The mighty SR-71
Filed Under (etcetera) by Don C on 11-04-2008
JVON has a great story by a SR-71 pilot. An excerpt:
One day, high above Arizona, we were monitoring the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes below us. First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers to check his ground speed. ‘Ninety knots,’ ATC replied. A twin Bonanza soon made the same request. ‘One-twenty on the ground,’ was the reply. To our surprise, a navy F-18 came over the radio with a ground speed check. I knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, he had a ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the bug-smashers in the valley know what real speed was ‘Dusty 52, we show you at 525 on the ground,’ ATC responded. The situation was too ripe. I heard the click of Walter’s mike button in the rear seat. In his most innocent voice, Walter startled the controller by asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace. In a cool, professional voice, the controller replied, ‘Aspen 20, I show you at 1,742 knots on the ground.’ We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast.
That was a cool read Don.
As a kid, my favorite plane was the P-38 Lightning. I had no idea the Blackbird was from the same brain.
My brother and I are hooking up in DC next month and gonna hit the Air and Space Museum before driving him down here. We had to make a choice between the two buildings and I know what I want to see now.
I’ll send you a pic.
Dave
Pretty impressive. I think I might have to call BS, though. I would have to work up a bunch of numbers, but at 1750K, how long would he be in radio range of all those guys? At 81 thousand feet, do you hear all transmissions in line of sight? Which would be pretty far, though calculable.
I don’t know. I guess I’m gonna have to get me one of those planes and find out, ’cause I’m not into doing all that math, any more.
Maybe the story was embellished a little bit, but when your story starts out, “I was flying an SR-71 at 81,000 feet…” a little bit of embellishment is acceptable I guess.
Dave, I went to DC when I was in High School on the Close-Up deal. We had a great time, which means of course I got kicked out of school over the thing. Something I learned about those museums is that you can spend a week in any one of them and still not take in everything it has to offer. Most impressive. If DC is ever nuked, the biggest loss will be those museums.