You need some skill and experience but this is as much fun you as you can have flying a plane as a civilian. Remember the SR-71 Blackbird top speed is 3,500km/h (2,100 mph).īut, the next best thing is mucking around with a super-fast RC plane.Ĭheck out the mini fighter jet we got to play with. Image: Lockheed Martinĭubbed the SR-72 or “Son of Blackbird”, it’s planned to be able to reach hypersonic speeds.Ī prototype could be flying as soon as 2025. The SR-71 was retired in 1999 and, as far as we know, it hasn’t been replaced.īut Lockheed Martin has been working on a successor. These are both things that the suit’s onboard oxygen supply and protective layers would have shielded them from. They would have also been hit by temperatures of about 230 degrees Celsius (450 degrees Fahrenheit)! This is much lower than the Blackbird’s cruising altitude.Ĭrucially, these pressure suits would have kept the crew alive if they had ever needed to eject.Įjecting at Mach 3.2 would have also exposed the crew members to very low oxygen levels. Standard oxygen masks can’t provide enough oxygen past 13,000 metres (43,000 feet). The best defence system the Blackbird had though was to literally speed up.Įven many of today’s missiles can’t catch an aircraft that can fly faster than Mach 3! Life support for pilots Image: NASA/Jim Ross, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commonsīecause the Blackbird flew so high, like the U-2 its pilots had to wear what is essentially a spacesuit. The Blackbird was completely unarmed, but it did have defence systems installed that could counter enemy missiles and fighters. The cameras would run throughout the entire mission, spying on Soviet targets from up to hundreds of kilometres away. It had both optical and infrared cameras on board, as well as a side-looking airborne radar (SLAR) and electronic intelligence (ELINT) gathering systems. READ MORE: Black Hawk helicopter flies for the first time without a pilot They sat in a second cockpit behind the pilot. This was controlled by the reconnaissance systems officer. The speed was insane, but the real work in the Blackbird was done using its super spy reconnaissance equipment. Spying on the Soviets with SR-71 Blackbird Later on, a quieter pneumatic start system was developed. Instead, they had to be started by a ‘start-cart’ that used two V8 car engines to spool up the jets. Image: Jaydec at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Image: Greg Goebel, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons These engines couldn’t be started from a generator inside the plane like a modern jet. This made the engines crazy efficient at those incredibly high speeds. This fed air directly from the intakes into the afterburners, turning the J58s into ramjets. READ MORE: The monstrous Mil Mi-26 is the biggest helicopter in the world and can lift a plane The distinctive spike at the front of the air intakes retract when it reached about Mach 2.5.Ī pair of bypass doors would also open around the engines. Image: Lockheed Martin Image: Lockheed Martin The turbo-ramjet engineĪ unique engine design, the J58, was made for the Blackbird by Pratt & Whitney.Īt lower speeds, they act like normal turbojets. In the end, it used a jet fuel known as JP-7. Michael Haggerty, public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsĪ new type of fuel also had to be developed for the Blackbird.Ī bunch of experimental fuels were floated as being able to power it.Įven coal slurry(!) and liquid hydrogen were options. READ MORE: Top Gun: Maverick jet looked so real China ‘used a satellite to spy on it’ Image: Tech. The cockpit glass was made of quartz, regular glass would have melted. Titanium was pretty much the only material available that could withstand the extreme heat generated by flying at more than three times the speed of sound. Speeds greater than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5) are often referred to as hypersonic.The aircraft’s body was made out of titanium. Fast military jets have their top speed listed as a Mach number with Mach 1 being the speed of sound, and Mach 2 is twice the speed of sound.Īn aircraft that is travelling at supersonic speed is exceeding the speed of sound (Mach 1). If an aircraft is travelling at the speed of sound at sea-level then its speed will be 661 knots (760 miles per hour) or if it is travelling at the speed of sound at 30,000 feet then its speed will be 589 knots (677 miles per hour).Īircraft speed is usually measured in knots which is a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile per hour. The speed of sound (Mach 1) varies with altitude and temperature.
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