On the way back from a mission to the middle east, they ended up flying over France, even though France had refused them clearance. They were flying low and slow (relative terms obviously), and the pilot looked to his left and saw a French Mirage just off his left wing.
The Mirage pilot called over and requested their diplomatic clearance code. The SR-71 pilot told the Mirage to hold on. The reconnaissance systems officer (RCO, the other guy in the plane) then informed the pilot that the code had been transmitted and they went back up to full speed and left the Mirage quickly behind.
The code that the RCO transmitted? The middle finger.
Sarcasm aside, wouldn't this be a severe case of violation of sovereignity? I find it hard to believe such a stupid act could have been performed without making news or retaliations.
(By stupid act I mean entering unpermitted airspace, the pilot's actions are irrelevant)
I have never served in the military, but I like to believe I live in a world in which military commanders are often stuck in a position of having to manage a load of testosterone-fueled lads out doing crazy shit that has the potential to be a "diplomatic incident" and are thus, sympathetic to the commanders in other countries that are often stuck dealing with the same type of lads.
So when a French commander calls up an American commander about some crap their lads pulled flying by in an SR-71 the other day, they're able to sort it out like adults, maybe the American commander relays that he will give his lads whatever the military equivalent of a stern talking to is and they'll both have a laugh, maybe make arrangements for a beer and it doesn't escalate into anything for the masses to waste their limited attention bandwidth on.
Now it's entirely possible I don't live in such a world, but to believe otherwise would simply leave me scared shitless in a corner.
i heard a story were a group of rookies in a jeep lost their bearings in the fog, and plowed through a barb wire barricade and got their jeep stuck in some sort of ravine on the wrong side of Germany.
the other side, instead of shooting or arresting them, they helped them get the jeep out. they laughed at them and made fun of them, but they still helped
I'm pretty sure that "international incidents" tend to be the result of, rather than the cause of, international tensions. If one or the other countries wants there to be an international incident, then there will be one. Usually something ordinary-ish that can be expanded into one will be promoted into an incident. If they're lucky, something that needs no exaggeration will happen at a convenient time. In either case, the real cause of tension is something else.
On the other hand, if neither country wants there to be incidents, than any potential incidents will be ignored and hushed up. Nobody will make any noise or volunteer any information about it. If a reporter happens to get information about it independently, it will be minimized and dismissed. Maybe the American pilot gets a slap on the wrist, the French pilot curses Americans a few times in his local bar, and everyone forgets about it soon after.
> (By stupid act I mean entering unpermitted airspace, the pilot's actions are irrelevant)
> America, f\\k yeah!
(I'm European, not French, but was pro-US during the Cold War.)
Yeah, my response was the same, until I read the context which the original quote lacks [1]. These 2 quotes are to me the most relevant from the story for the context of the original quote. Feel free to read the story in its entirety.
"The French refused to allow us overfly, so our mission profile was to refuel off the south coast of England, a Mach 3 cruise leg down the coast of Portugal and Spain, left turn through the Straits of Gibraltar, refuel in the Western Mediterranean, right turn into Lebanon and fly right down main street Beirut, exit along the southern Mediterranean with another refueling over Malta, supersonic back out the straits, and return to England."
Furthermore,
"We completed our pass over Beirut and turned toward Malta, when I got a warning low-oil-pressure light on my right engine. Even though the engine was running fine I slowed down and lowered our altitude and made a direct line for England. We decided to cross France without clearance instead of going the roundabout way."
The earlier quoted story lacks these nuances. Sure, you might still find it rude but for me it made a big difference that they weren't just invading French aerospace for no valid reason.
Its just typical that they opted to increase speed during the encounter with the Mirage while previously they decided to lower speed due to low oil pressure on the right engine. Although at that point they were much closer to home which was at the south of England. At some point, I just gotta stop being skeptic and trust these guys know what they're doing with their super expensive toy^H^H^Haircraft. Its easy to judge on others, claiming you wouldn't resort to this behaviour. But would we? Really?
> The earlier quoted story lacks these nuances. Sure, you might still find it rude but for me it made a big difference that they weren't just invading French aerospace for no valid reason.
I do think it's odd that the Soviet government knew we were sending planes through their airspace for surveillance purposes, and the US government knew that the Soviet government knew, but the US government decided that the US population shouldn't know.
When Powers was shot down, the US started with the cover story that it was a weather research aircraft. Then Khrushchev was able to embarrass the US by revealing that they had Powers, evidence that it was a surveillance plane, and demonstrate that the US had been lying to the public.
So, why did the US government lie to it's own people? Why wasn't in their best interest to talk about it publicly?
There's no such thing as telling your own people. Once you inform your own population about it, the enemy knows about it as well. The same as is true with regards secret service such as CIA and NSA. As you say, that doesn't fly here, since the Soviet government knew, and the US government knew the Soviet government knew.
Why you don't want to talk about that could be because its an elephant in a room which could cause escalation because of public discussion. That escalation could be internal as well as external.
Another reason could be that it shows that the US government knew a lot about the Soviets which due to this increased knowledge decreases fear for the Soviets. Which wasn't in the interest of the US government; it was in the interest of both the US and the Soviet government to see each other as the enemy.
A third reason could be, in addendum to #2, that the leadership saw no benefit to it, in terms of propaganda. It might seem the same as #2 but its less nefarious or ill intent.
We may never know the truth about this. Could FOIA requests shed some light?
(A) If the Soviets publicize US penetrations of their airspace, they look militarily weak.
(B) If the US publicizes their penetrations, then (A) as the Soviet public possibly finds out, any fatalities (and there were some) now become part of public debate, and additional parties in the US are now involved in the discussion as to whether or not these should happen.
(C) If either party publicizes their own or the other, then the opposing party is likely to publicize in retaliation. Given that both parties were conducting penetrations to assess air defense systems, this was the PR equivalent of MAD.
Barring a scenario where the president needed a clear "victory" to buttress public opinion, there was no win to be had in the public being informed.
Add in the fact that deep in the Cold War most of the media outlets were still self-censoring "for the country" and there was no one with incentive to disclose.
Though I don't think your (B)(A) regarding the Soviet public was that important. Rather, if the Soviet public were influential, would there have been the gulag system, which ended less than a decade before Powers was shot down?
But the US response to the Soviets shooting down Powers was to lie to the public. Surely the US could have remained silent or non-committal, rather than construct a cover-up, and walk into Khrushchev's publicity trap. According to Wikipedia, Eisenhower said to his secretary "I would like to resign."
That leads to the obvious question - how often does the US government lie to the public?
That story is from Ben Rich's book "Skunk Works". https://hipandthigh.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/blackbird/ describes it as "Lt. Colonel William Burk Jr., who shares about a particular mission he flew over Lebanon back in 82." That link also has the full account, ending "What he had given him was “the bird” with his middle finger" - that is, it was not sent by radio signals but by visual light to the Mark I eyeball of the Mirage pilot.
They were within visible distance, so he just used his hand up against the window. The plane really was right off the wing. Think Top Gun, with less inversion.
has anyone been in the airforce in the late 70s? My dad died on active duty in the airforce, and I heard second hand stories and was wondering how common they were.
in particular, he said they kept notes on everyone and turned them in (not sure to whom), in order to prevent russian espianage. For example, if you saw someone order something from a vending machine, it was up to you to write down who, what item they selected, etc. presumably these were checked for patterns.
That story is out of Brian Schul's book (he used to be an SR-71 pilot). I am lucky enough that years ago, a girl who had a crush on me bought me that book. Its out of print now, and I've seen copies on eBay for > $1000.
Next to Ben Rich's "Skunk Works", it is one of the best books on the SR-71 that I have ever read.
It's one of those "it's complicated" things. She had a boyfriend at the time etc., then she moved cities and we lost touch. Shame - she was a really good friend too, and we used to talk about planes and Formula 1 racing for hours.
For fun I check eBay every year or so. I've seen them on there anything from $50 sometimes, right up to $3600 I think was the highest I've ever seen. Average is around the $1000 usually. I think it depends on whether it is first edition or not, or signed by Brian at an airshow etc.
Hang on to your two - could be a better retirement plan than crypto currency! :D
Would you be willing to lend one out to be scanned for the Internet Archive? I have no relation other than finding books to be digitized and paying for/coordinating the scanning.
I’m willing to provide insurance and proof of my identity to ensure your property is respected.
How does one go about doing this? I have access to some obscure technical books that really should be scanned and archived, but don't know anything about the field...
I have temporarily added contact info to my HN profile. Please get in touch if you would like me to help facilitate the shipping, scanning, and return of your book donation.
That was great, you can tell he really loves telling that story. Here's an excerpt from an interview with him [1] where he discusses telling it:
> When I'm doing a talk, if I don't tell that speed check story, they run me out of town. I tried that one year, I thought, I've been speaking at this air museum for 10 years now, I'm gonna change it up this year. People lost their minds. I realized hey, Elvis has to sing Love Me Tender at the end of every show, I gotta tell that story no matter how many times I tell it.
> And there's always people who've never heard it. I told it at an FBI conference the other day, out of 800 people I swear 700 had never heard it, and they were falling out of their chairs.
It's a great speech about overcoming his war injuries and getting to fly on of the most special planes in history, along with actually documenting most of it himself.
Not badass-plane exactly, but Bill Weaver's story is another cracker. His SR-71 disintegrated around him (no ejection) at Mach 3.18 and 78,000 feet. He was back in the cockpit two weeks later.
For anyone who's interested in this stuff, I highly recommend the book "Skunk Works" – about Lockheed's famous operation that designed the SR-71, U-2, F-117 (stealth fighter), etc.
Yes. it's also interesting that it's from the point of view of a guy who worked on something like 17 planes over the course of their career. I think that's very rare now.
It's possible with job hopping, or program hopping within the same company. You just won't be working on that aircraft start to finish. I worked on 7 aircraft from 2005-2015.
One of the most amazing fact I'd learned was that invisibility to radars was not mostly due to the absorbing material but rather a specific geometry of the plane! The materials certainly enhanced it but it was still like 25% or so contribution. Even more amazing fact was that this possibility was first discussed in a Russian research paper but that was never followed through because it was too complex to compute such shape and no one believed it would actually work. The folks at Stunkworks got hold of the paper, hired a mathematician and used computers to do the computation to actually find the shape that would have invisibility property to radars. No one in army at the time believed that some special shape can just become invisible to radar. They did the demo to army to prove it and landed their contract. Considering all these was in 1960s, its just amazing.
>because it was too complex to compute such shape and no one believed it would actually work
I don't want to put down your enthusiasm, but this is not very exact info. Stealth design never makes the plane invisible, it just increases the detection distance or the power requirement of the radar.
You get relatively long way by simply avoiding corner reflectors. There are rumors that Avro Vulcan used to disappear from friendly radars accidentally just because of that.
One of the features that increases stealth is the radar. Because radars tend to show on radar. SR-71 had "side looking radar" which might have been optimized not to show the array towards any hostile ground stations.
I enjoy science-fiction, but I'm not an aircraft aficionado. What makes the SR-71 so awesome to me is that it looks like about the coolest spacecraft I could have imagined when I was 10 years old. And it still looks that way to me.
" The U-2 can still fly higher than the Global Hawk, carry a greater payload, and its sensors have more of a slant range. The Global Hawk also lacks de-icing equipment and countermeasures against Russian SAMs. We may be entering the age of drones, but old-fashioned piloted planes can still do a thing or two."
Why not just copy the U2 and make an improved, unmanned version?
If you are interested in how the Pentagon, Air Force and Navy decides to fund and build aircraft, I highly recommend reading this book [1]. It's about the father of the A-10, F15 (sort of), F-16 and FA-18. Fascinating read about how the armed forces will completely ignore data on flight characteristics due to politics. (it's about the life of John Boyd, not just how aircraft a chosen but its covered quite a bit in the book)
Also, note the Vanguard rocket. We lost the space race due to politics. We had the people who knew how to build it--who later built the Saturn V--and after they did, were promptly kicked out.
The Soviets had childish, despicable politics of their own going on, with important rocket engineers like Korolev being accused by his colleague Glushko of treason, sending Korolev to the gulag for Glushko's professional advantage.[1]
Korolev went on to help design to Tupolev tu-2, a formidable bomber in WWII, from prison. Later he was Chief Designer of the Soviet's rocket program before dying of cancer (had he not, his plan to go to the Moon may have been realized).
Maybe the reason we see no signs of life in the universe is that all life evolves to conquer itself.
> The Soviets had childish, despicable politics of their own going on, with important rocket engineers like Korolev being accused by his colleague Glushko of treason, sending Korolev to the gulag for Glushko's professional advantage.[1]
It went both ways, Glushko consisered Korolev to be irresponsibly cavalier and autocratic with anything outside of [Korolev's] specialities, which included Glushko's (liquid-fueld rocket engines).
> had he not, his plan to go to the Moon may have been realized
Probably not: Glushko's OKB-456 controlled the design of high-power liquid-fueld engines (which would ultimately lead to the RD-170 and its various derivatives), Korolev refused Glushko's engine design (RD-270), Glushko thus refused working with Korolev and on LOX/Kerosene engines[0].
It was Korolev who decided to go with a metric fuckton of NK-15 instead of listening to Glushko.
[0] he would ultimately design the LOX/Kerosene RD-170, but 20 years after the F1, one of the reasons for refusing to do so for the N1 was the lacking techno-industrial environment and inferior coke-prone fuels available to him in the 60s)
We could debate the merits of either's designs, but Korolev was the first to (1) develop an ICBM (2) put a satellite in orbkt, and (3) impact and orbit a payload on the moon
The way I read it, there was some question that orbiting spacecraft would violate airspace, and with itchy fingers on the launch button, Eisenhower was unwilling to provoke the Soviet Union. He delayed the space program until the Soviets launched Sputnik, which settled the issue. If that's true, it was a good, pragmatic decision.
I have heard that as well,
but to the best of my knowledge I don't believe it is accurate. Here is Wikipedia, from the Space Race page.
>The Space Race began on August 2, 1955, when the Soviet Union responded to the US announcement four days earlier of intent to launch artificial satellites for the International Geophysical Year, by declaring they would also launch a satellite "in the near future". The Soviet Union beat the US to this, with the October 4, 1957 orbiting of Sputnik 1, and later beat the US to the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, on April 12, 1961
>there was some question that orbiting spacecraft would violate airspace
Almost. He didn't want to avoid launching satellites, he wanted to avoid launching _military_ satellites, which is why they had to use Vanguard (which was a civilian rocket). Once Sputnik launched on an R-7, there was no more need.
Ill watch this later. They talk about testing the Bradley in the book and how they pretty much fudged all the tests to get it into service even though people knew it would be a tomb for soldiers if they ever went to war in it.
The priority placed on tight OODA loops jibes well with the Lean Startup doctrine, I think. Of course, since there's always an aggressive competitor for resources in Boyd's field, he emphasizes messing up their OODA loop as well.
- The U2 uses old parts that aren't wildly/cheaply available anymore.
- The Global Hawk doesn't have a person in it. So they can send them into more dangerous situations without worrying. Which means they likely want a cheaper robot version. (Though, before RnD costs which skyrocketed, the price appeared to be only about 10mil cheaper.)
- New sensor modules have a different footprint that the shell can be designed around than a plane designed in the 70's. Also, more computer aided design into the entire thing.
- More fuel economy means more air time. (Additionally no fatigued pilot means more air time.) I know you said "remove the pilot" but the point is the entire thing can be designed for more air time, and more efficient fuel use.
Of course, often the most obvious answer is simply: Money. Tax payer dollars are "Free", and there's political power to be had in rewarding "your" defense contractor the ability to make brand new, amazing, super, bells-and-whistle aircraft. (::cough::F-35::cough::) And there's no ego boost for simply upgrading existing planes. (::cough::A-10::cough::)
Since every new program seems to be full of cost overruns I really wonder if they intentionally do that. They low-ball it, pocket the surplus "costs" as long as they can until congress gets pissed and then magically "fix" the product with a "modest" cash-influx bill from congress to finally finish it off. Because it's politically dangerous to be a congressperson that voted for this failed product that then has to be repealed. So they could, in essence, "fail" at making their product up until the point where it's just under "repeal time" and pocket all that cash.
[edit]
Here's a quote on Wikipedia that lines up partially with my comment about costs to fly:
"Secretary stated: "The Global Hawk is essential to national security; there are no alternatives to Global Hawk which provide acceptable capability at less cost; Global Hawk costs $220M less per year than the U-2 to operate on a comparable mission; the U-2 cannot simultaneously carry the same sensors as the Global Hawk; and if funding must be reduced, Global Hawk has a higher priority over other programs."[21]"
I'm struggling to find it now, but there's a saying attributed to some well known military figure (paraphrasing slightly):
There are two stages to any defence procurement project - too soon to tell, and too late to stop.
EDIT:
Found it. A Ernest Fitzgerald, and Fitzgerald's First Law: "There are only two phases of a program. The first is 'It's too early to tell.' The second: 'It's too late to stop.'
That's great! My intuition was telling me that was a big loop hole but it's great to hear a real insider / authority speak it so eloquently.
Here's an article I just found about him... from 1987.
Where it says he's been the most hated man in the Air Force for two decades. So, this guy was/has basically been telling us how things are since the late 60's. And we still haven't learned a thing / integrated this into our public common sense / knowledge. (Like how >90% of people know not to mess with the inside of electronics without experience, or how most people think the government/banks/big-oil/etc is corrupt. That's community knowledge.)
this is a bit tangential, but my grandfather flew U-2's in the late 50s over china. a few months ago my aunt sent me a photocopy of a small essay he wrote about some of his experiences during his time flying, and particularly technical details about flying them. i transcribed it and put it on my blog here:
Going to airshows with engineers who work in aerospace/defense industry is great. They point out all the cool stuff.
"just imagine the objections people would have raised to this feature, more parts, it looks funny"
"we wanted to throw a clambshell on it for shits and giggles but the powers that be decided that being able to back up a 2% grade was enough"
"both sets of wheels steer so it's one of the nicest planes to land in a near-hurricane cross wind because it can just crab sideways though the sky and keep the wheels lines up perfectly with the runway"
The U-2 is so difficult to fly that it requires external sensors to land. AKA another pilot racing down the runway in a chase car radioing instructions to the pilot in the plane.
It has only two landing wheels--one in the front and one in the back (called bicycle landing gear). The chase car tells the pilot what to do to keep the plane balanced on two wheels as it goes down the runway. At the end, as it slows down, it reallly wants to tip over. Before it can, ground crews run up and put wingtip stanchions with wheels on them under the wingtips to complete the landing gear so it can taxi. Really amazing
I was under the impression that computers can fly planes which are impossible for humans to fly (e.g. the F-117, or any fighter with forward-swept wings). Since the U-2 is much closer to a "conventional" aircraft, and can be stick-flown by a human, wouldn't it be a walk in the park for a compute to fly it?
I'm not saying a computer can't fly the U2, but I do think it'd be more complex than a conventional aircraft. It has some pretty unique flight characteristics. From Wikipedia:
"...To maintain their operational ceiling of 70,000 feet (21,000 m), the early U-2A and U-2C models had to fly very near their never-exceed speed (VNE). The margin between that maximum speed and the stall speed at that altitude was only 10 knots (12 mph; 19 km/h). This narrow window is called the "coffin corner", because breaching either limit would likely cause airflow separation at the wings or tail. For most of the time on a typical mission the U-2 was flying less than five knots above stall speed. A stall would cause a loss of altitude, possibly leading to detection and overstress of the airframe."
Because it would be designed by engineers using computers and would eventually become so over-engineered that it would be a money sink and never fly in any real missions.
The thing that really amazes me is that these badass planes were designed with slide rules, drafting tables, and wind tunnels. No fluid-flow simulations; these things predate the CDC6600. The engineering was as badass as the product.
If you like the SR-71, and are interested in other Skunk Works projects like the U-2 and F-117, the book Skunk Works is a great read (and also a great audio book).
Also if you're in the DC area, it's really worth going to the National Air & Space Museum, as well as their 'oversize' Udvar Hazy centre. The out of town place is special and hardly gets any tourists, even though they have an SR-71 and the Shuttle, Discovery. Other things include an X-15, the Enola Gay (feels weird if you've visited Hiroshima too), an exhibit on the Keyhole satellite program, a U2 and tons more. I don't think they have an F117, sadly.
I met a gentleman around 20-25 years ago that told me the story of the "$500 hammer". Years ago the press went crazy that the government was overpaying for tools for military projects. This guy gave me "the rest of the story". The cost for tooling is what it should be for a limited run of "special metal" tools. I'm guessing the tool manufacturer had to shutdown their normal operations to supply Skunkworks with all new tools. It would have cost a fortune. Not to mention the secrecy surrounding why some company wanted titanium tools. I don't recall if he mentioned the tools were make of titanium, but he did mention that the chrome bake on normal tools had caused problems on the SR-71 project. I'm glad to see that this little tidbit of information was covered in the article.
The backstory is related in Skunk Works by Ben Rich [1]; cadmium-plated tools caused embrittlement in titanium skin panels; it took them a while to track down the cause but eventually they purged the Burbank factory of everything that was cadmium plated to solve the production problem.
[1] Ben Rich and Leo Janos. Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed. Boston: Back Bay Books, 1996. ISBN 0-316-74300-3.
You can talk about the unobtainium skin, the Pratt-Whitney engines, the radar-bouncing fuselage angles but what really made it such a bad ass plane was Kelly Johnson and his team.
Consider that not much more than a decade before the SR-71 project started the state of the art in plane design was canvas over a wooden frame with a V12 engine that went at 300mph.
How much technology did they have to invent from first principles to build a plane which flew at Mach 3 at the edge of space? Using slide rules and chalk boards?
I had a coworker once who claimed that he got a ride on one before it was declassified. Apparently he was waiting at an air station to go home on leave and was constantly being bumped from flights by higher ranks. A "special" fight came in that he could get on, though, after signing some paperwork to keep quiet about it.
That sounds extremely unlikely. My understanding is that both crew members were essential, so you couldn't just put a warm body in the back seat and let the pilot do all the work. The back seat had all the navigation equipment, for one.
The first I remember reading about the "Blackbird" was in the _The Uncanny X-Men_, during the Claremont & Byrne run in the early 80's. Their jet was modeled on the SR-71, although I don't recall if they explicitly mentioned that model number.
> the supersonic SR-1 Blackbird spy plane is the stuff aviation legend.
Does nobody proofread these articles anymore? A missing word in the first sentence. This sort of sloppy publishing really doesn't leave a good first impression with the reader.
Oh good, I'm not the only one who gets really bothered by this! I hate seeing these kinds of errors. It happens to everyone, I understand that. But when you're an internationally read journal, you should really be holding yourself to a higher standard than, say, the twice-a-week village newspaper or your aunt's emails.
i can remember watching these take off/land at Kadena air base in Okinawa while i was stationed in Camp Hansen (USMC).
We assume they were flying recon missions over North Korea. They would take off then quickly bank almost 180 degrees
we referred to them as "Habu" because that's how the locals called them, which is the name of the large black (and extremely poisonous) snake indigenous to the island.
i recall reading that the SR-71 was originally designed as a strategic interceptor, rather than a long-range recon bird.
Guys, I thought NASA is not supposed to disclose it's military affiliations publicly?
"As reported in PM, NASA is currently the revisiting the supersonic spy plane concept. It recently awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin Skunk to test the feasibility of the SR-2, a supersonic drone that would fly almost twice the speed of the Blackbird. The idea is that speed would play the role that stealth once did in beating enemy air defense network. "
What the OP forgets to mention is that the 71 was not intended initially as a surveillance aircraft. It was meant as an interceptor. The phoenix missile system, of f14 fame, was initially meant for an SR71/Oxcart-type airframe. This thing was mean to shoot down valkyrie-class bombers. That image of mach3/4 aircraft chasing each other down never really happened.
Sort of. The A-12 came first. That was more or less a single-seat SR-71, built for the CIA as a spy plane. The Air Force wanted a high-speed interceptor, Lockheed proposed a variant of the A-12, and the YF-12 was born, but never got beyond three prototypes because it ended up being unnecessary. The SR-71 was the Air Force spy plane version of the A-12, enlarged to carry more fuel and two crew.
The interceptor variant is definitely interesting, but it's a side branch of the spy plane lineage.
Cool post, I didn't know the part where the plane was retired shortly after the Soviets managed to put together an aircraft and missile combo, along with well-organized operations, that could plausibly shoot down the SR-71.
I think I learned about this plane through the abridged version of Hellsing Ultimate... and then sucking up every detail about it I could... Quite an amazing piece of engineering indeed.
"Blackbird" was the moniker for the SR-71. I've never heard of the SR-77. Either you have information on a super secret skunk works project, or else I suspect you might be taking the mickey out of the editors of the article for their SR-1 typo?
I've read (unsure if factual, can't find a source right now) that the plane's original designation was to be RS-71 (because reconnaissance).
At some point, in a speech or introduction, some high ranking official misread that as SR-71, and after that all documentation was updated to show this new designation.
I didn't make it past the first lovely sentence. "With a sleek needle nose and a swept double-delta wing with two prominent nacelles, the supersonic SR-1 Blackbird spy plane is the stuff aviation legend."
SR-1? "Stuff aviation legend"? I'd expect a little better editing from Popular Mechanics.
I must admit that I picked up on the "SR-1" typo. If this was my local daily rag article, I could forgive, but for a technical publication that is supposed to give us accurate, meaningful data, that immediately sows some distrust that the rest of the information in the article may be suspect. Grammatical errors I can forgive to a certain extent, but getting the designation of the aircraft wrong that is the feature of the article? That is sloppy editing.
Then there are outright broken sentences like this:
>The 1980s saw an increase in threats capable to countering the SR-71, including improved enemy air defenses and the introduction of the MiG-31, which was armed with the R-33 air-to-air missile could intercept the Blackbird.
This just breaks my mental parsing, since there are so many ways to fix this:
1. ..MiG, which, being armed with the R-33 missile, could intercept the Blackbird;
2. ..MiG, which was armed with the R-33 missile, and could intercept the Blackbird;
3. ..MiG, which was armed with the R-33 air-to-air missile, and therefore could intercept the Blackbird.
That's closer to an oxymoron than a tautology. But I guess a wing with a back swept leading edge and a forward swept trailing edge (which the SR-71 has) could have a triangular shape and a 0° sweep as typically measured (the SR-71 doesn't, of course), making it an “unswept delta”.
I didn't notice those typos the first time I read the article. Maybe it's really easy to misread letter-number combinations like that if you're already expecting it to be a certain number.
Please don't posture over the community while being part of it. There are tons of substantive comments in this thread alone. Your superiority to others is, at a minimum, off topic.
