Seeing Blackbird fly again after all these years would be incredible. I'd love to know what NASA has planned for it.

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[–] 17 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

the sr-71 is definitely not a scramble-able plane:

  • it leaks fuel when on the ground (it shrinks when cold) so it's stored empty,
  • it's as aerodynamic as a brick when subsonic so it needs an insanely long runway, and
  • it has an always-on afterburner so it burns an alarming amount of fuel.

when they were doing surveys of iraq during desert storm they had to field a fleet of eight tanker planes over the indian ocean just so the damn thing would make it from japan to the gulf.

Edit: oh and those are specially designed tanker planes because of course it uses JP-7 so they needed separate tanks for that and their own fuel. they also needed to be able to refuel at like 850km/h or the blackbird would just drop out of the sky.

love that plane.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Iirc it starts nearly empty and is only fueled up in the air, so basically no way around tanker planes.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    that's apparently not true, it would take off with half fuel because the landing gear could buckle under the full weight.

    even with a full tank it could only go for about 90 minutes though so anything nontrivial did indeed require a tanker.

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