And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Wrong style fence. Pretty sure that’s RAF Mildenhall in the UK. Those are standard issue Ministry of Defence posts and the buses have the doors on the left indicating right hand drive. I’d venture early 80’s based on the OD green buses . Mildenhall had a handful of SR-71’s during tye 70’s & 80’s. Used to see them shooting approaches regularly while I was stationed at RAF Bentwaters throughout the 80’s.
I would be totally pissed if I were around those buses when it passed over.
My first encounter with a Blackbird was in March or so of 1971. I was involved in a field exercise on Okinawa. It was an overcast day with a low cloud cover. I heard the sound, and then looked up to see a black object appear out of the clouds at perhaps a few hundred feet. I was gobsmacked. I had no idea that such a weird-looking aircraft existed.
They were stationed at Kadena AFB. I would see them regularly sitting on the runway waiting to take off. I heard that pilots had to sit inside them for an hour after landing just to let them cool down enough to exit the aircraft. I do not personally know if this was true. I was also told that their fuel tanks leaked fuel on the runway and did not seal until the aircraft got to a sufficient altitude.
Made a deployment to Kadena with a Navy Patrol Squadron in 1981. We could always tell when Habu was getting ready to go flying, because the chain link fence at the departure end of the runway would be packed with people and cameras.
It was like the locals were getting a copy of the flight schedule or something.
More than once, I'd look out my window (port side, aft) when we were at the hold short and the people in the crowd were doing the "You move! You move!" wave at us.
Not so much altitude, but speed. They needed to heat up the skin to get the butt-edged joints to expand and seal. They ran the fuel all around the aircraft to soak up heat in critical surfaces and warm the fuel so it would burn properly. Aircraft sat in puddles of fuel on the ground while being serviced for flight.
" Quickly reaching the field boundary, we proceeded back to Mildenhall without incident. We didn’t say a word for those next 14 minutes. After landing, our commander greeted us, and we were both certain he was reaching for our wings. Instead, he heartily shook our hands and said the commander had told him it was the greatest SR-71 fly-past he had ever seen, especially how we had surprised them with such a precise maneuver that could only be described as breathtaking. He said that some of the cadet’s hats were blown off and the sight of the plan form of the plane in full afterburner dropping right in front of them was unbelievable. Walt and I both understood the concept of “breathtaking” very well that morning and sheepishly replied that they were just excited to see our low approach. As we retired to the equipment room to change from space suits to flight suits, we just sat there-we hadn’t spoken a word since “the pass.” Finally, Walter looked at me and said, “One hundred fifty-six knots. What did you see?” Trying to find my voice, I stammered, “One hundred fifty-two.” We sat in silence for a moment. Then Walt said, “Don’t ever do that to me again!” And I never did."
Just north of Marysville
ReplyDeleteWrong style fence. Pretty sure that’s RAF Mildenhall in the UK. Those are standard issue Ministry of Defence posts and the buses have the doors on the left indicating right hand drive. I’d venture early 80’s based on the OD green buses . Mildenhall had a handful of SR-71’s during tye 70’s & 80’s. Used to see them shooting approaches regularly while I was stationed at RAF Bentwaters throughout the 80’s.
Deleteshockwave
ReplyDeleteSaw the Blackbird shooting touch and goes at Norton AFB in the mid '80s. Really loud.
ReplyDeleteMe too, same base, same time period. I noticed that the flame coming from the jet engine when they hit power was green, really odd.
DeleteAnonymous, that might have been because the J-58's burned JP-8 instead of the JP-4 the rest of us did.
DeleteI would be totally pissed if I were around those buses when it passed over.
ReplyDeleteMy first encounter with a Blackbird was in March or so of 1971. I was involved in a field exercise on Okinawa. It was an overcast day with a low cloud cover. I heard the sound, and then looked up to see a black object appear out of the clouds at perhaps a few hundred feet. I was gobsmacked. I had no idea that such a weird-looking aircraft existed.
They were stationed at Kadena AFB. I would see them regularly sitting on the runway waiting to take off. I heard that pilots had to sit inside them for an hour after landing just to let them cool down enough to exit the aircraft. I do not personally know if this was true. I was also told that their fuel tanks leaked fuel on the runway and did not seal until the aircraft got to a sufficient altitude.
Made a deployment to Kadena with a Navy Patrol Squadron in 1981. We could always tell when Habu was getting ready to go flying, because the chain link fence at the departure end of the runway would be packed with people and cameras.
DeleteIt was like the locals were getting a copy of the flight schedule or something.
More than once, I'd look out my window (port side, aft) when we were at the hold short and the people in the crowd were doing the "You move! You move!" wave at us.
Not so much altitude, but speed. They needed to heat up the skin to get the butt-edged joints to expand and seal. They ran the fuel all around the aircraft to soak up heat in critical surfaces and warm the fuel so it would burn properly. Aircraft sat in puddles of fuel on the ground while being serviced for flight.
DeleteWow! Excellent picture. That's one that I haven't seen before
ReplyDeletehttps://theaviationgeekclub.com/story-behind-famed-sr-71-blackbird-super-low-knife-edge-pass/
ReplyDelete" Quickly reaching the field boundary, we proceeded back to Mildenhall without incident. We didn’t say a word for those next 14 minutes. After landing, our commander greeted us, and we were both certain he was reaching for our wings. Instead, he heartily shook our hands and said the commander had told him it was the greatest SR-71 fly-past he had ever seen, especially how we had surprised them with such a precise maneuver that could only be described as breathtaking. He said that some of the cadet’s hats were blown off and the sight of the plan form of the plane in full afterburner dropping right in front of them was unbelievable. Walt and I both understood the concept of “breathtaking” very well that morning and sheepishly replied that they were just excited to see our low approach.
DeleteAs we retired to the equipment room to change from space suits to flight suits, we just sat there-we hadn’t spoken a word since “the pass.” Finally, Walter looked at me and said, “One hundred fifty-six knots. What did you see?” Trying to find my voice, I stammered, “One hundred fifty-two.” We sat in silence for a moment. Then Walt said, “Don’t ever do that to me again!” And I never did."