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Originally posted by BigTrain
What was this moron captain doing just sitting there letting this foreign plane fly right at them. He killed 37 of his sailors and he should have been put in jail for insubordinance. That plane should have been blown out of the sky when it approached within 90 miles max. Seems to me the real problem was the captian. If that weapon was turned on, it would have wasted that exocet.
Train
Originally posted by BuddhaSmiling
That's alright. I understand it is a tough ask to get a SR-71 down by a Mig-25. But what about the latest Russian SAM which are intended to knock down even non-strategic ballistic missile going as fast as 5km/sec or roughly 15 Mach. The range and alititude (200 Km and 40 Km respectively) of these 4th generation
(S-400 Triumph) missiles are also sufficient enough to chase and reach the Black bird. One has to keep in mind that no matter how powerful the engines of SR-71 could be, still it can't be a match with the Solid Rocket Motors that these SAMs most certainly employ. I think this is the real reason for the early retirement of the SR-71.
it isn't possible for the sr-71 to move along at over m3.44 becuase the jp-7's flashpoint which is used to cool the leading edges would be reached causing the entire aircraft to ignite. I know this aircraft like the back of my hand and the top speed isn't as high as many think. [...]
The discovery of these tactics at the arrival of the mig-31 warrented the shut-down of the SR-71 program as it was now useless.
trodas said:
About the Mach 6 - this is IMHO does belong to the sci-fi, since AFAIK the rockets have hard time to beat Mach 4 - for example the Russian Sunburns.
The airplane first set speed records in the Mach 4-6 range with Mach 4.43 on March 7, 1961; Mach 5.27 on June 23, 1961; Mach 6.04 on November 9, 1961; and Mach 6.7 on October 3, 1967.