Interesting story. I don't know much of the SR-71. It obviously was superior to the U-2 Spy Aircraft. Francis Gary Powers, who piloted that Aircraft over the USSR in 1960, was shot down and captured during the Eisenhower Administration. He was released. He was an Air Force Officer, later recruited by the CIA for that mission. He ended up getting employment, as a helicopter pilot for a local Los Angeles TV station. He was sent out to do a TV news story, and the helicopter crashed, killing him. He was only 47 years old. Everyone in Southern California was shocked, saying. How unlucky he was. To have died from a helicopter crash, after surviving a CIA mission over Russia, piloting a U-2 Spy Aircraft. That helicopter crash happened in 1977.

Interesting story. I don't know much of the SR-71. It obviously was superior to the U-2 Spy Aircraft. Francis Gary Powers, who piloted that Aircraft over the USSR in 1960, was shot down and captured during the Eisenhower Administration. He was released. He was an Air Force Officer, later recruited by the CIA for that mission. He ended up getting employment, as a helicopter pilot for a local Los Angeles TV station. He was sent out to do a TV news story, and the helicopter crashed, killing him. He was only 47 years old. Everyone in Southern California was shocked, saying. How unlucky he was. To have died from a helicopter crash, after surviving a CIA mission over Russia, piloting a U-2 Spy Aircraft. That helicopter crash happened in 1977.

I am also an aviation nut. I have always loved airplanes and decided to become an aeronautical engineer in the fifth grade, which I did and then spent 35 years doing it. I'm in my 11th year of teaching part time at a local university (I started several months before I retired from NASA, where I worked mostly on space projects), where I teach lower division courses in aircraft design and aircraft turbine engines. They pay me to talk about airplanes. I also fly RC, mostly sailplanes and park flyers. I learned to fly RC sailplanes at the field in San Jose where the LSF was formed, with some of the guys that formed it. Life got too busy with a career and raising 5 children so I stopped the hobby for about 25 years, but got back into it in 2011 with a Radian and have been doing it ever since. I kept my airplanes when I quit flying and still fly three of my old sailplanes sometimes, with 2.4 radios in them now.

I'm aware of the LA Speed story; very cool. Many years ago when I was working for the Navy, I happened to be in Washington DC when they were lighting the National Christmas Tree, so I went. I was standing in the crowd and the "little old lady in tennis shoes" standing next to me struck up a conversation. When she found out why I was in Washington she asked if I was going to the Air & Space Museum for the SR-71 talk. I responded that the museum was closed now. She said parts of it opened in the evening for special events. After the tree lighting, I grabbed a quick dinner and went there. She was correct and there was a very interesting presentation with Q&A by an SR-71 test pilot. I was a great way to spend an evening!