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Want to know how they got the A-12s(SR-71) to Area 51?

It's crazy how dated the trucks look in these photos, it's hard to believe how modern the plane still looks considering when they were built.
 
If you haven't read it already, I suggest reading Ben Rich's book, "Skunk Works". It covers the A12/SR71, U2, and stealth fighter development.

Apparently while moving the plane they got in an accident and ended up paying off the other driver right then and there.
 
Harrod said:
It's crazy how dated the trucks look in these photos, it's hard to believe how modern the plane still looks considering when they were built.
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IIRC the project that culminated in the SR began in the 1940s.

That's just amazing. It also is fascinating to me that in the 1940s, our vehicles were really aerodynamic and sort of aircraft-looking in many respects. They looked like form following function as far as combining smooth lines with passenger vehicles. Then the 50s came, and things started to get weird for the sake of weird. Some vehicles rebelled against the overall trends (some sports cars), but many just succumbed to the styling trends of the days, which often meant pretty terrible function resulting from oddball stylistic form, lol.

The A-12/SR-71 makes me really wonder about Aurura and post-Aurora projects. We know the USAF and military experimental group took over the space shuttle replacement a while back, it stands to reason that there are a lot more projects that we just never had declassified. They are damned good at keeping secrets really.
 
If they try to built it now, it would cost at least 10 times (adjusted for inflation) as much and project would take 20 years....
 
Cool and all but do we have anything more recent than this? Seems the last secret plane to be built was the b2 and that was in the 80s. I always used to read reports in popular science in the early 90s of secret planes and until this day we've never actually seen any of them 20 years later.
 
That bridge in Baker is still there and looks almost the same as that photo, I've driven over it a few times after stopping there on the way to Vegas.
 
Staples said:
Cool and all but do we have anything more recent than this? Seems the last secret plane to be built was the b2 and that was in the 80s. I always used to read reports in popular science in the early 90s of secret planes and until this day we've never actually seen any of them 20 years later.
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There have long been rumors of the Aurora as an even faster, more advanced surveillance plane to succeed the SR-71. Certainly it doesn't seem to make sense for the US to have decommissioned the SR-71 if there was no replacement available, other than the older, slower U2. While satellite surveillance is much more advanced than it was when the SR-71 was conceived, it still doesn't provide the flexibility of a plane, in terms of the ability to overfly when and where we want.

I find it amazing that we were conceiving and building the SR-71 all those years ago. While technology has made great leaps since then, the SR-71 was developed closer in time to the Wright brothers' first flight than to the present day. It was designed in a time when computers ran on vacuum tubes, and when the entire computing power of the Department of Defense combined (or certainly the Skunk Works) was probably less than the average smartphone today. Despite that, it remains the fastest plane ever built (at least that has been revealed to the public), a record it has held since 1976. Just remarkable . . .
 
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Don Vito Corleone said:
There have long been rumors of the Aurora as an even faster, more advanced surveillance plane to succeed the SR-71. Certainly it doesn't seem to make sense for the US to have decommissioned the SR-71 if there was no replacement available, other than the older, slower U2. While satellite surveillance is much more advanced than it was when the SR-71 was conceived, it still doesn't provide the flexibility of a plane, in terms of the ability to overfly when and where we want.

I find it amazing that we were conceiving and building the SR-71 all those years ago. While technology has made great leaps since then, the SR-71 was developed closer in time to the Wright brothers' first flight than to the present day. It was designed in a time when computers ran on vacuum tubes, and when the entire computing power of the Department of Defense combined (or certainly the Skunk Works) was probably less than the average smartphone today. Despite that, it remains the fastest plane ever built (at least that has been revealed to the public), a record it has held since 1976. Just remarkable . . .
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it was the product of an unlimited budget for conception and maintenance. every gram of it was unique, and that's what made it unsustainable.
 
sr71_blackbird5.jpg


In the early 70's, I worked nights on a hill that overlooked Kadena AFB.
The base was busy with loaded 52s making South East Asian bombing runs as well as SR-71s flying reconnaissance.

All of the locals referred to the 71 as the Habu. Just noticed that they have an online museum at habu.org.

The 52s would take off over us and make a hell of a racket. (They were so loaded with bombs that they had to be refuelled in the air to keep them within their takeoff weight limits.)

At night, every so often all the air base runway lights would go off. Even the taxis lights. And then something would take off in the opposite direction over the ocean. We always assumed that those were SR-71 flights.

Once or twice, I happened to be on 'the hill' in the morning when I could look down and see an SR-71 coming in to land. They were spooky quiet then...

Always felt that it was humbling to see an aircraft that could cruise faster than the muzzle velocity of my 45.

Uno
 
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