Photos of SR-71 you have never seen...

I know you haven't seen them because I took them some years ago

only have four surviving photos I discovered while cleaning up for a party.

ATS upload was not working so I have had to host elsewhere.

1st, Taken from the underside into the landing gear recess.
2nd, Taken into the front engine intake (left side I believe).
3rd, Shot of Engine (obviously) removed from the plane, if memory serves this is the left side engine.
4th, Just a candid shot of the canopy, you can see where I scrawled my initials on the body on the lower right.











Enjoy

Ok That is the shortest and one of the BEST threads i have seen

Kudos and thanks for the pics.. That plane is AMAZING !!!

S+F

Well done sir!! any more?


Crazy part is the WARNING ejection seat!! lol that thing is HIGH up!!

Interesting heh !!

[edit on 1-12-2009 by 13579]

yeah it is pretty high off the ground, i am six foot and i could just about reach up to write my initials on the thing on tip-toes!

I remember taking some more photos than that (who wouldnt) but buggered if I could find them!

reply to post by freakyclown


Did you work on them? I see you got pictures of the fuel nozzle area of the turbine.

I use to hate replacing those. Worked on civilian aircraft. SF 340, Beech C-99 and 1900c, and ATR 42's.

Replacing one turbine's fuel nozzles use to take almost a full shift. Do not miss the stress and low pay at all.

Great pics.

No sorry I have never worked on them, I just had an oppotunity to take some pics so I did. This was some time ago though hence poor quality.

Thanks for all the stars etc though guys

Cool pics. Did you take these at the Pima Air and Space Museum?

Wow, form those angles you can't even tell what it is. It just goes to show how extraordinarily complex and intracate machines airplanes are. I have read that the SR-71's engines are actually wider than the fuselage, is this correct?

From the look of things they sure got their money's worth out of them. It looks like it was rode hard and put away wet.


S & F

Slay

[edit on 18-12-2009 by SLAYER69]

Not take at Pima Air and Space Museum where ever the earth that is!

If you take the internal structure as the fuselage rather than the out smooth curves, then yes the engine IS wider then the fuselage.

Yes it was in a large concrete based hanger and VERY dusty - hence why i was able to write my initials in the dust.


Thanks for all the stars and flags - had these photos for some time but decided I could post them now as its pretty well photographed and not so secret



[edit on 18-12-2009 by freakyclown]

They have one at the Pima Space museum (just outside of Davis-Monthan AFB, Tucson), sitting under an awning outside. All the dust reminded made me wonder....

Cool - never been to the USA though, I didnt realise they had these on display over there! thats amazing!

reply to post by freakyclown


Star and Flag for the excellent pics! Thank you.

Another bit of SR-71 trivia for the fans of this remarkable aircraft:

On September 13, 1974 I was on duty as an Air Traffic Controller at Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) located in Palmdale, CA.
As such I was a "witness" to the final leg of the SR-71 speed record run from London to Los Angeles. The officially recorded time of the trip was 3 hours 47 minutes 35.8 seconds, or 1,435.587 mph.

A few weeks later the crew for the speed record run came to our facility to brief us on the record breaking flight and present our facility with a plaque commemorating our participation in the flight. During the briefing, the aircraft commander revealed that, unknown to the general public, they were required to refuel 3 times during the flight. That involved locating the tanker, descending to it's altitude, slowing to refueling speed, refueling and then climbing back to altitude. Their actual cruising speed was much higher than the "average" speed reported in the press. I have personally measured (via radar) speeds in excess of 5000 mph during "normal" flight operations for the SR-71.

Additionally, this crew brought along a film produced by Lockheed of a YF-12A (the earlier, interceptor, version of the SR-71) launching a missile at altitude. The camera was apparently mounted at the aft end of the weapons bay near the top and was pointed down at the missile. As the weapons bay door opened, the missile was outlined by the blue glow of the upper atmosphere. As the missile dropped clear of the aircraft the motor, when ignited, produced no visible tail flame but rather the 170' shock wave that we had seen when the LEM's lifted off from the moon. The missile then tilted down at about 45 degrees and disappeared from sight revealing the clearly visible curvature of the earth against a black sky. When asked about the altitude of the missile test, they replied (with a straight face), "60,000 feet. Wink Wink!"

Again, thanks for the pics and the trip down memory lane.

Hi all,
Am having a problem with the photos showing: All I see are little x'd boxes.

Would really love to see these amazing photos...I'm sure they are awesome! Could someone post them on this site? Or suggestions? Much appreciated!

Hope you guys/gals have security, do clean ups, etc on your pcs. The link to those image was blocked by one of my computer programs PG2. Ezri, Inc showed up in my log , and was blocked because it isn't considered trustworthy by them. Dug only a bit, and found that a lot of the Performance Systems has gone to Ezri. Just an FYI.

reply to post by freakyclown


Hi,
You might find the following link useful - shows all remaining aircraft;

gmaps.tommangan.us...

Peace!

Originally posted by jawsismyfish
Cool pics. Did you take these at the Pima Air and Space Museum?

I was gonna post the link, amazing place... with an Sr-71 and a Space Shuttle

If you want aircraft, check this link out, guaranteed to consume over an hour of your life..
LINK

And THIS is an SR-71




[edit on 23-2-2010 by seataka]

I thank you all for this thread and now I understand why some people called it the big gulp do you have any experience with the "Darkstar" or the DS-Y?

Originally posted by freakyclown
Cool - never been to the USA though, I didnt realise they had these on display over there! thats amazing!

There is an SR-71 at the Duxford Imperial War Museum if you want to see one in the UK

They were discussing some old Russian MIG's on another ATS thread a while back.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Without going into detail, I'm curious who solved the engine bug that was preventing hypersonic operation Russia or the US?