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SR-71 speed check
One time we were going fast
a small plane got on the radio and said "how fast am i going"
the tower said "you are going fast"
and then a bigger plane got on the radio and said "haha i think i am going faster how fast am i going"
and the tower said "you are going a little faster"
and then a jet fighter was going really fast and talked like a really cool guy and said "hey there, I sound like a cool guy, tell me how fast I'm going"
and the tower said "you are going very fast" but he sounded totally normal
And then I wanted to say something but that was against the rules, and then the other guy in my plane said "hey tower, are we going fast"
and the tower said "yes you are going like a million fast" and then the guy in my plane said "I think it's a million and one fast" and then the tower said "lol yeah ur plane is good"
and then I said "did we just become best friends"
and the other guy said "yes"
you know how some people have a talent for story-telling, painting vivid landscapes and heroic deeds with words and prose?
you have a talent for story-telling, but sort of from the opposite end of the spectrum; you sucked all of the heroism and bravado out of the story without actually misrepresenting any of the facets of it.
nice work.
Some people, which includes me, think this parody captures the cringeworthy-ness of the original.
It always sounded so fake to me. Even if someone proved it did happen.
That's not because I don't think pointy planes are cool! I went to a school with an F-104 lawn ornament.
I find comments like this interesting - what is so implausible about this? It’s just a bit of radio chatter, nothing amazing happens, just a funny anecdote that a pilot tells when speaking to an audience.
Maybe because it’s a polished story that he told over and over? Maybe one of the planes was an added embellishment to make the story longer?
The last part is the most plausible- that they would do an unnecessary speed check as a joke to tweak a pilot of a different armed service.
>what is so implausible about this
That's an interesting question. I'm not a pilot, I haven't spent a lot of time listening to pilots talk, and I have no specific thing to point to that is definitively impossible. I have no reductionist explanation.
There might indeed be a core that was embellished. If so, then I think it was overdone.
Real things that happen can be unbelievable; I've had the experience of telling a true story that people completely refuse to believe. But this story _is_ believable to many, so it doesn't seem to go in the same bucket.
Stories that get repeated a lot get tweaked along the way, eventually to their detriment. If something was originally a good story, then it's easier to make it worse than better.
I've spent many, many hours talking to ATC and other aircraft. I don't know if the original story is true, but it's more or less believable. First off: I absolutely, 100% believe that pilots would do this. These are precisely the kinds of shenanigans one gets up to in the air.
The detail that makes this story not quite work for me is that it has civilian and military aircraft on the same frequency. That's now how it works in real life. They will talk to the same facility, but civilian aircraft use VHF and military aircraft use UHF. Coming into a certain dual-use airport we would often hear the ATC side of a conversation (tower transmitting on all its freqs simultaneously, which is normal) but we'd never hear the F-15s, for example.
I suppose, though, that it's possible that the military aircraft in the story switched over to the VHF frequency after hearing the ATC side of a hilariously (to them) slow speed check. I know at least some military ships have VHF capability, having talked to a few myself. Whether it's typical for the particular aircraft in the story to have VHF radios though, I don't know.
>I find comments like this interesting - what is so implausible about this? It’s just a bit of radio chatter, nothing amazing happens, just a funny anecdote that a pilot tells when speaking to an audience.
The original story has an SR71, Navy F18, multiple general aviation on the same frequency. This doesn't happen and won't happen. The military has their own frequencies, their own ifr paths, and their own air traffic control.
That's not to say the military planes cant go to GA frequencies but the story is entirely false.
Not to denigrate OP, but this reduced version has become a bit of a copypasta meme of its own.
Essentially it’s like JPEG pictures: the quality degrades the more times it’s being shared.
Not really, the comment posted didn't degrade to it's current state over repeated postings, it was just created to mock the original by someone sick of seeing it posted all the time.
I'm sorry but this is the funniest comment I've read on HN!
For reference, this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SR71/comments/2dpmw7/the_sr71_speed...
is a story that amateur jet fighter enthusiasts have copy-pasted to every edge of the internet, to the point of everyone cringing when they see it.
Is this the aviation version of the "your call, I'm a lighthouse" legend?
The pilot of the Blackbird maintains that it's true. Not sure you're going to find any confirmation other than that. But it isn't some joke or story cooked up by a random person for laughs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AyHH9G9et0
Lucky 10,000
To be honest it's cringy even reading for the first time.
"There were a lot of things we couldn't do in a Cessna 172, but we were some of the slowest guys on the block and loved reminding our fellow aviators of this fact."
https://www.reddit.com/r/copypasta/comments/e6r7gv/
Lol hadn't seen that parody XD
"in mere hours we'd be out of the sector" rofl
I swear I am never clicking on any blackbird post on any forum or social network again, because this stupid shit is ALWAYS the top comment.
Plagiarism:
https://www.reddit.com/r/copypasta/comments/8ya8v4/sr71_spee...
Bruh you can’t plagiarize copypasta. It is made to be eaten by all.
GPT-3 is that you?
later his wife asked "did you go fast?2
and the guy said "oh yes, very fast!"
the wife asked "like really really fast?"
he answered "really really really fast!"
and the children entered the kitchen asking "how fast did you go?"
and daddy said "pretty fast"
and ...
Stick and Rudder is the best read out there if you want an intuitive pilots understanding of what happened here. It unpacks angle of attack from a pilots perspective rather than using engineer speak. At that speed the control surfaces of the Blackbird would have had very little effect which is incredibly scary as you’re approaching a stall low and slow. They’d need big deflections to keep her straight and it would have felt very mushy.
It’s also worth noting that airflow from the engines don’t flow over control surfaces like some light aircraft which means they’d actually have had to gain airspeed before they’d stop mushing around, further delaying recovery. Although I’m guessing that happened pretty damn fast.
A similar thing happens with boats --- the rudder only has an effect when water is moving past it, so it's more difficult to maneuver when moving slowly.
Maneuvering a regular (stern) driven boat without a bow screw at low speeds is super hard. There is this 10 year old kid at a marina near where I live that handles all of the rental boats, I've seen them do this in absolutely impossible situations with a grace and skill that really blows my mind, it's like the boat is on rails and does exactly what they want it to do. Even the box shaped 'party boats', and those are really next to impossible to move around in predictable ways.
A testament to the plasticity of the human mind. Like getting (and losing) "sea legs". You walk your whole life on solid land; now you don't for a few days and your freaky brain figures it out. You're a kid and you don't know anything about boats, but you take the job parking the rentals. By the end of the summer, they move to your whim.
But steerage at slow speed is a tricky subject. I had a trawler I was terrified of at slow speed, because it was absolutely massive, and the rudder did nothing at low speed. Plus the transmission was iffy so putting it in reverse would take from 5-50 seconds. Plus being single screw her rear-end would pull to port in reverse. Never again! (A sail-boat with a big keel and big rudder, and much less beam and mass? No problem!)
Boats are tough. I have to bring my sailboat under two draw bridges each winter. It is always a little too exciting, especially if you are unlucky enough to get stuck between the bridges which are really close together!
Fixed mast?
Here in NL we have a type of mast that can be dropped under sail and re-set right after crossing under a bridge. This is a pretty exciting operation best practiced a large number of times without the presence of a bridge before you try it for real. Failures tend to be fairly spectacular.
Here a demo on a very small boat, I've seen this done with a big Tjalk and that was most impressive (but I can't find any video of that):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTwGCPgCsII
With a big ship it will look like an accident is about to happen until the last moment when the sail drops, the mast gets dropped backwards and they are barely out from under the bridge on the far side or the whole operation happens in reverse resulting in very little lost speed.
My uncle developed something similar for his boat but only the top. The idea was to have a 15-ish meter high mast fit under the Hollandse Brug (12.8 meter high bridge). He put a hinge in the mast and added a lot of stays to allow this to happen.
He is a maritime engineer, so he had it all calculated out to ensure it would hold up in rough weather. And knowing how racy he sails, I am pretty sure its been put to the test.
That sounds super cool :) Interesting that he special cased it for that one bridge, and good that the water level there is reasonably stable, but that would definitely require some checking before making a run at a later date because the waterschappen are known to occasionally change their policy and suddenly you'll find that your 'known depth' is off by a meter either way. Lower wouldn't be much of a problem I guess but higher very well could be.
This reminds me of something I had completely forgotten: many years ago, we spent a week cruising an English canal in a narrowboat, which have the basic setup of a fixed-in-azimuth propeller and a rudder. One morning, a guy went by backing up a sixty-footer at about 5 knots for about a quarter-mile, until he could swing the stern into a junction to turn it around. It took me a while to get my jaw up off the deck.
That is very impressive. I can do some neat tricks with cars and trailers but with boats I'm pretty hopeless.
That’s right. The significance for pilots is that, with low airflow over control surfaces which gives a mushy feel, you also have a high angle of attack which means you are approaching stall as flow over the wing separates. So the plane is harder to control but you’re also about to fall out of the sky.
Stalls can also occur at higher speed in high g maneuvers, so mushiness isn’t the only indicator of approaching a stall. But it’s pretty reliable in straight and level flight.
To complete the analogy, your boat would also have to sink.
Plus if the engines do not respond at the same rate, you have asymmetric thrust leading to a yaw if not corrected - and I assume the rudders are not particularly effective at low speed, especially if the engine nacelles, at high angle of attack, are partially blanking them with turbulence. Stall + yaw = spin as a general rule.
Wouldn’t a well trained pilot (like somebody learning on the SR71) be very familiar with what a slow airplane feels like? I’m shocked that a skilled pilot would have allowed that plane to get so dangerously slow.
Some aircraft don't buffet much when they get slow, while other aircraft may buffet a lot (slow as a simple term for high angle of attack (AOA), but high AOA can occur from G-forces - back stick pressure - as well).
Those aircraft also use a digital flight control system that commands G instead of direct deflection of the surfaces. Therefore the aircraft feels the same at the speeds in which it is capable of delivering the G it is asked to deliver. The same back stick pressure delivers the same G. This is much different than a mechanical system in which you get more G if you are faster.
The F-16 is one such aircraft. It feels very similar at 250 knots and 650 knots.
Of course an experienced pilot immediately recognizes when the aircraft hits the G-limit due to speed. For example, at 200 knots it can't pull 5 Gs. But that only occurs when you are pulling on the stick and not in straight and level flight.
The angle of attack of being slow (just being more leaned back in the jet) is more subtle and and doesn't usually present itself until you are already really slow. The automatic flaperons and leading edge flaps, which give the wing more camber automatically, are partially a reason for this.
Point is, the slowness maybe not be as obvious as you think.
Yeah, probably. But in aeronautical decision making training, you learn that other stuff going on in the cockpit can cause “simple” things to get overlooked. They were looking for the field in low visibility which took the pilot’s attention off the aeronautical health of the aircraft. This is why the stall horn and things like GPWS callouts are a thing. His skill did come into play when he had an atavistic sense that something was wrong, confirmed it was so, and firewalled the throttles.
We are all human and this was probably an unusual exercise. Given their distraction of trying to find a field in this aircraft, I can easily imagine how quickly the plane got away from them. 152 kts is roughly 174 mph... imagine trying to find an address when going any slower than 200 mph is potentially fatal.
Yeah it sounds like a tall tale. "Falling at a slight bank" sounds like ideal conditions for onset of a spin. Which a pilot would be very wary of when close to the ground because it means certain death.
Also, would it be possible to fly level at such a speed in an SR71? And isn't there a HUD and vertical speed warner?
On the other hand their expectation of being grounded sounds pretty accurate :)
Oh well I never flew anything better than a Cessna 172 so don't take my word for it.
> isn't there a HUD and vertical speed warner?
On a 1960's SR-71? Probably not [1].
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird#/medi...
The human mind, even one highly trained, is capable of ignoring all sorts of inputs when conditions don't match expectations. For an SR-71 pilot I can easily imagine flying low and slow could create such an issue. It's scary in general just how many airline crashes are "controlled flight into terrain". In 2009, Air France flight 447 crashed off the coast of Brazil after the pilots flew it at a stall from 35,000 feet.
https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/?p=8a7678c37982
Thanks, this was a good read. I decided to search HN, and this [0] is the most popular thread on "Air France 447".
[0]
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3327202
You don't get a lot of practice at the limit of the flight envelope in an SR71 for the same reasons crane operators don't do a ton of heavy picks in high winds. It's not worth the risk to the equipment.
> It's not worth the risk to the equipment.
… or life.
In the middle of this book now. So excellent.
Is what you're referring to here called coffin corner? Or is that something else?
No, the coffin corner is something else, and it doesn't apply to the SR71 (or any aircraft capable of supersonic flight).
The coffin corner is where an aircraft is flying as slow as it possibly can, but that slow speed is also very close to its maximum mach speed. So the aircraft is both in severe danger of stalling and losing lift because the speed is too low, and in severe danger of getting supersonic airflow over the wings and losing lift because the speed is too high. This occurs at high altitudes where the air is thinner and the stall speed increases.
The problem with the coffin corner is that you need to maintain the exact air speed very accurately. If you let it increase or decrease by just a couple of knots, then one of the two failures happens, and you can pitch down, which will further increase your speed above supersonic, potentially making the pilot lose control or causing damage to the airframe.
See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffin_corner_(aerodynamics)
Like Air France Flight 447?
No. Commercial airlines generally don't fly in the coffin corner. That's just asking for trouble.
AF447 had nothing to do with the coffin corner - that accident was caused by the aircraft flying through icing conditions, the speed-sensing equipment icing over, the computer detecting that and switching the autopilot off and handing control over to the pilots, who then flew the aircraft into a stall and couldn't work out what they were doing wrong.
To anyone who is interested in this stuff I would strongly recommend the book “Skunk Works” by Ben Rich. Full of interesting history about stealth planes, and a masterclass on how to run a ragtag company.
Also Kelly Johnsons book “More than my share of it all”. Kelly designed the SR71 and U2 and brought them in on time and under budget.
As a side note, Kelly Johnson really did have more than his share of it all. Head of Skunk Works, during which he had 2 wives who died from health issues over the course of 20 years. As someone with a partner who had years of health problems, I have no idea how you run something like Skunk Works and care for someone at the same time.
Yeah that’s right. He started a foundation to provide long term hospice care in a setting that would allow relatives to be with their loved ones for extended periods - based on his own experience. I’m not sure what happened to it - could not find with a quick Google. But it’s mentioned at the end of his book.
He had a ranch in Agoura, near the SSFL, which might have had an impact on them.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=SSFL
Also this documentary was made recently:
https://www.inthedarkofthevalley.com/
SSFL?
Santa Susana Field Laboratory. It was picked up by Boeing when they acquired Rocketdyne and I had the pleasure(?) of visiting a few times. The building I visited was across the street from where the meltdown had occurred, but it had a separate history of some nuclear contamination. All of it had been allegedly cleaned up, except that we were all instructed to never use the running water for anything but flushing the toilet.
Boeing was pretty stupid to accept the SSFL as part of the Rocketdyne deal because they assumed liability for cleaning it up. Someday, if it ever gets cleaned up enough, the State of California will take over the land and make it into a public park.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laborator...
reads like something straight out of 1970ies fatalistic scifi like Dark Star.
Nuclear meltdown covered up for decades.
It's not just about the meltdown. Rocketdyn also illegally disposed of toxic chemicals by burning and/or blowing them up.
Could Lockheed ever be described as "ragtag"? Even with some independence it would still be a department of a huge company.
Yes. A wonderful read. So good I read it again!
SR-71 stories are legendary. Here's another classic from the same site:
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/sr-71-blackbird-pilot-tells-...
My favourite SR-71 story involves asking ATC for clearance for FL600. ATC gives clearance with some skepticism, since most planes can't climb that high... only to be informed that the SR-71 would be _descending_ to FL600.
Here is the pilot telling the story. I think it's the same pilot as top story as back seater is Walter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AyHH9G9et0
Another great story different pilot:
Buzzing the tower.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTJYNq4GQAE
"The Day the Swedish Air Force Saab 37 Viggen Saved the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27164816
Thanks. Here's a text version:
https://theaviationist.com/2018/11/29/that-time-a-crippled-s...
The JA37 Viggen is probably one of the few planes that managed to get a missile lock on the SR-71. This was mainly to try to push the northern flight path (over Norway, then onwards over Russia) to pass north of Sweden, instead of crossing Sweden. Take a route of JA37, ascending on full afterburner at about 45 degrees, coordinating with fighter control (military ATC, also trained to assist fighters during air-to-air combat), so as to enable the missile targeting systems when the SR-71 would be in an optimal position in the cone.
Most probably, the SR-71 would've been safe even if the missiles had been fired, but the goal was never to take it down, just to make them shift the overflight pattern to no longer be in Swedish airspace.
Note the story is not about Sweden trying to shoot down the SR-71 ...But about saving it from the Russian jets.
my friend served at a USSR air defense radar station near sea border and he describes SR-71 crossing his radar screen like a small frog leaping - i.e. it would move significantly while the radar antenna were making the full turn.
A more enjoyable version (transcript from the book):
http://b.johnwurth.com/aspen-20/
Here’s a really crazy one:
http://www.chuckyeager.org/news/sr-71-disintegrated-pilot-fr...
apparently some air traffic controllers disagree with this story being possible:
https://old.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fbt4rq/la_speed_che...
The dude on Reddit says:
> They could hear ATC but not other aircraft, because civilian aircraft are on VHF frequencies, military on UHF, and anybody above 60,000 feet (like the SR-71's) were on a separate, center-wide UHF frequency so they wouldn't have to switch frequencies constantly. So the SR-71 and F-18 pilots couldn't have heard those other aircraft requesting groundspeed, or heard each other for that matter.
The SR-71 had at least 5 radios, according to the flight manual [1].
• COMNAV-50 UHF. It had two of these, one in the front cockpit and one in the aft cockpit.
• AN/ARC-186(V). This one covers the civilian aircraft frequencies (and a bit more such as the 2 meter ham band).
• 618-T HF. This covered AM and SSB on 2-30 MHz in 1 KHz increments.
• AN/ARC-190(V). Another HF radio, covering 2-30 MHz in 100 Hz increments.
It was a _spy_ plane. Listening in on other aircraft and ATC would help it carry out its mission, so of course it is going to have plenty of radios.
[1]
https://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/manual/
Yea there doesn't seem to be one generally believed consensus. The ATC guys may simply be wrong about not having access to VHF. It could be that it depends on the mission as to whether or not they would be using them. But they could also be right that an SR wouldn't be asking for speed checks or that ATC can't see their real speed in some way. I don't know.
He makes some other good points too though about not being able to see speeds that high and them being classified.
It is a cool story though, kinda hope it's true but it does sound a bit too epic to be true.
It's still believable, when the 71 started flying it's possible "speed classified" hadn't been introduced yet.
To me the only thing that the doubter's story that hasn't been refuted well is the number being too specific.
If you read the comment thread, lots of people throw doubt on the doubter's story especially around the VHF band.
What's sort of weird is the ATC says they were a controller in the 90's. Could things have changed between the when the story happened and this person was an ATC Controller?
"Speed Classified" might have been different in the early days of the 71's program. Same with the flight ceilings.
To me, the only thing that hasn't been refuted yet is the speed measurement. Specifically the part where it's a multiple of 1842 (or 1942 as was told in the story).
You can read anything you want about the SR-71, but nothing compares to actually _seeing it_ in person. It is my single favorite engineered object.
It's in the Dulles Air and Space museum. Go see it, if you can. You won't regret it.
There's another one in Oregon:
https://www.evergreenmuseum.org/exhibit/sr-71-blackbird/
There's an A12 Blackbird in LA in expo park. It's just sitting outside near a parking garage, free to see anytime like the DC-8 or the F18 or Endeavor's fuel tank (Endeavor itself is indoors in the science center).
It's amazing how large of a vehicle it is in person. It's got to be twice the size of the F18 in front of the science center. It still looks like a spacecraft from the future even though it's nearly 70 years old.
There are lots of them around. I have seen SR-71's and A-12's in at least 6 different museums.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird#Accid...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_A-12#Fate_of_the_A-12...
It's also on the Intrepid. The first time I saw it in person, my brain didn't understand how it could fly. It's massive. It looks like a space shuttle rather than a jet.
The aircraft on the Intrepid is not a SR-71 Blackbird, it is a A-12. They look similar, but are pretty different.
You are right! I never knew about the A-12. They both are amazing machines!
I just got the chance to see it this past week. Absolutely incredible. It looks completely different at every angle you look at it
You can get close enough to touch it. But you mustn’t touch.
Same with the Canopy, Ejection seat and Wing of the F-117 shot over Serbia. At the Belgrade Aviation Museum... ;-)
There is also one at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, UK, which you can get near enough to touch if no-one is looking. Super impressive machine close up.
I saw the one in Tucson Arizona. It’s not as long as I thought it would be. Incredible machine.
Excellent story and stunning pictures.
Side note: I randomly tried highlighting some text and right clicking on the website—I guess a lot of people do that while reading—and was annoyed at the "you're not allowed to view source" messages. I downloaded the entire site using wget and I'm going to do what I want with the pictures and content, thank you very much. For personal use of course. Jesus...
Archive:
I'm not one to bother with archive snapshots, but this site is particularly infuriating with it's attempt to prevent text selection.
Yes, I used ctrl-f to locate some text, and realized I couldn't click away to deselect. Super frustrating for weird people like me who like to highlight text as I read to help focus.
Reader mode or add-ons like Absolute Enable Right Click & Copy (Firefox) puts these types of websites in their place...
A while back the SR71 ops (flight?) manual was posted to HN...
There was a particular comment which I think was on like page 69 or so...
"Do not attempt any turns above 70,000 feet; drop to 70,000 feet first then do your turn with a turn radi of ~2miles....
Do not fly above 90,000 feet without prior authorization"
---
Or some-such... so the thing was known to fly over 90K feet - but you needed approval to do so...
Nine-teen SIXTY WHAT?
They did crazy shit in those days. I saw a mock-up of the lunar lander once. I wouldn’t have ridden in that thing to the end of my street but those guys strapped in and went to the moon!
I've read this story a few times before but never found any photos of the event until this article.
Very interesting article. Did anyone else notice the website? If you try to select the text, either double-tap or right clicking brings up a indicator "web site protected"
Just turn off javascript if you want to copy and paste. It's a pretty hostile and anti user design.
I noticed this too since it disabled my ability middle click scroll and highlight lines while I read. It appears to be a very ham-handed approach to DRM that many websites are using these days.
But, putting it into a text browser lets me copy/paste the whole article. So it's only punishing the legitimate reader using a regular browser with JS enabled, not the potential thief!
"These days"? Hooking oncontextmenu and similar events to prevent copy/paste was a common technique in the 1990s and early 2000s. It's largely passed out of usage nowadays, as everyone's realized how ineffective it is.
My cadet trainee became a 71 pilot. That thing is a work of scientific art.
Here’s another fun flyby story:
http://www.usafa68.org/History/ch5.htm
I often think about life using aviation analogies. You need to have enough airspeed, for instance, to maintain lift: one must keep moving to survive. Don't stall your wing with too much angle of attack = don't bite off more than you can chew. Etc etc...
Interesting. Do you have more? Would love to hear.
A few aviation idioms that come to mind.
1. "Stay ahead of the aircraft."
i.e. anticipate and manage administrative (or tactical) minutiae to put yourself in the best possible position when the tempo increases.
2. "Aviate, aviate, aviate...then navigate and communicate" (already mentioned).
This is commonly used during a crew brief prior to a flight, particularly when discussing emergency procedures. Focus on the most critical thing (EP immediate action items, keeping the bird aloft, not hitting lead or the ground) and when that's done, use your remaining bandwidth to complete the 'nice-to-have' items (e.g. keeping the flight on course, a MAYDAY call, or an advisory call to the flight/controller). I like to really emphasize the aviate portion during my briefs. Junior pilots have a tendency to try and do all three things simultaneously which can compound an already bad situation.
"Waveoff's are free."
If you see a landing going bad, don't hesitate to use a mulligan.
*Free as in you won't be judged for choosing to 'go-around' but will be held accountable if you push a bad situation that you could have prevented through better judgement.
Get-there-itis: Wanting to accomplish something (e.g. get to a cool destination or hit a time on target) so badly that you will accept unnecessary risk in order to achieve whatever you're trying to do. Many aviation (and life) mishaps are the indirect result of get-there-itis; most notably, accepting poor weather or an aircraft with maintenance issues.
This is kind of fun and I could go on...
Get-there-itis can adversely affect code quality too!
There is nothing more worthless than runway behind you, altitude above you, and gas you already burned.
Don't worry about what you don't have, worry about capitalizing on what you do have. And don't waste what you have.
I like the one about handling your priorities when under pressure:
“Aviate, Navigate, Communicate”
https://www.faa.gov/news/safety_briefing/2018/media/SE_Topic...
>one must keep moving to survive
Sharks?
No. Reef sharks have been observed resting on the sea floor, pumping water over their gills periodically by opening and closing their mouths.
probably anything with a heartbeat.
These stories never disappoint, no matter how many times we read them....
That’s definitely true for me. I don’t exactly know why, probably in part because they remind me of my reckless youth, and then also just the unbridled pursuit of an extreme.
A friend gave me a copy of Brian Shul's book (where this story came from) decades ago, and it is pretty much my most favourite coffee table book I've ever owned. I believe it went out of print, and I remember seeing copies on eBay for around $3000 at one stage, but I believe they were talking about doing a reprint, so there goes my retirement plan! :)
Anyone else notice that in the picture of the model at the bottom of the article, the stand says "Lockheed YF-12 Wikipedia Blackbird"? Likewise if you click through to the airmodels.net product page... bad copy and paste?
So I've heard other great stories from this book before, and I was curious how much it cost to actually get the book.
The book in it's latest incarnation is $295. What on earth?
It’s out of print so 3rd party sellers put it up for a ton of money on Amazon
Well, there's that, I see Amazon listings up near $500. But the official website for the book leads to a fresh and current commemorative printing that... rather than opening the book up to the masses again, is $300 a book.
here's one i like:
https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strang...
If anyone is interested in learning more about the history of the SR-71 and Skunk Works there is a great talk on YouTube [1].
[1]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL3Yzjk5R4M
I find these stories hard to believe. An expensive top secret spy plane that is hard to fly, requires boatloads of fuel and maintenance allowed to make a detour for a joy ride flyby?
As a (recent) former military pilot, I think your intuition is generally correct for the modern era. Our planned routes and maneuvers and flight conditions were all annotated on a formal risk assessment which had to be briefed and approved by the appropriate command authority before we completed any other steps of the pre-flight routine. And crews did not deviate from that plan. Getting briefed and approved for something very different over the radio while in-flight, especially with sketchy weather conditions, probably would not happen. With that said, I've read several books about military aviation in the Vietnam era, and I compiled a long list of things that would "never happen" today. The difference shows up in the number of fatal mishaps over the years. The US Army lost more helicopters in Vietnam than it has today in its entire fleet.
Turns out pilots and the whole chain is still full of humans who at times like “cool” stuff.
This is true. You also can't discount advocating for your product. If you want funding you have to show it off at times. Per the original argument the demonstration teams wouldn't exist. They serve no military purpose if you forget about recruiting and promotion.
if he crashed or damaged that plane, lots of people would lose their jobs.
sounds like he was at the knife's edge of the stall speed.
Johnson publicly announced the SR-71 in 1964, so the plane wasn’t top secret at the time (in the mid 1970s).
New York Times story about the announcement:
Just one of the more minor ways the military-industrial complex is able to waste stupefying amounts of money.
lmfao. Badass.
