spuds

Ours is Blackbird.

Sin1UZFE

Old man L......

bornking

Lucille the Lexus

Hobycat

As seen in my signature, Cloud9 which has since morphed into Cloud "99".
Rides like a cloud and with diamond white pearl paint and grey trim, looks it also.

spuds

Like the SR-71 its black, fast ,reliable,and relevant decades after manufacture.Stealthy as in "Ummm,I dont know,some sort of black car"
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Actual photo of Mr and Mrs Spuds--"Not that there's anything wrong with that"

bradland

Darnit Spuds, I was hoping yours was a Beatles reference !

spuds

Oh....um.... yeah......that too! LOL!
Says the guy with a framed Beatles poster in his bedroom.

Stroock639

well i guess i've unofficially called mine Irving for years but i've never formally declared so or anything lol...

and i like your reasoning for blackbird! most awesome plane ever! if someone told me today that the USAF has a manned, air-breathing plane that can fly 3.5 times the speed of sound, reach over 85,000 feet, needs no assistance taking off or landing, has had over 4000 missiles fired at it, AND still managed to fly for 20 years without incident, i'd be a bit skeptical. if they then said that this was actually a plane designed in the 50s ENTIRELY by hand using a slide rule and has already been retired since before lexus even existed, i'd say that's straight out of sci fi. by the 90s, the soviets still couldn't shoot down what lockheed had designed in the 50s.

makes me so sad i'll never get to see it fly not only are all the surviving examples intentionally damaged to make them unable to fly again, all the tooling was destroyed to prevent anyone else from building them. this country accomplished some pretty great stuff when motivated by the fear of a communist takeover!

spuds

Ive seen it fly and being in Calif where it was built we have many on display.We are getting ready to go see it again,this is my favorite SR-71 story.A GREAT man with an awesome attitude is this pilot talking SR-71.

Stroock639

ah good ol' Brian Shul, i have a copy of his book Sled Driver and it really has some of the most amazing photos. years ago i remember reading that some of the other blackbird pilots were initially somewhat irritated that brian divulged some blackbird "secrets" to the public and became a pseudo celebrity as far as talking about and photographing the plane was concerned. this went against the whole secretive shadowy nature of the plane, but now they want the photos he took to hang up in their own homes!

i love how the C.I.A. needed to set up fake companies in order to acquire all the titanium necessary to build the planes, since most of the titanium had to come from russia! they unknowingly helped the US build the very plane designed to spy on them, which is just legendary as far as i'm concerned. also how the plane actually became more fuel efficient the faster it flew. what was it like to see fly? i'm so jealous of those who got to see and feel the sight of an SR-71 at full takeoff thrust!

spuds

I was in my sisters back yard when the SR71 was coming to our area for a show.I heard this faint whine of an engine that sounded like it was just idling.The plane appeared right over us.The pilot pulled up the nose in a sharp climb and you could hear the jets starting to spool up.That plane did a climb unlike anything I'd ever seen and poof,it was gone.Never seen anything like that before or since.Though I have no way of knowing what fighter jets do in climb rates,SR was impressive indeed,that said.

Rated right up there with seeing space shuttle landings,Ive seen three.Remember blasting up to Edwards when news came in the shuttle had to land there.Best one was the guys waving a well moving line of vehicles thru the gate and parking us at the VIP bleachers,it passed smack in front of us at like 20 feet high,thats cool!
Can only imagine what a mind blower launches must be.
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LOL,another space shuttle landing.There is a bunch of people walking into an area with coolers,chairs and such,waaaay at the end of the base.I thought why not just follow them in my baja bug and park on the little hill?

So I did.About 5 minutes later a black helicopter I never heard just POOF,pops up on that hill.I see an open side with a bunch of guys in black,faces covered,all pointing automatic weapons at me and a hugely loud...LEAVE THE AREA NOW,LEAVE IMMEDIATELY!!!! Dirt flying everywhere,my dog is totally freaking out convinced I'd finally managed to kill us both.Let me tell you,the baja fired right up and I was OUTTA THERE so fast I must have set baja bug desert land speed records that day.

Stroock639

well that sounds like a tense couple of moments! but yea looking up to see THAT black silhouette approaching must've been so crazy...


this is probably some of the best raw blackbird footage i've seen, and the most recent


gotta love all the car alarms going off after it does a full afterburner pass (at about 4 minutes in)

spuds

I never saw the chopper even approach,it just slid up that hill and they were in my face!!! Have no idea how that worked,but man alive they are skilled!!

Thank you for sharing that,sure enjoyed talking with you Stroock639.That video ended with what I was thinking,the end of an Era,going to take a lot to match those times.

AandSC

timmy0tool

iTrader: (7)

mine was "Kimberly"...as most Kimberlys I've met were of the "wide" variety so it just seemed right.
apologies for any offense this may have caused!