Yardbird, thanks for the info and pics of your models. I have to agree, I don’t think I would have risked it just for a picture. Mind you, at the time I bet those birds had an almost mythical reputation. Does make you wonder though, if they were capable of building something that fast back then I wonder what could be built nowadays (with an unlimited budget!).
Snake, good luck with the filling, sanding, filling and sanding!! I really wanted to build that kit but I’ve heard too many bad things about it. Will wait to see if anyone else makes one in the future.
My F117 is turning up this week so I can start when I get back from my vacation next week. Happy building!!
The USAF released just enough pictures and information during the early days of the program to really whet the appetite of airplane lovers. There were several magazine articles and books that published so called “facts” that were about 10% what had been released and 90% the figment of the writer’s imagination. Most of those stories really were rediculous and outlandish. But yes, it did create quite a mystique around the plane.
The technology has existed for quite a number of years to build hypersonic (Mach 5 and above), aircraft. The cost to take it from paper to hardware would be astronomical. It would make our current federal deficit look like a surplus. The cost of operating such a machine would be equally expensive. It is also very impractical for everything except the longest of flights. New York to Los Angeles wouldn’t even get up to speed before you had to start slowing down again. The sonic booms during climb out and decel would be devastating. That is why the Concorde was never allowed to fly supersonic over the US.
When you say the sonic booms would be devasting, what do you mean? Devastating to the airframe? I though they didn’t create much actual movement inside the aircraft but rather lots of displacement around it. Hey I don’t know about these things but still find them really interesting.
The SR-71 doing Mach 3 at 80,000 feet made a sonic boom on the ground that sounded about like a small firecracker. When it was just barely supersonic at say 30,000 feet shortly after refueling, it made a sonic boom that could do considerable damage to buildings on the ground. Creating the atmospheric disturbance or pressure wave that makes the noise on the ground does no damage what so ever to the airplane. SR-71 missions were planned from and return to Beale AFB, California, so that they passed over mostly uninhabited or sparsely inhabited areas of the western portion of the US. That is one reason they very rarely ventured east of the Mississippi river. A typical mission would launch from Beale, refuel over the Sierra Nevada mountains, accelerate to Mach 3 over western Nevada, fly over Wyoming and Nebraska, turn south to Texas, decel and refuel, climb back to 80,000 feet and go over southern New Mexico and Arizona, cross southern California and the Edwards AFB resolution range and then back to Beale either over the Pacific ocean, coastal range mountains or the Sierra Nevadas. They probably startled a lot of coyotes and jack rabbits, much not much else.
There were 2 or 3 large chicken ranches on the north western portion of this route and the USAF had to pay some rather large reparations supposedly because the SR-71s sonic boom scared the chickens and caused them to cease laying eggs. We had to change the routes a little bit to miss those particular areas.
[wow] It’s great to know that I’ll be building a model of a history making aircraft.
I opened the box a few days ago to find, to my astonishment and amzement (and delight), that the upper and lower hulls are moulded in single pieces without loss of detail!
Cheerio,
John
That’s amazing stuff yardbird. It’s good to have someone in on the build with so much info about the subject, gives a lot of inspiration. Those poor chickens! It’s incredible to think that at 30’000 ft it can still creat enough displacement to actually cause damage. Imagine the damage at below 10’000 ft! I guess the Blackbird is no longer in active service due to costs and the end of the cold war?
John that sounds like a good kit, I will be building one of these in the not too distant future. Which SR71 kit did you buy?
The A-12, (Older sister to the SR-71), was retired in 1967 after about a year of operational service out of Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan. This was PURELY political. The SR-71 was sent over to Kadena as a replacement and even used the same “T” hangar that was originally built for the A-12.
The SR-71s were retired in January 1990 for about 90% political reasons and about 10% physical limitations. The biggest being that there was no real time data transfer from the aircraft to the ground. The stated reason was that it cost too much to operate. That is pure Bull S_ _ t ! It was expensive on a per flight hour basis, especially if you figured in tanker support and all the other things that helped out, but went on anyway, even without the Blackbird. Things like Air Traffic Control, security, etc. Two A models and the only B model were operated by NASA during this time.
Three Blackbirds were un-retired in 1995 and flew occasionally for about 3 years. USAF stopped flying them in early 1998. NASA made the last ever flight of an SR-71 in December 1999 for the Edwards AFB Air Show using tail number 17980.
The SR-71 was retired the second time for several reasons
The supporting infrastructure was so thoroughly destroyed in 1990 that it just wasn’t feasible to get it all back together. Things like the twin Buick or Chevy 454 cubic inch engine start carts were nearly all destroyed or rendered unserviceable and put in museums. KC-135Q tankers were retrograded to be unable to handle the JP-7 fuel.
With only three flyable aircraft, (actually two), you can’t have one on ready alert at Kadena, one at Mildenhall, England, one available in the US for training and one grounded for deep phase maintenance. Simple arithmetic.
Congress had allocated funds for the un-retirement, but the USAF “leaders” (???) refused to support the program any more than they were forced to. Stupid, narrow minded, prejudiced attitudes.
So much for my, “narrow minded, prejudiced” opinions!
In the interest of stirring up a little activity on this thread, I will post some photos of the second sister in the Blackbird Triumverate, better know as the YF-12A. This was supposed to be the interceptor version of the Blackbird and was armed with 3 Hughes AIM-47 air to air missiles. It was intended to intercept the “hoards of Russian bombers” as they crossed the north pole on their way to obliterate the US. Each missile had a range of about a 100 miles and could hit a fighter sized target dead center. The model is 1/72 scale and is the original Revell 1966 release that stirred up so much controversy about security violations. It is reasonably accurate except for the fuselage being to deep.
Two of the A-12 Blackbirds were redesignated as M-21 and built to carry the D-21 drone on their backs, then launch them at speed and altitude. The first three tests worked fine, but the 4th resulted in a mid-air collision between the M-21 and D-21, both machines broke up in flight and the two crewmen on the M-21 ejected. both landed successfully in the Pacific Ocean, but the backseater, Ray Torrick, drowned before he could be picked up. Drone #7 and onward were built as B models, with the intent that they be carried under the wings of a B-52H and launched in that manner. The easiest way to tell a B model is by the presence of the pitot tube on the leading edge of each wing.
The model is included in the Monogram, now Revell kit of the SR-71. A point to remember is that the SR-71 NEVER, EVER carried one of these drones. Only the M-21 did.
I never took any pictures of the SR-71 because security regulations said I would go to jail if I did and I wasn’t willing to jeopardize my career to get few pictures. I have to settle for what is published in one of several fine books on the Blackbird family.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
Dan, What about the flying wings? The Horten Ho 229 was not part of a stealth program but turned out to have a reduced radar profile and accidentally became the first stealth plane. I feel it is the basis of alot of the stealth we have now. Then there is also the USAF’s flying wings (YB-49A).
I’ve been wanting to build the PM 1/72 Horten Ho 229 for a while now.
Looks like you have a few now and you can include me if I can use the Horten plane. When will you be deciding if this GB is a go?
The Horten will be great, by all accounts it’s the basis for what we’re all building.
My Hasegawa F117 Nighthawk arrived today. Boy it’s pretty big for a 1/72 scale. I’m a little upset that the dials are a decal as there is plenty of room to have made surface detail but oh well!
May buy a detailing kit but we’ll see how much they go for!
I guess I’ll put us some pics of my Academy F-117 that I still havn’t finished from the last GB. So if anyone has any questions about the kit, you can ask me. I did find out that the kit was made to attach the bomb trapees the wrong way. I should get to painting this weekend. Hopefully I’ll have pics soon.
I was struggeling with my Itareri 1/72 Raptor, and as some of you know, it´s not the best of kits. One night about two weeks ago I got so tired of it that I grabbed my Italeri X-35. Ít looked like a really easy-to-build kit, so I put the F-22 aside for awile. I´ve worked on the X-35 since then, and it´s now ready for paint. I know that some of you don´t think this is fast, but for me it´s a revolution in progress! I´m going to paint it next week.
I signed up for the F-117, but I guess I´m in for both now. (X-35 is stealthy, right??).
Speaking of the F-117, I´m planning the steps right now and will begin building parallell as I paint the X-35. What do you think is a good color for the F-117, since pictures show(like the one below) that it´s not entirely black. The intake grilles is always darker. Maybe adding a little white or blue.
