- 2 days ago
For educational purposes
Breaking records for speed and sustained altitude, the SR-71 spy plane was one of the United States Air Force's best-kept secrets of the 1960s.
Its technology and achievements astounded even the experts of the day.
Breaking records for speed and sustained altitude, the SR-71 spy plane was one of the United States Air Force's best-kept secrets of the 1960s.
Its technology and achievements astounded even the experts of the day.
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LearningTranscript
00:05Advances in aviation history give way to legendary aircraft that become the most powerful and
00:12innovative weapons of our time.
00:16Each airframe is unique with limitless capabilities, but one thing remains the same.
00:25Underneath the surface, they are all simply great planes.
00:40On May 1, 1965, an American plane designated the YF-12A sets four world records, one for
00:47sustained altitude and three for speed, including a mark of 2,070 miles per hour.
00:57While Washington hails the achievement, the event does nothing to brighten Moscow's May Day
01:02festivities.
01:03I'm Paul Max Moga, and this is the Virginia Aviation Museum in Richmond, Virginia.
01:08Join me as we hear the declassified story of the SR-71 Blackbird.
01:21Lockheed Blackbirds, built with radical new methods and materials, astound even the experts.
01:27Designed under a top-secret program, they seem to come out of nowhere.
01:32There is no one better to help us tell this story than Buzz Carpenter and Blair Bozak.
01:39Buzz and Blair, I appreciate you guys being out here today to talk to us about the beautiful
01:43Blackbird.
01:45We're glad to be here.
01:46Now, you guys have quite a bit of history with this plane.
01:48Just tell me real quick what your background is with the SR-71.
01:52I came out of the RF-4 in 1975 and flew the Blackbird for six years and ended up as
01:58an instructor
01:59pilot before I left.
02:01I left the F-4 in 1985 and then flew as a backseater, an RSO in the SR-71 from
02:0785 to 90, program
02:08termination, and was one of six guys chosen in 1995 to come back and fly it again when
02:14Congress reestablished the program.
02:16So, if anybody knows something about this plane, it's probably you guys.
02:20We hope so.
02:21Great.
02:21You look at the plane itself, and it is probably the most unique shape of an
02:27airplane that we've ever seen out of an aircraft.
02:31So, tell me a little bit about what you know about just the basic design shape.
02:35The basic design shape, it was a challenge that went to Kelly Johnson.
02:39President Eisenhower was appraised that the U-2 was at risk, was going to be shot down
02:43at some time in 1957.
02:45There was a competition, and it came back and said, you need an airplane that can fly not
02:51at 450 miles an hour, but at 2,100 miles an hour, Mach 3 plus.
02:56Not at 70,000 feet, but above 80,000 feet.
02:59And also, you need to create America's first stealthy airplane.
03:05From the beginning, the program was covert, hiding behind the code name Oxcart, which conjures
03:11up the opposite image of lightning-fast, high-tech aircraft.
03:17For almost two decades, the military manages to ensure that not every detail is classified,
03:23but not every fact is necessarily accurate.
03:31An SR-71 stretches 107 feet long, stands more than 18 feet high, and has a 55-foot wingspan.
03:45Instead of armament, it carries cameras and other sensors.
03:51Empty, it weighs over 67,000 pounds, with a maximum takeoff weight of over 172,000 pounds.
03:59And it can carry its 3,500 pounds of reconnaissance equipment for 3,250 miles without refueling.
04:08Guys, this is one wicked-looking engine.
04:11Tell me what you know.
04:12This is really the heart of the system, because the genius of Kelly Johnson,
04:17Ben Rich, who was his deputy, and Pratt & Whitney, all airplanes prior to this,
04:22they kept the shock external, because no engine, turbo engine we have today can...
04:27Shockwave.
04:28The shockwave cannot absorb.
04:29You have to have subsonic air that's fed in.
04:32So this is a spike, much like you have ramps on F4s or on F15s.
04:37This is a subsonic position.
04:39When you hit 1.6 Mach, you have to slow that supersonic air so the engine can absorb it.
04:45So this starts traveling aft.
04:47It goes aft is 26 inches.
04:49It doubles the hole size, and the back of it acts like a compressor.
04:53So as the back constricts to 50% of its original size, and this opens up to 110%,
05:00so now you're getting mechanical compression.
05:03So at altitude, we actually had more pressure against the face of our compressor blades
05:08than we had here on the surface of the Earth at sea level.
05:12The shock was carried inside.
05:16This airplane is the only airplane in the world that I'm aware of, Max,
05:20that the faster we went, the less fuel we burned, because...
05:24That is counterintuitive to a fighter pilot.
05:25It becomes more like a ramjet.
05:2882% of your thrust at 3.2 Mach is ram thrust.
05:32So the engines really aren't producing 15% to 17%.
05:36That's the most effective use of fuel that you can have.
05:39So let me get this right.
05:40You would speed up to make gas.
05:44Correct.
05:44When Blair would say that we're short on fuel, if the temperature allowed us,
05:48you would accelerate and would raise your altitude, but also would lower your fuel consumption.
05:53God, that's such a unique design.
05:55But, I mean, you had to have it on this plane to allow it to do what it did.
06:00To get to 3,000 miles that we guaranteed between refuelings, think of it this way.
06:05Every two hours, you either came down to refuel with a set of tankers,
06:09or you were going to land somewhere.
06:10And in that time period, you went over 3,000 miles.
06:16According to government figures, 32 SR-71s are built, but many suspect there were more.
06:26Blackbirds spring from the Cold War when Soviet nuclear capability demands better intelligence gathering.
06:32The more facts, the less speculation, and the less paranoia.
06:39When President Eisenhower suggests an open skies policy to permit reconnaissance flights, the Soviets decline.
06:47But the President isn't inquiring, he's declaring his intent.
06:55The nuclear stakes demand that the U.S. fly reconnaissance, no matter how the Soviets feel.
07:03The U.S. needs a new plane for the job.
07:07In the early 1950s, the United States had a real requirement to overfly Russia to find out the status of
07:15their development of long-range missiles.
07:18Lockheed made an unsolicited proposal to the Undersecretary for Research and Development for the Air Force on a very specialized
07:26airplane.
07:27The program was turned over to the CIA, who then followed through with the development of the Mach 3 Blackbird.
07:36With the clock ticking, huge technological challenges to overcome, and the Cold War growing more bitter,
07:43Lockheed has its work cut out for itself.
07:48When President Eisenhower orders a surveillance aircraft to fly over the Soviet Union, he's asking Lockheed's design team, led by
07:56Kelly Johnson, for a lot.
08:02To fly over the USSR, the plane has to cruise beyond the scope of interceptors and anti-aircraft weapons.
08:13And with no fuel stops en route, it has to have a very long range.
08:22Lockheed's first crack at the design challenge produces the famous U-2.
08:51The first prototype U-2 arrives at the test site on the 29th of July, 19th.
08:561855.
09:03The designation U-2 gives nothing away about the top secret project.
09:10The U stands for utility.
09:17As the U-2 starts performing roles beyond its primary espionage duties, utility becomes
09:23an accurate description.
09:36Maneuvering a powered glider in extremely thin air at great altitude places new demands on
09:41the pilot.
09:44At altitude, the stall speed is dangerously close to the plane's entry into transonic flight,
09:49the point at which supersonic airflow over the wings begins.
09:54In the U-2, at 70,000 feet, these two points are about 12 knots apart.
10:02Below 400 knots of ground speed, you would fall out of the sky looking for denser air.
10:08Above 412 knots of ground speed, your wings might come off.
10:14Over the years, with increased load and more powerful engines, the gap actually narrows
10:19to less than 5 miles per hour.
10:22Due to the stress of the missions and the fragile nature of the planes, U-2s aren't expected to
10:27have long lifespans, particularly when the Soviets start trying to knock it out of the
10:32air.
10:40The top secret design team, led by Kelly Johnson, was nicknamed Skunk Works after the mysterious
10:47place deep in the forest sighted in a Little Abner comic strip.
10:53When the Soviets design effective weapons to intercept the U-2 reconnaissance platform, the
10:58time comes to replace them with something faster.
11:11Kelly Johnson's team dreams of a new concept that can deny interception and take it to the
11:17next level technologically.
11:23In 1958, even the most advanced fighter designs can't beat Mach 2.
11:31So everything about this airframe will have to be revolutionary.
11:43It takes Johnson and his team 11 unsuccessful designs to get the combination of features right.
12:00On August 29, 1959, their 12th submission, the A-12, wins limited approval.
12:23The new airframe has four large equipment bays to handle specialized reconnaissance and surveillance
12:29gear.
12:31Now, Blair, I assume that the nose of the aircraft wasn't a luggage compartment like
12:36it is with some of the other ones.
12:38So did it have a radar in it or something else?
12:41The primary sensor was always in the nose, and this nose is actually held down by just four
12:45bolts.
12:46The primary sensor was the radar most of the time, and if we did not operate a radar, then
12:51there was what was called an optical bar camera sitting here with lenses on both sides that
12:57would give you a continuously rotating camera lens, giving you horizon to horizon coverage.
13:03It was that camera system that gave us the 100,000 square mile per hour synoptic coverage
13:09capability.
13:09Unbelievable.
13:10With the radar, the radar, at least when I retired a couple of years ago, or 10 years
13:15ago now, at the unclassified level, we had one-foot radar resolution with the ASARS-1 radar.
13:21So it was a ground-mapping radar.
13:22That's exactly right.
13:23No air-to-air capability whatsoever.
13:25Correct.
13:25And so even the air-refueling rendezvous were done visually, even at night.
13:29I bet you that was sporty.
13:30We had some electronic aids, but you did not have a radar.
13:33Nobody ever tunes up a tanker rejoin at night, do they?
13:35No.
13:36No.
13:36In addition, besides the primary sensor of either the nose radar and the optical and
13:42or the, sorry, or the optical bar camera, there were the potential for two technical objective
13:48cameras, one on either side of the fuselage in the chine in one of the equipment bays.
13:53We'll show you that later on.
13:55And then we also carried an ELINT package on the airplane.
13:59So on any one mission, you could potentially have ELINT, photo imagery, and radar imagery.
14:06Mission equipment also includes side-looking radar, a terrain objective camera, two operational
14:14objective cameras, two technical objective cameras, two technical objective cameras, and infrared
14:21mapping mission recorders, and an EMR system.
14:27To carry it all, Johnson designed a blended body and delta wing, incorporating two huge engines.
14:36The flat profile of the forward fuselage reduces the Blackbird's radar visibility, while creating
14:41extra lift to carry fuel and the payload.
14:45Now, Blair, this has got a pretty unique shape to it.
14:49It's really flat, I mean, almost like a platypus or something like that.
14:52What's the genesis behind the actual shape of the plane?
14:57The chine, which is this area from the nose all the way back through the delta wing, is
15:02essentially a large canard.
15:04And it's giving the airplane that much more lifting surface, so that we've got a minimum
15:09drag situation that also has a minimum trim drag on the elevons at supersonic speed.
15:14So it's like a giant flying wing with a couple of huge engines on it.
15:18Yeah, it's like a speed boat.
15:19In fact, we fly with a deck angle where, subsonically, if you're in the pattern, a T-38 flying
15:25next to you, it's going to be nose down, hunker down.
15:27We're sitting like this.
15:28And it's kind of funny to watch the two airplanes driving by.
15:30And the SR is always sitting like this, but it just happens to be rather than driving a
15:35wake off the nose of the boat, it's got a shockwave going from 80,000 feet down to the
15:40ground.
15:42The engines, positioned midway along the wing, are housed in nacelles that have unique
15:47intake systems to control airflow, critical in generating the plane's amazing power.
15:56You look at the boat-like shape that you see down here, Max, that it looks like the engines
16:01are drooping, but actually, at cruise, the nose is always two degrees up, so the engines
16:05are level.
16:06And that was part of the design.
16:07As you burned off fuel, you continued to climb, and it gave us the efficiency for the
16:12intercontinental range.
16:13For speed, the Blackbird has very thin wings that can be used for fuel storage, but the plane
16:19carries most of its fuel in the fuselage.
16:31On January 30, 1960, the CIA orders 12 models.
16:41The original concept yields four models, the reconnaissance A-12 version, the long-range YF-12 interceptor
16:51for the Aerospace Defense Command, the refined reconnaissance version SR-71, and the still highly classified
17:04D-21 espionage drone.
17:19Literally everything on the aircraft has had to be invented from scratch, including the paint.
17:24Yet the first plane flies two and a half years later.
17:40Lockheed has some experience with titanium fabrication, but nothing like what they need for this job.
17:46The plane has to withstand very high temperatures for long periods.
17:50Parts of the skin will reach between 800 and 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit at Mach 3.
17:57Despite the expense of titanium alloy and the research and development costs of inventing it,
18:02it makes up around 93% of the aircraft.
18:06What Kelly Johnson and the team had to design to figure out how you work in an environment,
18:11that's why 93% of this airplane is titanium.
18:14And how about the color? I mean, it's obviously hence the name Blackbird.
18:17But was there a purpose behind the color besides just wanting to make a plane black?
18:22The basic airframe as initially designed in the A-12 sister aircraft was bare titanium.
18:27And by painting it this black paint, they were able to reduce the overall temperature of the airframe
18:33about 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
18:43As Lockheed learns, metals designed to operate under extreme conditions require extreme conditions to fabricate.
18:51The wall is a big.
18:51The green light is a huge construction structure of the interior.
18:57Whatever you have to use, the interior of the airframe is a big role of the design of the interior.
19:16The interior of the interior of the interior of the interior is a small building that's been constructed.
19:19operating at 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit.
19:34Hot forging the metal in specialized equipment
19:36is only the first step.
19:39Then the forgings are machined to extremely fine tolerances.
19:50Lockheed develops tape-controlled robot cutters
19:52to handle the metal and a new cutting fluid
19:55that doesn't corrode the titanium alloy.
20:03Each step of the plane's development
20:05requires either a new or a specially adapted process.
20:19Early in the project, Kelly Johnson jokingly offers $50
20:23to any staff member who can come up
20:25with an easy problem to solve.
20:34Each Blackbird comes together as a series of sub-assemblies.
20:40The fuselage and wing components are each produced
20:42in two sections to save man hours and optimize assembly space.
20:49It's not just the plane's skin that has to withstand temperatures
20:53up to 900 degrees.
20:54Somehow, the engineers also have to protect the plane's
20:57intricate web of wiring.
21:05And then comes the testing, simulating the aerodynamic
21:09loads the aircraft will face in flight.
21:12But in the late 50s, there is still a huge gap
21:15between theory and practice.
21:19When all is said and done, will the Blackbird fly?
21:29In 1979, the U-2 was rechristened the TR-1.
21:33TR-1s still fly electronic and communications intelligence
21:37missions.
21:38To fabricate the supersonic Blackbird,
21:41Lockheed has literally reinvented the wheel.
21:44The individual components are tested to the braking point.
21:48Violent landings and lateral stresses torture the landing gear,
21:52the tires, and the brakes.
21:57On the 30th of September, 1964, the press gets its first look
22:02at the YF-12 Blackbird.
22:05Then Air Force Chief of Staff General Curtis LeMay successfully lobbies
22:09President Johnson for a Strategic Reconnaissance, or SR, designation for the
22:14aircraft.
22:16Unfortunately, materials handed out to the press hadn't been changed from the
22:20proposed RS-71 designation, giving rise to the myth that the name of the aircraft was
22:25the result of a presidential gap.
22:29During the presentation, journalists study the plane up close, meet its makers, and watch
22:34a flight demonstration.
22:37The Blackbird is sold to the press as the latest long-range interceptor.
22:43But this claim is not just a cover story for its intelligence-gathering role.
22:51The only problem is that an interceptor catches the enemy and shoots him down.
22:56But when the fighter flies faster than a bullet, guns aren't much use.
23:14Rockets capable of launch at Mach 3 don't exist in 1960.
23:19So once again, the Blackbird demands another invention.
23:27The Hughes Aircraft Corporation designs and successfully manufactures the AN-ASG-18 Pulse Doppler radar,
23:35and AIM-47 air-to-air missile system for the YF-12.
23:42Politics ensures that the Blackbird is never used as an interceptor, but the missile gets refitted
23:48as the AIM-54 Phoenix system for the F-14 Tomcat.
24:04The highly advanced SR-71, the most advanced plane of its time, didn't fit the interceptor bill.
24:28Kelly Johnson builds only a small number of his masterpiece aircraft, and under the tightest security possible.
24:40Limiting production to the reconnaissance version shrouds the Blackbird in mystery.
24:59The SR-71 celebrates a successful maiden flight on December 22nd, 1964.
25:13The SR-71 celebrates a successful maiden flight on December 22nd, 1964.
25:44of Star Trekaport and the
25:45The SR-71 heads to acceptance tests at Edwards Air Force Base on August 13, 1965, and then
25:53into service.
26:04Enough information about the Blackbird seeps out to make them one of the most well-known
26:08secrets in the world.
26:11Aircraft enthusiasts come to appreciate it based on the little they've learned.
26:19Then in September, 1974, the Farnborough Air Show gets a special visitor.
26:26This heightens international public interest in the unusual aircraft.
26:39The SR-71 Blackbird was the winner of the prestigious Collier Award, which recognizes the greatest
26:45achievements in aeronautics or astronautics in America with respect to improving the performance,
26:51efficiency, and safety of air or space vehicles.
26:55The SR-71 flying from New York to London in one hour, 54 minutes, 56.4 seconds sets a record
27:03and thrills aviation fans.
27:16Whenever the SR-71 makes a rare appearance at an air show, the crowds follow.
27:31On its way back to the U.S. after the 1974 Farnborough International Air Show, the SR-71 sets another
27:39record.
27:39London to Los Angeles in three hours and 48 minutes, including a rendezvous for in-flight refueling.
27:46In terms of local times, it arrives about four hours before it takes off.
28:00Prior to that, on April 26, 1971, this ferry Blackbird covers 15,000 miles in 10 and a half
28:07hours nonstop, the equivalent of flying from San Francisco to Paris and back.
28:14The U.S. Air Force flies its SR-71s with the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing based at Beale
28:20Air Force Base in Northern California.
28:24They received their first Blackbird in January 1966.
28:29In the next 24 years, they fly thousands of long-distance missions.
28:35To fly the SR-71, pilots must pass rigorous requirements, similar to the astronaut program.
28:43But the aircraft has no fancy escape capsule.
28:47Kelly Johnson believes that the spacesuit offers enough protection from the environment.
28:53The suit was designed for the entire envelope of the airplane.
28:56Wow.
28:57And because you're in a full-pressure suit, then if you had to eject or you just lost your
29:02canopy in flight, you had the systems and the backup systems to keep the proper pressurization
29:07for your body and the proper oxygen flow.
29:09So you guys could be up there in the nosebleeds going mock snot, and if you need to get out
29:13of
29:13the plane, you'd make it.
29:15You'd have a long trip down.
29:17Yeah, a long trip down.
29:17But you can make it.
29:18Exactly.
29:22The trick to survival is getting the pilot clear of the plane at Mach 3.
29:30It requires a specially designed ejection seat and parachute.
29:36You can't do it.
29:42Of course, you can't simply take a blackbird up to Mach 3 at 80,000 feet and shoot the
29:48crew out to test the escape system.
29:53Some things have to run on faith.
30:08Now, Blair, I'm going to ask you this one because I know you have a personal experience
30:13in this realm.
30:14What's the ejection seat capability of the Blackbird?
30:18One, two, is it a zero-zero ejection seat?
30:21The Blackbird's ejection seat is a Lockheed seat, very comparable to an ACES-2 or a Martin
30:27Baker seat.
30:29We, in the Air Force Blackbird program, never lost a crew member.
30:33We had our share of ejections.
30:34And where my name is associated with that was an ejection on the 21st of April 1989 on an
30:42operational sortie out of Kadena.
30:43So, my pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Dan House and I had the last ejection out of the Blackbird
30:50program.
30:50In our case, it was an engine seizure at Mach 3 at about 75,000 feet.
30:56That eventually took out the flight control hydraulic systems.
30:59And when the airplane became uncontrollable, we stepped over the side at about 12,000 feet
31:04and about 350 indicated.
31:06Dan gave the command.
31:07I wasn't in position as the airplane pitched up.
31:09He went first.
31:10I got in position.
31:11I followed him.
31:12So, I indeed, by about two seconds, had the last ejection of the Blackbird.
31:17Over the years, at least 11 SR-71s and several crewmen are lost.
31:24But that doesn't mean pilots aren't clamoring to fly one.
31:36Pilots say that each airframe develops its own personality.
31:40Maybe due to the fact that each aircraft is hand-built.
31:48What's more, each flight above Mach 3 re-tempers the airframe's alloy, theoretically giving
31:54the planes the strength to go on forever.
32:03Now, Buzz, this seems to be a pretty typical-looking pitot tube, but there's an additional offset
32:09one on the side.
32:10What was that used for?
32:11Max, this is a standard pitot tube like you'd have on most airplanes.
32:14The shockwave, when you're traveling to Mach 3 Plus, is up here.
32:18But this is a beta probe, and you notice there's a hole on the top and on either side.
32:22Because to make this airplane as maneuverable as it is in the environment, it's unstable
32:27in pitch and yaw.
32:28So, as the air is flowing across this probe, it's constantly feeding the computer,
32:32I'm okay, I'm okay, or I'm not okay.
32:34And it's putting in small inputs to keep the aircraft under control.
32:37So, that basically yaw sensor keeps the aircraft stable as it's maneuvering.
32:42And that's done by the computer.
32:44Exactly.
32:45Because, like I said, it shows negative stability in pitch and yaw.
32:48So, they had a flight control computer way back when in the SR-71.
32:51It sounds like it's pretty similar to some of the more advanced fighters we have now.
32:54It is.
32:55And this started out, this first flight of the prior airplane was in 1962.
32:59So, they were working on this technology way back when.
33:02Kelly Johnson wasn't a dumb guy, wasn't he?
33:03Kelly Johnson was a brilliant genius.
33:06So, this was actually a first generation flight control system, which probably was used
33:11in the development of the modern day ones, or in the planes that I fly, where the computer
33:17controls the stability of the airframe.
33:19And if you don't have the computer working, you've got a lot of work to do.
33:24I think some of the things I learned from this program actually led eventually to the
33:27fly-by-wire that we had experienced in the F-16 and eventually lead into where you are
33:32in the Raptor.
33:45The blackbird's corrugated skin expands at Mach 3 heat.
33:51The blackbird's
33:52To save weight and complexity, the skin also forms the fuel tanks.
33:59Fuel actually leaks from an SR-71 until the skin heats up, expands, and seals the tanks.
34:11The plane refuels shortly after each takeoff.
34:15It requires a specially formulated fuel that won't ignite in the hot tanks and that will
34:21burn at high altitude.
34:25And once hot, blackbirds stay hot.
34:30Even after landing, the plane's too hot to touch.
34:41Selection for SR-71 pilot training takes about a year.
34:47Top gun types are weeded out.
34:52At over 30 miles per minute, there's no time to correct a mistake and no place for cowboys.
35:04Operations demand a steady, team-oriented temperament.
35:13Pilot instruction requires special training.
35:16No ordinary simulator can prepare a pilot for the SR-71.
35:22The instructor sits in a second cockpit tiered above the normal one.
35:27Any bigger, and it would compromise the plane's supersonic ability.
35:32The A-12 trainer, nicknamed the Titanium Goose, can only top out at about half the aircraft's
35:38true speed of over Mach 3.
35:40Now, how about the cockpit and the canopy?
35:44That doesn't look like a very big space for me, and I'm not, you know, a 300-pounder, so...
35:50If you sat in it the way you are now, you would even feel a little cramped.
35:54But now put yourself in a pressure suit that weighs 45 pounds and a 10-pound helmet.
35:59You can't see after here at all.
36:01And you do most of your visibility as a pilot in the front, looking through that little pie window up
36:06there.
36:06Yeah.
36:07To do your refueling, to come in to land.
36:09And that window, because of the heating that Blair talked about, that window's 620 degrees.
36:14Serious SR-71 pilot candidates log over 3,000 flying hours.
36:19About three jobs open each year.
36:24One pilot, Colonel Robert Powell, logs 1,020 hours in the SR-71,
36:30giving him more time above Mach 3 than any other pilot in the world.
36:35He flies over a million miles and earns 17 Air Medals and two Distinguished Flying Crosses.
37:05One, two, three, four.
37:08So long as he flies over a hundred percent of these unloading.
37:16Yeah, he's a guy.
37:20He flies over a million miles in the air.
37:20He flies over at only a two-pounder, so...
37:20That's a huge巻or.
37:25One, two, three, four.
37:26He flies over a million miles.
37:29He flies over a million miles,
37:33and he flies over a million miles.
37:33He enables his house to get to get home,
37:46For all its positive features, the Blackbird becomes troublesome to maintain and more expensive
37:52to fly.
38:01Portions of the upper and lower inboard wing skin of the SR-71 were corrugated.
38:07By making the surface corrugated, the skin could expand vertically and horizontally without
38:12overstressing.
38:13So when you're flying the plane, does it go through the computer?
38:17Do you have any direct control over the control surfaces or does the computer basically augment
38:21you as a pilot?
38:23The computer augments because the flight controls in the cockpit, the stick that you had because
38:27this aircraft has a stick.
38:28I had direct controls for pitch and roll and for yaw, but the computer was always working
38:34in the background to dampen any movement to make sure I didn't get into an unstable regime.
38:39Now would it ever get to a point where the computer would override you?
38:43The computer would override you if you decide to pull the nose up too fast like a closed
38:47pattern.
38:48There was a pusher in this airplane that could literally knock the stick right out of your
38:51hand.
38:52Back off, stupid.
38:52I got it.
38:53You got it.
38:54That's right.
38:54That is still around today.
38:55I can tell you that.
38:58For all its innovation, the Blackbird must be constantly upgraded to advance with the times.
39:04As computers become smaller, the functional capabilities of these big spies increase.
39:15While an SR-71 has long been able to survey 100,000 square miles of territory per hour,
39:21the amount of information it can gather from that territory has grown considerably.
39:29When work on the Blackbirds first started, standard tools caused corrosion of the titanium alloy.
39:36normal tools were out and everything changed.
39:51The designers thought they started a new technological race, that the next generation of aircraft worldwide
39:57would owe a debt to the Blackbird.
40:02But it doesn't unfold that way.
40:05The Russians developed small bands of high-speed, limited-range fighters, essentially drones because
40:12their weapons are controlled from the ground.
40:15The pilot only takes off, lands, and maneuvers the plane as close to the target as possible.
40:27Apart from Soviet attempts at interceptors, Kelly Johnson's masterwork continues to rule
40:33the skies, carrying out secret CIA and U.S. Air Force missions.
40:47Back when Kelly Johnson's design team begins work on a U-2 replacement, they first propose
40:53a hydrogen-powered space aircraft, which Johnson describes as a big flying vacuum bottle.
41:00Because it exceeds the technical abilities of the day, the plan gets dropped.
41:06The super-sleek and futuristic A-12 bears no resemblance to a vacuum bottle.
41:15Though it also stands outside the technical feasibility of its era, it flies into history as one of the
41:21greatest engineering feats, and one of the greatest aircraft ever built.
41:31But by 1990, the Air Force pays a reported $400 million a year to keep its 20 SR-71s operational.
41:43And Congress decides it's too much.
41:50The allocation is canceled.
41:52The Blackbirds are doomed.
41:57The aircraft is briefly brought back to life in the mid-90s.
42:03NASA continues to fly two Blackbirds until 1999.
42:10Ultimately, the super-fast manned aircraft gives way to the subsonic unmanned aerial vehicle,
42:17or UAV.
42:24They spend their entire career in secret.
42:32Perhaps someday the details will come out, ending decades of speculation.
43:04The SR-71's final flight provides a fitting end to the story.
43:07On March 6, 1990, it speeds from California to Washington, D.C. in under 65 minutes, setting
43:14a new world record.
43:15Its average speed, over 2,000 miles per hour.
43:26There's been no other plane like the Blackbird, and there probably never will be.
43:31Futuristic in 1958 and still cutting edge to the end, the Blackbird is likely the greatest
43:36aircraft ever built.
43:37That, at least, is no secret.
43:45You're welcome.
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