Also an excellent aircraft display including the SR-71 is at the Castle Air Muesum in Atwater, CA near Merced, CA. https://www.castleairmuseum.org/elgatoloco - 8-5-2018 at 01:11 PM
Interesting. Thanks.
We have a family friend who helped build the F-117. For 10 years he couldn't even tell his wife what he was really doing. He would tell you he worked
on helicopters. When the plane went public it was fascinating to hear him tell stories about it. SFandH - 8-5-2018 at 01:23 PM
Kelly Johnson, the lead designer/engineer at the Lockheed skunkworks was an absolute genius. Lots of SR-71 videos on Youtube. Coolest, fastest
airplane ever.AKgringo - 8-5-2018 at 02:42 PM
Some of them flew out of Beal air force base in northern California. They were part of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) along with U2s and other long
range observation aircraft.
I grew up in Grass Valley, and saw them frequently as they were either gaining altitude (very loud!) or prepareing to land. Sonic booms were also
common around there in the late 50s, and early 60s. We never knew what was making them!
I am pretty sure they still fly U2s from that base, I saw one fairly recently. LancairDriver - 8-5-2018 at 03:56 PM
Here’s an interesting account of an interesting mission flown by the SR71
Had a good friend, helped us on our race cars and invested in apartments with me.
He worked at Lawrence RadLab for 20 years without telling us what he did.
When he retired he simply said, "I designed the detonators for the "big one"!!
And yes, we have a gorgeous Blackbird just a few miles south of here at Castle.LancairDriver - 8-5-2018 at 04:18 PM
And just think of designing an aircraft like the SR-71 without any computers!
They actually made full sized blueprints and laid them out on a hanger floor. They would cut out a section they wanted machined and deliver the print
and an unmachined piece of titanium to one of many San Fernando Valley Lockheed vendors by currier with instructions to finish it and then would
return and pick up the finished component for assembly into the airplane. No one knew exactly what they were making or what it went into. The CIA
commissioned the first versions of the SR71. The downing of the U2 by the Soviet Union kicked off the development of the SR71. Today’s computer
technology allows transfer of drawings over the net in seconds to the vendors. (and unfortunately interested hackers)
[Edited on 8-5-2018 by LancairDriver]basautter - 8-5-2018 at 05:43 PM
I used to watch them take off from Kadena Air Base on Okinowa back in the 80s. Never got tired of that!
