This Is Pictures.

[ohthejosh]

[JasonC]

Ah yes, the Dragon Lady. Lets put it this way, hanging from my ceiling I have a U2C, a TR1, SR71 and sitting in boxes I have a YF12 and an attempt to build an A12 out of an SR71. Anyone see a trend here?

As for the U2 program, yes it has its downfalls, the biggest being the plane is hard to fly, (it will stall very easily, and when it does, it rips the wings off as it goes down. In a high altitude turn its possible to stall the inside wing and over speed the outside one) its slow, and it has a pretty good sized radar signature. Still, its an amazing airplane. The book "Dragon Lady" by Chris Pocock is excellent. The problem with drones is that they are no faster than the U2, and can be both shot down, and hacked and recovered by the other side (as we have seen in the recent past.) Not exactly a good use of taxpayers money. It makes sense to use the TR1/U2R because at the very least, they can't be hacked and recovered by the other side. Also the program is so old that its payed for. The expense is upkeep, and upgrades. That makes things a lot cheaper than to design and build a new prototype aircraft to do the same task. The SR71 and U2 were best used as a 1-2 punch, the SR rips down someones boarder and initiates all the surface to air radar and the U2 sits just out of missile range and does ELINT (electronic intelligence gathering) where it can loiter for a long time. The trouble is, they still can't fly over a sensitive/denied airspace area without being shot down. There is still only one aircraft that could fill that roll, and currently they are all in museums.:curse: I think the program could be restarted, but there are no pilots to fly them, and no 2 seat trainer that is flyable (both #956 and 981 had the wing spars cut when they were sent off to the museums. I'd guess the single A12 trainer had its wings clipped as well, but perhaps not). That said, the original A12 guys didn't have a sim, and figured out how to fly a totally new airplane the likes of which had never been seen before. Now, if an attempt to restart the SR program were to be made, the nearly new Sim is sitting at Boeing field. (NASA spent about $30M on it to bring it up to standards in '97 I think) The Spares collection would have to come from the aircraft in museums that have had their wings clipped (most of them). I can think of 5 that could be flown again with a lot of effort, 960 (at Castle AFB) was flown in, so its wings are intact, 980 was the last one to fly (Edwards AFB) , 971 (Evergreen Air and Space Museum in McMinnville Or) was disassembled and trucked there, but it was done in a manor that did not cut the wing spar. 963 was canablized for parts in the '70s but is still sitting at Beale afb with an intact airframe, 972 is sitting in the Smithsonian Air and space museum just as it landed after setting the transcontinental record, LA to D.C. 972 also happens to be "Jetfire" from Transformers. 979 was also flown to its current location at Lackland AFB in Texas. Before anyone brings up the cost to fly an SR71, yes, its high, but so is flying a U2 (it still needs tankers to refuel it, plus forward operating locations, and the people to man all of those.) I found a site that broke down the cost to fly an SR vs a U2 and it was about the same, the SR just flew farther and did the job a lot faster.
Check out www.Habu.org, its a pretty cool website devoted to the SR71 program.

Since this is a pictures thread...
[SNIP]

Enjoy,
Will

have you seen our aviation thread? www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=105691

[ohthejosh]

[a3ternus]

[george graves]

Build thread PLEASE? How do you go 5 lug with a e21? Heck - makes me want to get an e21 to play with!

[Kershaw]

anything is possible.

[mechdonald]

Build thread PLEASE? How do you go 5 lug with a e21? Heck - makes me want to get an e21 to play with!

That's not 5 lug - he's only using 2 :D

[Holland]

Those SR-71 posts were super awesome.

[dannyyisntt]

Because no snow.

[george graves]

anything is possible.

That's not 5 lug - he's only using 2 :D

I see what you did there.

[BlackbirdM3]

have you seen our aviation thread? www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=105691

Nope, haven't found that one. I have TONS of stuff I could add to that.

Will

[sweet6e30]

this. wow

[A_Whelan]

SR71 is one of my top three planes. Such engineering tech and it's beautiful! And your car next to it looks sexy.

That E21 is crazy, there is a build thread on SW somewhere but I can't find it.

[george graves]

[george graves]