Fall and Rise of the Blackbird. This was originally posted on Skunk Works on 1. October 1. 99. 5 by Art Hanley. K total. Enjoy.- John. Stone. Fall and Rise of the Blackbird. Since there's been a lot of discussion lately about bringing back the SR- 7. I thought I'd throw the following in for your consideration. 05.10.2013 Hausen am Albis/ MG Affoltern a.A Fantastisch das Flugbild dieser SR-71 Blackbird mit einer BehotecTurbine, selber alle Teile am CAD entworfen und selber gefr! RC Flight Show 05.10.2013. SR-71 Questions and Thoughts about the Blackbird. Kelly Johnson cancelled the program when a D-21 was launched into the area behind the. How much did the SR-71 Blackbird cost? Would you like to merge this question into it? Would you like to make it the primary. The humble purpose of this page is to analyze the planning of the Soviet Union to defeat the SR 71 program and with its goal shall be important understanding the complex and still secret fighters as: MiG 25P Foxbat.
It all based on open sources, conversations with people involved with the program and some personal experience. Don't take anything in it as gospel, but I hope this rather lengthy (4,3. Keep in mind that all of the mind- numbing prose that follows is just me, private citizen, so don't blame anyone else. This has NOTHING to do with where I work. Why the Blackbird Went Away. The most common official reasons given were that getting too old to maintain and/or it was too expensive. Another reason was that satellites could do it all. A third reason that was never stated officially, but was widely believed, was that the Blackbird was being retired because a superior replacement was entering service (. At least two of those reasons don't hold up. The SR- 7. 1 structurally at the time of its retirement was not suffering from any fatigue problems. In fact, because of the heating/cooling it went through on each sortie, the airframe was actually stronger than it had ever been. The SR- 7. 1 is the only USAF jet to see extended service that never suffered from cracking. Partswise, except for the actual airframe itself, parts for the aircraft were in good supply. There were more than enough of many components (including engines) in storage to last as far out as you wanted to project. In addition to also being able to cannibalize retired or broken Blackbirds, many of the remaining needed parts and supplies could be fabricated. We couldn't rework titanium, but we could manufacture many parts again. We couldn't build new SR- 7. Robert Mc. Namara, in one of his series of colossally stupid moves, ordered to tooling destroyed in the late 1. Logisticswise, the plane was in good shape. In fact, there are still hundreds of millions of dollars of parts, already paid for, in stock. Regarding cost, the SR was not cheap, but not out of line for a plane of its era, especially when you consider its unique mission. We know that the cost of running the SR fleet in the 1. This included a much larger fleet of SRs flying many more missions as well as a large portion of the operation of Beale AFB being charged to the SR program, two detachments of two SRs each, tanker support and the USAF's enormous overhead. For comparison purposes, open literature puts the cost of one Titan launch at $2. Titan blew up on launch) to $3. ABC News (consider the source) has stated that the cost of a single recon. I'm NOT saying that SR- 7. Bogus comparisons have been made about the hourly cost of flying an SR. It ain't cheap, but it ain't the cost of . Welch said a few years back when he was killing the SRs. Estimates from some knowledgeable sources say it cost $5. SR on a routine basis. It also wasn't a lack of work that sent the Blackbirds into retirement, there were far more requests for SR- 7. The SR- 7. 1 was retired for a much more mundane reason: It wasn't a very popular plane with the people in power. The SR- 7. 1 was assigned to SAC. SAC, though, didn't really see the plane as contributing to SAC's mission (dropping bombs) or image, and it had always been somewhat of an akward fit. It also saw the SR- 7. Further, unlike its various C- 1. U- 2, the SR- 7. 1 couldn't loiter, nor did anyone ever promise that it could (although with some of its planned upgrades it could perform more functions than it was then doing). There are numbers of documented cases that show, quite simply, SAC didn't want the airplane. In addition, here was a plane that couldn't bomb or shoot down anything, yet what was the most sought- after aircraft for airshows and most spectacular in the general public's eye? This didn't endear the plane to a lot of people. Any system needs a patron, and Senior Crown wasn't too fortunate in this area. USAF did have one legitimate complaint against the aircraft. The biggest users of the SR- 7. CIA, for obvious reasons, State and the Navy. The Navy had for years operated what was essentially a Mach 2, shorter legged SR- 7. RA- 5. C. When the Vigilante was retired, the Navy suffered a severe loss of recon capability. Although the F- 1. TARPS system, that system has been held back while there are repeated attempts to give the Navy's Designated Wonderplane, the F/A- 1. As a result, the Navy has been an enthusiastic proponent of the SR- 7. It is quite familiar with what a rapidly responding asset like the SR- 7. USAF didn't choose to use most of the kind of intelligence the SR could gather. However, funding for the SR- 7. USAF's budget, where it competed with other programs USAF wanted more. There had been proposals to treat the SR as a national asset and fund it accordingly, but these moves were blocked at various levels. There was also limited talk of the USN funding the program, but this also went nowhere. I don't know any of the details, but one can surmise one hurdle: If you're the Navy are you going to fund an aircraft that isn't yours? If you're USAF, you may not want the plane, but there's no way you're going to let anyone paint . They considered the SR- 7. By their very nature, satellite successes (and failures) tended to be very hush- hush and here was the SR- 7. Further there was the oft stated opinion by many that satellites could do anything needed better than anything else. While they are marvelous devices, this has never been true. The SR- 7. 1 flying around tended to gainsay the omnipotent image of satellites. In the 1. 98. 0s, opposition to the SR operations got stronger in a number of areas. Already planned sensor and maintainability upgrades were cancelled, and then because the SR couldn't perform the function an upgrade was supposed to do, this was given as a reason why the SR wasn't capable enough. To cite some examples, much was made of the fact that the SR- 7. Datalink for the SR- 7. SR- 7. 1 in 1. 98. USAF ordered that the system not be installed on the SR- 7. TR- 1. The reactivated SR- 7. Another example was the laser communications system for the SR- 7. This would have allowed over- the- horizon secure data communication with field commanders via satellite. It reached the prototype stage and was ordered killed. When reports from the field and their own studies indicated that SAC recon. Electro- optical sensor additions were zeroed out. Personnel rotation policies also were used against the SR. Because of its unique nature, the SR required service personnel that had a higher level of experience than other aircraft. USAF recognized this for many years and didn't rotate support personnel as often. In the 1. 98. 0s, this policy changed and maintenance personnel went on the normal USAF rotation, lowering the experience level and increasing the mmh/fh ratio, which was then trumpeted as . There were also options explored to further reduce the annual cost of the SR fleet, down to around $1. These would have involved greater use of contractor personnel, feasible on such a specialized, limited quantity aircraft, but were turned down as was the plan to permanently base (instead of operating as a Detachment) two SRs in England. The most damaging thing, though, that happened was a T- 3. April, 1. 98. 5. General Jerry O' Malley was aboard, on his way to an official speaking engagement. He understood the nature of the SR- 7. He was likely to become the Air Force Chief of Staff in 1. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs after that. When he was killed, Gen Welch went on to become chairman, and he was known as being hostile to the SR- 7. This was when the SR- 7. The SR- 7. 1 had lost its constituency inside the Beltway, and it was just a matter of time before it was killed. This isn't unique to the Air Force. I can think examples of the same kind of thing happening in the Army and the Navy, including some going on right now. Finally, Secretary of Defense Cheney, who didn't like the plane when he was a Congressman, was persuaded to kill the SR- 7. Congress' willingness to continue funding the program. The actual retirement of the SR- 7. Usually, when a major aircraft goes out of service, there are very high ranking officials present and numerous tributes are offered to the aircraft. At the retirement of the SR- 7. It's well known that the SR- 7. Smithsonian established new speed records, as the Smithsonian requested. What isn't well known is that the Air Force initially refused the request for a record flight, and in fact kept trying to block it up until the last minute. It took the personal intervention of Sen. John Glenn to permit the record flight to take place. Even then, the crew was instructed to fly a conservative by- the- book profile, which was unnecessary considering that this was to be the aircraft's last flight ever. After the arrival of 1. Dulles, USAF made no effort to help the Smithsonian in its preservation and it was left to deteriorate in the D. C. The bird is now in a climate- controlled hangar, but that hangar was donated by the hangar manufacturer. One would expect that USAF would have pushed the PR value of this flight for all it was worth, but if you review the publicity of the time, you'll find it didn't come from there. Why It Came Back. Naturally, Blackbird supporters said this all was a big mistake, but it seemed to be a moot point and would always remain a . Ironically, less than a year after the record flight it became apparent just how wrong this decision was. When Desert Shield began, Gen. Schwarzkopf was reported to have asked for the SR- 7. I can't confirm this). It is known that very soon after Saddam moved into Kuwait, USAF approached Lockheed and asked how long it would take to restore SR- 7. Lockheed's response was that depending on the priority and if USAF could supply the sensor packages (USAF had them and even Lockheed didn't know where they were), the first one could be operational in 1.
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