The incident had immediate diplomatic repercussions for the Cold War and reinforced the need for a new type of reconnaissance plane that could fly faster and higher, safe from anti-aircraft fire.
The task of designing such an ambitious machine fell on Clarence "Kelly" Johnson, one of the world's greatest aircraft designers, and his secret division of engineers at Lockheed, called Skunk Works. Everything," recalled Johnson, who died in , the same year the Blackbirds were first retired from service. The original plane in the Blackbird family was called the A and made its maiden flight on April 30, In total, 13 As were produced, and the plane was a top secret, special access program operated by the CIA.
The Blackbird still holds many aviation records. In it flew a coast to coast flight, from Los Angeles to Washington, in 67 minutes. Credit: NASA. Titanium skin. Because the aircraft was designed to fly faster than 2, mph, friction with the surrounding atmosphere would heat up the fuselage to a point that would melt a conventional airframe. The plane was therefore made of titanium, a metal that was able to withstand high temperatures while also being lighter than steel.
Using titanium presented other problems, however. First, a whole new set of tools -- also made of titanium -- had to be fabricated, because regular steel ones shattered the brittle titanium on contact.
As a matter of fact, it was built to fly at this speed. If the metal pieces of the airplane at this point would have been tightly screwed together, the aircraft would simply expand to its own death, making the expansion push the metal pieces into each other with very serious consequences. This is why the Lockheed Skunk Works division built the Blackbird with big gaps at some points in the structure, resulting in the body dripping fuel, as is explained by the quote below:.
At Mach 3, the plane would expand several inches because of the severe temperature, which could heat the leading edge of the wing to 1, degrees.
To prevent cracking, expansion joints had been built into the plane. Sealant resembling rubber glue covered the seams, but when the plane was subsonic, fuel would leak through the joints. But what does the SR actually own its speed to? Its engines. Just like previously mentioned with the flight body being built for extreme speeds — so were the engines with their ultimate cruising speed at Mach 3.
When going supersonic, the air going into the engine is travelling at supersonic speeds, resulting in shockwaves inside of the engine which might lead to engine failure. When flying at top speed, the spikes could retract as much as 66 centimetres into the engine, changing the speed of the incoming air to a subsonic 0. It does this to keep the air pressure inside of the engine constant. The same idea is used on among others by the Soviet Sukhoi Su Fitter.
However, sometimes when going supersonic, the engines failed in changing the pressure of the incoming air which led to only one of the engines going supersonic.
The result of this is heavy jawing which can only be solved by restarting the engine, however often both of the engines were restarted to be sure that the yawing stopped. But even though the Blackbird was so expensive and hard to build, it did get onto the production line, and it was an enormous success. Not only was it black, had been a secret project and looking like it was from another planet, it was the fastest aircraft the world has ever seen.
And more importantly for the US — it was faster than anything the Soviets had ever built. Although it carried electronic countermeasures, the main defensive system of it versus missiles was simply to outrun them, just like quoted from the SR Blackbird documentary on PBS:.
The effectiveness of this defence was proved in when Kelly Johnson, one of the designers of the Blackbird, announced that over 1, missiles had been launched towards the SR, but none of them had hit. Out of the 32 SRs that were built, 12 were lost due to accidents, never because of enemy fire. While talking about weapons and countermeasures, it is needed to say that the SR was never fitted with any weapons.
Of course, this was due to many reasons but one was that it was simply not built to shoot. It was built to surveil and take pictures and since it could not in practical be shot down it had no need to be fitted with weapons. The Blackbird was only capable to fly for approximately 5,km which may seem like a lot, but compared to the Lockheed U-2, another reconnassaince aircraft, with a range of over 10,km, it is very inferior.
The short range, which was a result of the very thirsty engines, was the reason for the in-air-refueling capability to be fitted with the SR It flew so high and so fast that the crew needed pressurized space suits when flying it.
The service ceiling of 85, feet 25,m meant that it was an excellent experimental unit for space travels. That, combined with the great speeds of it was two of the reasons why NASA decided to take over the last two Blackbirds after its retirement from the Air Force in Since the dawn of these airplanes there have been countless missiles and other rocket-propelled aerial vehicles moving faster than Mach 3.
We do not know if there will be one in the future — and given the recent developments with UAVs it looks unlikely — but we do know that when the Blackbird entered service with the US Air Force, it was cooler, faster and more astonishing than the world had ever seen before.
Gathering information about the enemy while flying at an altitude of 20, meters at speeds as high as three times the speed of sound is a true proof of the skill of American Skunk Works engineers.
Just being able to accelerate away from a surface-to-air missile and use that feature as a main defence is a huge accomplishment on its own. This statement was told one of the Skunk Works engineers in dokumentary. Even today, C. A true marvel. The top speed was never officially released, but there are rumors that it was capable of much better than mach four. Interesting note: The US government bought most of the titanium used in it from Russia, using phantom companies.
The SR Blackbird is my favorite plane! I was fortunate enough to see one at A air show in San Antonio! Apr 10 Leave a comment Cancel reply You must be logged in to post a comment. Comments mickrussom says:. Nov 2 at PM. Log in to Reply. JRDallas says:. Jul 12 at PM. CDeVane says:. Mar 1 at AM. Always up to date! News and offers delivered directly to you!
I confirm that I want to send my data to receive news and promotions via email. Close Enter keyword. How is it that the reported top speeds do not match? Again, I am genuinely curious and would love to learn more about this. The SR is among the most beautiful planes of all time. When looked at head-on, however, it sometimes reminds me of Daffy Duck cartoons when Daffy got hit on the head by a brick.
Nevertheless, simply walking around this jet in the Evergreen Aviation Museum gives me the chills every time; it's elegance, surface simplicity and effectiveness are legendary. For anyone living in Oregon or southern Washington state, it is worth a trip to Evergreen to see this breath-taking airplane.
I highly recommend reading any biography of "Kelly" Johnson, the design genius behind this awesome plane, as well as several other famous airframes such as the U-2, F Starfighter, P and others.
Alternately, read a history of Lockheed's "Skunk Works" to learn how these planes were designed and built in record time and usually under budget. I have read that when it was operational, it set the speed record, but if it was beaten then they would take it up again. Sam Black Welder even though the aircraft was retired in the top speed and altitude are still classified as Top Secret.
We probably will never know the true capabilities of the aircraft. I mean I know this thing is fast, but I'm pretty sure it isn't the fastest: I believe that honor goes to the x, the first space plane It's top recorded speed was about 6.
But it could only fly for about a minute You should watch real engineering's video on it, it's pretty incredible Nvm, I'm not sure of the authenticity of my source for the x, and the x might not be in the same category as the sr, as it's not an air-breathing vessel, using rocket propulsion The sr is the fastest air-breathing plane Over all I think I probably shouldn't have commented on this, but I thought there'd be a way to delete my posts Hello Sam Blackwelder I think I can help you with your question.
I think your problem is that you are using the speed of sound at sea level - about mph - to try and calculate the speed in mph at high altitude for 3. The speed of sound in air is not a constant. The speed of sound in air at sea level is a lot faster than the speed of sound at 80, ft.
Actually the speed of sound is a function of the temperature of the air, not the altitude, and the air temperature is a lot colder at 80, ft than it is at sea level.
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