The world’s fastest aircraft
The SR-71 spy plane, the most advanced member of the Blackbird family that included the A-12 and YF-12, was designed by a team of Lockheed personnel led by Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, then vice president of Lockheed’s Advanced Development Company Projects, commonly known as the “Skunk Works” and now a part of Lockheed Martin. The Blackbird completed its first flight on Dec. 22, 1964.
Throughout its nearly 24-year career, the SR-71 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.
SR-71 pilot Jim Shelton and SR-71 RSO Gary Coleman received the 1973 Trophy for the recon and crew of the for flying the longest Blackbird operational sortie ever: 11 hours and 19 minutes during the Yom Kippur War.
Before they took off on that long flight, they had to get the Blackbird from Beale to Griffiss Air ForceBase (AFB).
SR-71 Blackbird making a shockwave from Indiana to New York State
Shelton recalls in Rich Graham’s book SR-71 Blackbird: Stories, Tales, and Legends;
‘On short notice, we took off in SR-71 #979 and headed for Griffiss Air Force Base with one in-flight refueling over Nevada as we headed east at Mach 3 at 80,000 feet. Our route took us south of Chicago and north of Indianapolis. Passing south of Chicago, I said to Gary, “I can see the lights of Chicago out the left window.” The lights of Indianapolis on the right were so clear that we must have been creating quite a sonic boom that was touching the ground and disturbing many people.
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‘However, it turned out to be worse than I thought, as indicated by the articles that appeared in the newspaper on October 12, 1973, when the shockwave stretched from Indiana to New York State.’
Jim says he laughed at the media quotes when Dr. Alexander, a Penn State Expert, said it was conceivable it could’ve been a meteorite entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
‘Do you think that we were going to tell the world that they were wrong that it was really an SR-71 going to Griffith Air Force Base?’
Sonic booms
Shelton concludes;
‘At Beale there was an office that handled sonic boom complaints on a full-time basis. The office received boom complaints from everyone and anyone farmers claimed that their cows would not give milk anymore, chickens wouldn’t lay eggs.’
Be sure to check out Linda Sheffield Miller (Col Richard (Butch) Sheffield’s daughter, Col. Sheffield was an SR-71 Reconnaissance Systems Officer) Twitter Page Habubrats SR-71 and Facebook Page Born into the Wild Blue Yonder for awesome Blackbird’s photos and stories.
The book Ohio to Supersonic: Flying the SR-71 Blackbird to the secret world of the Skunk Works by Colonel Richard “E.” Butch Sheffield and Linda Marie Sheffield is available to order here.
Photo credit: Lockheed Martin and U.S. Air Force