LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

The Blackbirds were based at a number of places, such as Rome, NY; Mindenhall, UK; Kadena, and a number of others, depending on the needs of the time. Their unit may have been assigned to Beale, but the 'Birds were spread around as needed. While passing through Guam on my way back to 'Nam in '69 I saw one taxi in.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

Here's the story, along with a lot of other interesting stuff:

http://www.rb-29.net/html/03RelatedStories/03.10.FunStuff/16.humorinair.htm

Photoninny Loc: Monterey Bay Area

And the plane was designed in 1959!
For those of you in the Pacific Northwest, there is an SR71 at the Evergreen Air & Space museum in McMinnville OR. It sits under the wing of Hughes' spruce goose.
Lockheed's original designation was A12 for the CIA black project Oxcart. Flight tests were conducted at Groom Lake, NV; also known as Area 51. For a decent history of the project, see "Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base" by Annie Jacobsen

Caysnowman Loc: MN & SC

Could be but you could drop a lit cigarette into a bucket (JP-7) of it and it would not ignite.

Bill

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

The MIG-25 wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Totally "stainless" steel (the kind that actually will rust and did on the MIG-25) and no range. In other words, pretty much useless. It wasn't even a close match for the SR-71. And the SR-71 could even out run it. The engines on the SR-71 were capable of taking the plane to speeds that would cause catastrophic structure failure (and we are not talking about the declassified Mach 3.25 design speed). An absolutely amazing plane that will only be surpassed by the whenever it is built SR-72.

wlgoode Loc: Globe, AZ

Wow, the whole plane is the engine. Looks like a fountain pen!!!

bemused_bystander Loc: Orkney Islands, UK

Really interesting info on a fascinating aircraft. There will never be anything like it.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

I had an associate that flew the Blackbird. One of the few stories he could talk about were things like the fuel leaking out. He indicated that the wings leaked up to the point that they heat up. He indicated once at altitude and speed, one could look out over the wings and they would be covered with this flickering cold blue glow. At altitude and speed the leaked jet fuel would ignite and produce that blue glow until it all burned off. Some of the declassified stories talked about Vietnam fly overs and the SAM missiles shot at them. A new pilot saw the instruments indicate that SAM missiles had been launched at him and they were coming up fast. Did they want him to abort the mission? They radioed back to turn on the Electronic Counter Measures and follow standard procedures for SAMs. Since SAMs were not fast enough, they had to get above a SR -71 to gain speed to even have a chance at shooting it down. The pilot watched as they arched up and started down. And then they would lose speed as they ran out of fuel and fell out of the sky. The SAMs never even got close enough ever for a pilot to even break out a sweat.

kb6kgx Loc: Simi Valley, CA

Maybe all of the US-based Blackbirds were at Beale? I haven’t heard they were based anywhere else.

Marc-Wi Loc: Oshkosh Wi

Pilot didn't run the radio, that was the RO's job.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

The Mig 25 was not designed to match the SR-71. It was strictly an interceptor. It wasn't even designed for speed as we normally think of it and it definitely was not designed to dogfight. The F4 Phantom was not known for its manuverability yet even it could out turn the Mig 25. The Mig was designed to get airborne with a heavy load of air-to-air missiles and get to altitude quickly to attack incoming bomber formations. Thus the huge engines. It didn't need long range. It had a huge radar in the nose that augmented the ground tracking. The pilot did little more then turn it on. Ground control would vector the pilot to the targets and tell the pilot when to fire missiles. He would then return to refuel and rearm. A somewhat typical Soviet system. The plane was built out of aluminum with plain steel covering hi-temp areas such as the leading edges of the wings and stabilizers. Exposed rivet heads in some areas made it look crude but examination showed that in those areas there was no aerodynamic penalty. The radar used vacuum tubes. The Soviets couldn't get the proper transistors from the West so they simply developed some of the finest vacuum tubes ever made. Our intelligence and technical people who examined the first Mig 25 that we got our hands on in 1975 first laughed at some of its crude aspects but on closer inspection were quite impressed at what the Soviets had done. They remarked that they could show us a few things about getting the most out of what you have to work with. They designed a single purpose aircraft that, in all likelihood would have performed quite well if it had been needed. Attempts since then to broaden the Mig 25's usefulness have met with limited success.
In Brian Shul's book "The Untouchables" he details a mission over Libya after the bombing in the '80's. A good portion of the flight was flown at maximum afterburner due to the missile threat. He admitted to seeing some scary Mach numbers on the gauges, primarily because the plane had never flown that fast before, but there was never a hint of danger to the airframe. In his words, the plane performed flawlessly.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

Beale was the home of the Blackbirds, but detachments operated out of a number of locations, often for long periods of time. Known operations took place from bases in NY, NC, Alaska, UK, Okinawa, Norway and the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

kb6kgx Loc: Simi Valley, CA

So I said “pilot”. In this case, generic term. My mistake.

Marc-Wi Loc: Oshkosh Wi

Lately there has been a lot of SR71 interest. Seems to be all over. Twice in as many weeks I've read the excerpt from "Sled Driver" where Brian Schul tells of the radio and speed story. Once was on a friends facebook page and I am certain the other time was on this forum. It's a great segment to read if you can find it.
As an aside, both my friend and I were in the Air Force doing photo intel. Great images, better than anything else we looked at.
Have a Merry Christmas.

Caysnowman Loc: MN & SC

IIRC, Beale was the home base but like many flight crews of all services, various lengths of TDY were VERY common; I would imagine they would use a base for extended period of time depending on circumstances. Bill