Comments on: SR-71 Wallpaper

By: casemods

casemods — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 23:25:03 +0000

Looks more like the boat from McHales’ navy, the_duck

www.wonderworksweb.com/ftpfolder/Photo/pictures/image111.jpg

By: the_duck

the_duck — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 16:06:32 +0000

Looks like they’re possibly working on its successor, the SR-72: www.airforcetimes.com/news/2007/06/airforce_sr72_070617/

It’ll be unmanned & capable of flying twice the speed of the SR-71, at about 4,000 mph. Damn, that’s fast.

By: casemods

casemods — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 03:21:02 +0000

This reminded me of the band.

By: Kaze

Kaze — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 22:51:22 +0000

I live in San Antonio, and am priviledged to be able to go and see one of the last remaining non-degutted planes in existence.

There are three left in existence to my knowledge, and one that is still capable of flight. One of those three is located in Lackland AFB, in San Antonio TX.

By: grog

grog — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 21:05:42 +0000

Unfortunately, all the Blackbirds are retired. The first retirement was around ’88, then 3 were brought back into service in the early 90′s, but killed again in 97. The last flight of a Blackbird was in 99 by NASA. All of the aircraft, including the A-12, YF-12 , M-12 and SR-71 models are now in museums.
Check out the timeline and locations of the airframes at sr-71.org
She was a beautiful aircraft, but with the advancement of drones, digital images that can be relayed back in real time and all the other tech advancements, it didn’t justify the estimated 100k an hour to operate it.

By: tiki god

tiki god — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 19:56:42 +0000

from what I understand, they retired it, and then un-retired it, and they’re still flying them for military uses. I know that NASA still maintains a small fleet of them too

By: drdrewusaf

drdrewusaf — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 19:35:54 +0000

No the F-117 is a fighter, not for intelligence/surveillance/reconnaissance (ISR). I’m pretty sure no aircraft (other than the predators) have been made specifically for ISR since the SR-71. It was retired, though, for costing too much to sustain. I saw a recent article that stated, as fact, that a replacement is on it’s way soon. I can’t find the article now, but I think the Lockheed Aurora was what the article described as the replacement.

By: natakamus

natakamus — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 18:52:46 +0000

I thought the SR-71 Blackbird was retired in favor of the F-117?

By: the_duck

the_duck — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 18:42:14 +0000

I found one on the deck of an aircraft carrier…pretty large plane:

maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&z=19&ll=40.764456,-74.00002&spn=0.000892,0.002682&t=k&om=1

By: mAgnUS BUTTfoorson

mAgnUS BUTTfoorson — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 18:02:14 +0000

One word: Cobra.