greenmayer f104 rb(red baron) ??

I choose A, even if not for the 2006 environment. The aircraft would have proven useful through the 1990s and at least during specific points of the past 6 years. My position is that the program was terminated early. The Lockheed of the Kelly & Ben era built aircraft that were always cost-effective. On occasion they even returned money to the government when they had been overpaid for a fleet of aircraft. As a result, and despite its requirement for special fluids, tools, and materials, I will never accept the argument that it was not a cost-justified program to operate. Damn the claims of inflation: when you compare it to the gross monstrosities we have today (again: $1B for a single bomber that does what!?) the SR was produced on the cheap, and was superbly reliable in measures of dispatch reliability and flight reliability.

UAVs are unquestionably the future, but they are not yet anywhere near the capabilities of the SR (of course they are trending that way, though, because the NEED exists).

[Unregistered]

Re: Darryl greenmayer f104 rb(red baron) ??

What I remember reading was that the tooling was scrapped so no one could say building more SR-71's was cheaper than developing new aircraft (like a F-111) that would appear to have inferior performance compared to the SR-71 (Politics).

Like the F-22 and F-35, the more you build, the lower the per unit cost.

[Race#21]

Re: Darryl greenmayer f104 rb(red baron) ??

I was at the Al Goss party in 99/00/01?? when a couple of scroungy locals in a junky pickup truck showed up and in the bed of the truck was two very dirty, mean dogs and the "Red Baron" skin from that crash. I offered a few hundred for it but they decided they could get more on "ebay". Anyone we know buy it?
TC

[eljimb0]

Re: Darryl greenmayer f104 rb(red baron) ??

Ha!
I just found this thread. You mean THIS!!
jimbo

[RareHair75]

Re: Darryl greenmayer f104 rb(red baron) ??

More goodies from the other RB........

http://www.aafo.com/hangartalk/showthread.php?t=3719&highlight=RED+BARON

[Bill Marsh]

Re: Darryl greenmayer f104 rb(red baron) ??

HEY peoples...

does this qualify as a straight wing a/c 4 the jet class?

hole - e - cow



Bill marsh