SR-71 Blackbird SR71
Long-Range Advanced Strategic Reconnaissance Aircraft

STRATEGY LIGHTS SERIES
p r e s e n t
BattleFleet Naval Strategy Games
with Battleships Dynamics Game Engine
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FREE
BATTLEFLEET GAME
45 Ship/Plane/Sub/Artillery types
20 Scenarios
18 Death Match Missions
2 Campaigns
Unit production
Various game objectives
Combat maps up to 96x96
Unit names and officer ranks are historic

S L S
( Size: 4.8 MB ) for Windows 98/XP/NT/Me/2000 Pentium 233 MHz, 32 MB RAM Current version: 1.26
HISTORY DATA
Pearl Harbor Overview
Pearl Harbor Japs forces
Pearl Harbor Japs Aircraft
Coral Sea
Doolitle Attack
Midway
Guadalcanal
Japan Capitulates
Battleship Bismarck
Normandy Invasion
USN Admirals
Japan Admirals
Torpedo Bombers
USN WW2 Fighters
USN WW2 Battleships
SLS NAVY DATA
Aircraft Carriers
Cruisers
Destroyers
Frigates
Patrol Ships
Attack Sumbarines
Missile Sumbarines
Assault Ships
F-14 Tomcat
F-18 Hornet
P-3C Orion
S-3B Viking
CH-46 Sea Knight
CH-53 Sea Stallion
H-3 Sea King
MH-53 Sea Dragon
SH-60 Seahawk
HH/UH-1N Iroquois
SR71 Blackbird
1 General characteristics
2 Variants
3 Details

United States Air Force SR-71 (Blackbird)
The Lockheed SR71, unofficially known as the Blackbird, is a long-range, advanced, strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed from the Lockheed A-12 and YF-12A aircraft by Lockheed's Skunkworks, which was also responsible for the U-2 and many other advanced aircraft.. The first flight of an SR-71 took place on December 22, 1964, and the first SR-71 to enter service was delivered to the 4200th (later, 9th) Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Beale AFB, California, in January 1966. The U.S. Air Force retired its fleet of SR-71s on January 26, 1990, because of a decreasing defense budget and high costs of operation. The USAF returned the SR-71 to the active Air Force inventory in 1995 and began flying operational missions in January 1997. The planes were permanently retired in 1998.
Throughout its nearly 30+ year career, the SR71 remained the world's fastest and highest-flying operational aircraft. From 80,000 feet it could survey 100,000 square miles of Earth's surface per hour. On July 28, 1976, an SR-71 set two world records for its class: an absolute speed record of 2,193.167 miles per hour and an absolute altitude record of 85,068.997 feet. When the SR-71 was retired in 1990, one was flown from Palmdale Airbase to go on exhibit at the Smithsonian Institute's National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C., setting a coast-to-coast speed record at an average 2124 miles per hour. The entire trip took only 68 minutes.

On March 21, 1968 Major (later General) Jerome F. O'Malley and Major Edward D. Payne made the first operational SR-71 sortie. During its career, this aircraft accumulated 2,981 flying hours and flew 942 total sorties (more than any other SR-71), including 257 operational missions, from Beale AFB, California; Palmdale, California; Kadena Air Base, Okinawa and RAF (Base) Mildenhall, England. The aircraft was flown to the United States Air Force Museum in March 1990.

Thirty-two planes were built. Of these, 12 were lost in flight accidents but all crews ejected safely.

The original designation for the aircraft was the RS-71. However when the aircraft was announced by Lyndon B. Johnson on February 29. 1964, Johnson accidentally switched the letters for the name of the aircraft, which forced Lockheed to instantly change the name of the aircraft.

Similar to the SR-71 were the A-11 and A-12 which were prototypes for the Blackbird, and the YF-12 which was an attempt to convert the SR71 into a long range fighter.



General characteristics

Variants

The most notable variant of the basic SR-71 design was the M-21. This was a SR-71 platform modified to carry and launch the D-21B drone, an unpiloted, faster and higher flying reconnaissance device. Confusingly this variant was known as the M-21 when drone was absent, and the MD-21 when it was attached to the plane. The D-21B drone was completely autonomous, having been launched it would overfly the target, travel to a rendevous point and eject its data package. The package would be recovered in midair by a C-130 Hercules and the drone would self destruct. The program to develop this system was canceled in 1966 after a drone crashed into the mother ship shortly after being launched, destroying the M-21 and killing the Launch Control Officer.

The only surviving D-21B drone from the M-21 program is on display at The Museum of Flight in Seattle, USA.

Details

The airframe was made of titanium. This titanium was obtained from Russia during the height of the cold war, so the builder used all possible guises to prevent the Russians from knowing what it was to be used for. In order to keep the costs under control, they used a lesser grade of titanium which softened at a lower temperature and then painted the aircraft black to dissipate heat.

Due to the great temperature changes occurring during flight, the fuselage panels were essentially loose. Proper alignment was only achieved when the airframe warmed up due to the air resistance at high speeds and expanded several inches. Because of this, and the lack of a fuel sealing system that could handle the extreme temperatures that the SR-71 flew at, the aircraft would actually leak its specially formulated JP-7 jet fuel onto the runway before it took off. The aircraft would quickly make a short sprint, meant to warm up the airframe, and was then air-to-air refueled before departing on its mission. Cooling was carried out by cycling fuel behind the titanium surfaces at the front of the wings (chines). Nonetheless, once the airplane landed no one could approach it for some time as its canopy was still hotter than 300 degrees celsius!

The SR-71 was one of the first stealthy aircraft. It incorporated radar absorbing materials to absorb radar and was shaped to have a the lowest radar signature they could make without requiring more computer power than they had at the time.

 

WW2 HISTORY DATA
Pearl Harbor Overview
Pearl Harbor Japanese Forces
Pearl Harbor Japanese Aircraft
Battle of the Coral Sea, 7-8 May 1942
Doolitle Raid on Japan, 18 April 1942
Battle of Midway, 4-7 June 1942
Guadalcanal Campaign, August 1942 - February 1943
Guadalcanal-Tulagi Invasion, 7-9 August 1942
Battle of the Philippine Sea
Battle of Iwo Jima Battle of Okinawa
Japan Capitulates
Battleship Bismarck
Battleships Tirpitz, Scharnhorst
WW2 Luftwaffe Planes - List of Aircraft
U-Boats Types 1, 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D
Kriegsmarine Submarines Types U-Flak, 7A, 7B, 7C, 7C/41, 7C/42, 7D, 7F
Kriegsmarine Submarines: U-Boats
Type 9A, 9B, 9C, 9C/40, 9D, 14
Kriegsmarine Submarines: Type XXI , Type XXIII
Grand Admiral Karl Donitz, Erich Raeder
HMS Prince of Wales Battleship, HMS Repulse,
HMS Ark Royal, HMS Hood Battlecruisers
Battle of the Atlantic
Normandy Invasion, June 1944
Normandy Invasion ,Crossing the English Channel on D-Day, 6 June 1944
Normandy Invasion- The D-Day Landings, 6 June 1944
USN WW2 Admirals
Imperial Japan Navy Admirals
Japan WW2 Fighters- Mitsubishi Zero
USN Battleships - Indiana Class, Kearsarge Class, Illinois Class, Maine Class, Virginia Class, Connecticut Class, Mississippi Class, South Carolina Class, Delaware Class, Florida Class, Wyoming Class, New York Class, Nevada Class, Pennsylvania Class, New Mexico Class, Tennessee Class, Colorado Class, South Dakota Class, Lexington Class, North Carolina Class, South Dakota Class, Iowa Class, Montana Class
USN WW2 Torpedo Bomber - Douglas TBD-1 Devastator
USN WW2 Fighters: Brewster F2A Buffalo, Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk
Grumman F3F, Grumman F4F Wildcat, General Motors FM-2 Wildcat
LOCKHEED P-38 LIGHTNING
REPUBLIC P-47 THUNDERBOLT
NORTH AMERICAN P-51 MUSTANG
NORTH AMERICAN F-82 TWIN MUSTANG
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, Boeing B-29 Superfortress
Consolidated B-24 D Liberator
North American B-25 Mitchell, Martin B-26 Marauder
Junkers Ju 87 Stuka
Dornier Do 17, Dornier Do 335 Pfeil
Messerschmitt Bf 109
MODERN USN NAVY DATA
USN Aircraft Carriers USS Kitty Hawk, Enterprise, John F. Kennedy, Nimitz, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Carl Vinson, Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, John C. Stennis, Harry S. Truman, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush
USN Cruisers 1 - USS Ticonderoga, Vincennes, Valley Forge, Thomas S. Gates, Bunker Hill, Mobile Bay, Antietam, Leyte Gulf, San Jacinto, Lake Champlain, Philippine Sea, Princeton, Normandy, Monterey
USN Cruisers 2 - USS Chancellorsville, Cowpens, Gettysburg, Chosin, Hue City, Shiloh, Anzio, Vicksburg, Lake Erie, Cape St. George, Vella Gulf, Port Royal
USN Destroyers
Amphibious Assault Ships - LHA/LHD/LHA(R) USS Wasp, USS Essex, USS Kearsarge, USS Boxer, USS Bataan, USS Bonhomme Richard, USS Iwo Jima, USS Makin Island, USS Tarawa, USS Saipan, USS Belleau Wood, USS Nassau, USS Peleliu
SSN Attack Sumbarines 1 USS Seawolf, Connecticut, Jimmy Carter, Virginia, Texax, Hawaii, North Carolina, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Memphis, Bremerton, Jacksonville, Dallas, La Jolla, City of Corpus Christi, Albuquerque, Portsmouth, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Hyman G. Rickover, Augusta, San Francisco, Houston, Norfolk, Buffalo, Salt Lake City, Olympia, Honolulu, Providence
SSN Attack Sumbarines 2 USS Pittsburgh, Chicago, Key West, Oklahoma City, Louisville, Helena, Newport News, San Juan, Pasadena, Albany, Topeka, Miami, Scranton, Alexandria, Asheville, Jefferson City, Annapolis, Springfield, Columbus, Santa Fe, Boise, Montpelier, Charlotte, Hampton, Hartford, Toledo, Tucson, Columbia, Greeneville, Cheyenne
SSBN Fleet Balistic Missile Sumbarines USS Georgia, USS Henry M. Jackson, USS Alabama, USS Alaska,USS Nevada, USS Pennsylvania, USS Kentucky, USS Tennessee, USS West Virginia, USS Maryland, USS Nebraska, USS Rhode Island, USS Maine, USS Wyoming, USS Louisiana, USS Ohio
USN Frigates
USN Patrol Ships
Anti-submarine aircraft - P-3C Orion S-3B Viking
USN FIGHTERS F-14 Tomcat F-18 Hornet
CH-46 Sea Knight, CH-53 Sea Stallion
H-3 Sea King MH-53 Sea Dragon
SH-60 Seahawk HH/UH-1N Iroquois
   
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