h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I thought some of you might enjoy this story from 'The History Guy' on the old Youtube. It's about the pilot who survived the high-altitude disintegration of his supersonic spy plane. It's technical, but worth it for the combination of hair-raising experience and near-unbelievable sang froid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRyIGTkcmII

My favourite line was, 'The pilot's first thought was "No one could live through what just happened. Therefore, I must be dead."'

The comments are worth reading. Lots of aeronautical know-how on display. scientists abound.

The SR-71 incident took place in the 1950s. You know, that antique period of history which the 21st Century looks down on as the Dark Ages and the Post Editor refers to as 'my black-and-white childhood'. Which brings me to the fascinating Twitter event last night. It involves a show called 'Stranger Things', but you don't have to know the show to understand what happened - you just have to know a millennial or two.

http://twitter.com/TSSteinbacher/status/1154886776164671489/photo/1

The ensuing discussion mostly takes two forms:

1. 'I feel so old because I know what this is. It is terrible to be old and know things.'
2. 'If you rag on this child for not knowing, you are guilty of unpleasant elitism.'

I will refrain from comment other than raucous laughter.

We landed our C-124 at Kadena AFB at dawn in 1967. As I walked toward flight operations for a weather briefing I saw a strange black aircraft land and taxi quickly into a hanger.

"What was that aircraft that just landed", I asked.

"You didn't see any aircraft, Lieutenant.", I was told.

The single-seat A-12 first flew in April 1964 and flew missions over Viet Nam and North Korea until it was replaced by the two-seat SR-71 in 1968.

The SR-71 started flying Viet Nam missions in 1968, so what I saw was an A-12.

12 of the 32 SR 71's were lost in accidents...the rest seem to be parked in various locations around the US as curious mementoes...

Here is a picture of an SR-71 parked at the Tuscon Air Museum in New Mexico...The museum is new to sprawling Davis-Montham AFB boneyard where old military aircraft go to be mothballed or cut up for scrap.

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/_oPe97virjyY/RwJCAyZvAxI/AAAAAAAABFo/uhbS7n1LBUg/s1600-h/P1010043.JPG

The air intake to the engines had to be stepped down to subsonic. This required some tricky technology controlled by an analog computer system which sometimes had difficulty keeping up with changing conditions and led to aircraft losses such as the one being discussed here.

When the computers were upgraded to digital, such losses were reduced.

Wow. That's interesting to know, thanks!