Grist for the Flyboys

[fallingwickets]

THE first thing visitors encounter in the main display area of the Udvar-Hazy Center, the National Air and Space Museum annex near Dulles airport in the Virginia countryside, is a huge black spy plane.

It’s an SR-71A Blackbird, the ultimate hot-rod aircraft, one of about 30 built at the Lockheed Skunk Works in California in the 1960s. This one last flew in 1990, traveling the 2,300 miles between Los Angeles and Washington in 1 hour 4 minutes 20 seconds — a transcontinental blur.

But now it’s at a standstill, giving visitors the chance to appreciate its outrageousness. There are the two massive engines on short, stubby wings; the tiny cockpit where the two-man crew was shoehorned in wearing bulky pressure suits; and the sweeping titanium fuselage that was built so loosely, to allow for expansion in the heat of supersonic flight, that the fuel tanks that made up the bulk of the plane routinely leaked, losing as much as 600 pounds of fuel taxiing to the runway.

The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., is about air and space, yes, but as the Blackbird shows, it’s also about frozen time. More than 150 aircraft and spacecraft that in their day were among the swiftest or slowest, most graceful or ungainly, most useful or useless, sit on the floor and hang among the catwalks of this giant hangar of a museum as if plucked from the sky.

For Washington visitors whose encounters with the Air and Space Museum have been limited to the original 1976 building some 30 miles away on the National Mall, the Udvar-Hazy Center, which opened in 2003 and is named for a major donor, an aviation industry executive, can be quite a different experience. There are fewer “name” aircraft like the Spirit of St. Louis to gawk at, no moon rocks to touch, and while as in the Mall building there can be hordes of schoolchildren, their noise tends to dissipate in the cavernous arched structure. Over all, with more than twice the exhibition space and about one-fifth the visitors, the Virginia museum has a quieter, more worshipful feel.

“There’s no frou-frou here,” said Janet Baltas, one of the museum’s nearly 200 volunteer docents, who can become so absorbed in describing the planes that their free tours often continue beyond the scheduled two hours.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/tr ... ir.html?hp

[Big Ren]

...and the sweeping titanium fuselage that was built so loosely, to allow for expansion in the heat of supersonic flight, that the fuel tanks that made up the bulk of the plane routinely leaked, losing as much as 600 pounds of fuel taxiing to the runway.

Ren

[Gene]

...and the sweeping titanium fuselage that was built so loosely, to allow for expansion in the heat of supersonic flight, that the fuel tanks that made up the bulk of the plane routinely leaked, losing as much as 600 pounds of fuel taxiing to the runway.

Ren

I read that the airframes had an almost unlimited life expectancy, because the heat from the friction of their passage through the atmosphere was so high that they essentially were reforged every time they flew.

Also - the pilots routinely enjoyed hot meals while in the air because they held their food packets against the fuselage to warm them up.

[Trumperman]

The Udvar-Hazy Center is a great place to visit. I went there a few years ago to look at a glider that was the same type that my father and uncle built in the late 1930's. I had only seen pictures of the glider as they sold it when the war broke out and was amazed when I got to see the actual aircraft in person. It was a moving moment for me to say the least. Here's a picture:




I would highly recommend a visit there .


Regards,

Bill

[slcsteve]

For more SR-71 stories, pick up a copy of SR-71 BLACKBIRD written by Richard H. Graham Col. USAF (Ret). He was one of those that flew that legendary plane. Covers the background and development as well as personal stories from the pilots.

[rustyblade]

http://blogs.jobdig.com/wwds/2007/11/19 ... -airplane/

[wenestvedt]

Possibly from the same source, a story illustrated with some "found" photos:
http://www.tom-phillips.info/images.a/s ... ckbird.htm

Also, I don't care if this is Photoshopped or not:
http://www.tom-phillips.info/images/coo ... ge.249.jpg

[slcsteve]

I'm not impressed. After all I flew one of these at over 100 knots-with the doors open. Try that on your SR-71.

[wenestvedt]

I think I flew in one of those in high school, with the doors open -- but nice and low. (The "seat belts" on those cloth-and-tubing seats didn't inspire much confidence!)

Good ol' JROTC...

- Will

[Hraefn]

The SAC muesum in omaha neb has a black bird as well as a bunch of other military aircraft.