SR-71 'Tour'

Built with a slide rule. Engineering at it finest.

 

Good info - haven't seen that one before
The plane eventually got a digital flight control system. As a young Aero engineer, I was tossed the unstart problem from a control law perspective. At cruise, a sideslip of 4 degrees or a rate of 4 degrees per second was considered a departure (loss of control). We implemented a code change to detect and react to an unstart (move the spikes). The pilots were so sensitive to it, they would catch it before the system and we had a heck of a time validating the fix!

 

Thank you for the video. I'm sure there is a ton more interesting stuff about it and its missions we won't hear for decades if ever. I don't see anything as badass as that being made ever again in my lifetime at least.

 

Maintaining subsonic air intake at supersonic speeds, manually. Fun times indeed.

I recall hearing about the spike issues during the late 70s. So cool to read from someone who was actually involved in mitigating the problem.


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Best part is they got the titanium from Russia.

 

And I saw engineering guys pounding the keys on a 26 digit Marchand calculator with a crank handle on the side.

 

I always marvel at the accomplishments of our engineers. Thanks to those who built these incredible machines. Maybe, prior to the space shuttles, the most complicated ones built? Certainly, operationally, over the top.

CW

 

I was looking at a stress analysis from 1953 (for something that is still flying incidentally) the other day and was seriously impressed with how well it was done. Perhaps it was just done by one of the top guys at the time, but it was much better than most of the analysis that gets done these days.

 

I worked with a stress analyst in the 60's and he said that the processes that he was using at the time on the Boeing structures was formulated by John Northrop in the 30's. It is still valid.

 

Last flight video. Love this plane