Need Haynes workshop Manual for my SR-71

But, the SR's flying out of Beal made some short training flights where they didn't do any in flight refueling. My Sgdn. Commander who went through the "up-grade" scheme that gave other pilots the chance to fly and theoretically qualify, in the SR, said that he made 30 minute training flights. No refueling.

It wasn't altitude that made the fuel cells leak it was temperatures.

I think that the take off and inflight refueling routine was more likely for longer flights. As I said, they took off from Beal and landed at Kadina, which is a longish flight.

I was at two bases where U-2's were stationed and they are a really close mouthed bunch. Keep the airplanes in the hanger and only let them out when they are flying :-)

One of the ground crew did tell me that preparing for a flight is a several hour long procedure as the pilot first makes his preflight inspection and then gets suited up and has to spend an hour or more breathing "pure oxygen" to purge nitrogen out of his blood. then he can go fly.

The ground crew guy said that the pilots get rather short tempered going through all that :-)

There is an SR-71 at the Boeing Air and Space Museum in Seattle. It is actually a variant, made to carry a drone on top. My brother and I went on a "tour" of the plane several years ago given by one of the SR-71 pilots. He told us that the planes did indeed drip fuel when on the ground and cool. He told the tour group about how the plane was fueled for spy missions. The engines the plane used were designed for use in a boat, not a plane. But they had the power neded so the CIA employed designers chose those engines. They still needed many modifications though. The fuel used for the missions served three functions. Besides fuel it was also used as the hydraulic fluid and as a coolant for the aircraft, the cockpit in particular. Before a mission a refueling plane was sent up to a high altitude where the air was really cold. It then flew around for a time in order to cool the fuel load. On the ground the SR-71 was lightly fueled with some sort of conventional jet fuel. When it was airborne the tanks were filled with the special fuel the plane needed to operate at the high temperatures it was heated to. The fuel was very hard to ignite. The pilot told us that just switching over from regular jet fuel to the special stuff while the engine was running would not ignite the special fuel. So a small cannister, I think he said it held a pint, of some sort of hypergolic fluid was used to ignite the operating jet fuel. Just a little was used each time the engines needed igniting, around an ounce I think. The pilot told us that the skin of the aircraft around the cockpit was heated to 650 degrees, which shows why it needed cooling. Other parts of the skin were heated to much higher temperatures. Behind the engines, in the exhaust path, the skin was not a titanium alloy, but was instead some sort of nickel alloy because this area was heated much hotter than the titanium alloys could endure. Interestingly, much of the titanium for the skin came from the USSR. At the time these planes were first built the USA didn't have the skills yet to make the titanium alloy sheet needed. So the CIA purchased the titanium sheet through several devious channels so that the USSR wouldn't find out it was supplying the USA. The pilot told us that none of the SR-71 aircraft were shot down. He also told us that the pilots could watch missles on radar approaching the aircraft and then falling short and missing. Oh, he also told us that the top speed was still classified and that the SR-71 was still the fastest jets made. Eric

Great description, Eric. Just one correction: The P&W J58 engine was designed for use in a jet-powered flying boat, not actually a boat. "J58" is a navy designation, which may have led to some confusion.

I forget the designation of the flying boat, but it was dropped when submarine-borne ballistic missiles became available. It was to be a high-speed, low-altitude nuclear bomber.

Here are the details. The hypergolic igniter fluid was triethylborane:

Wow, what a cool seaplane. Reading the history, I'm reminded that flying horizontal stabilizers cause a lot of control problems back in the '50s.

I bet. The pilot was a really nice guy. He stood by the plane waiting for security and guards. We were run off once they came.

It has been so long more than 50 years that I forget if I had my camera with me. I suspect so. Might have a shot on old slides or b&W as I did both and often had two cameras with me. I shot for AFRS (before television was added) and ran the chem lab in special services for the Army. Just had my film taken once. It was a flight of officers on a small jet headed for Viet Nam. One of those things - might have been someone there that didn't want tracking or identification. CIA or High Military staff.

We were 2500 N-Mi south west of Hawaii.

Mart> >

Ballistic missiles obsoleted many other clever advanced developments. Canada still blames us for the cancellation of their Avro Arrow bomber interceptor, ignoring that we abandoned substantially higher performing planes:

I was drenched by the launching splash of this early missile sub, another dead end:

-jsw

Possible but the implication in the original post was that if the plane didn't get air borne almost immediately it was too late. While my contention was that they weren't leaking that bad as I have been around the SR's for a limited time and they certainly weren't sitting there in a big puddle of JP-7.

Nope. According to the makers (Pratt & Whitney) the J-58 was originally developed for use in the Navy's Martin P6 aircraft.

But the CIA didn't design the SR and the engine was used ion the A-12, the YF-12 and later in the SR.

Inlet air at the design speed of 3.2 Mach was 800 degrees Fahrenheit and 85% of the fusalage was titanium because of the high temperatures created by the high speed.

The starting system included a cylinder of TED,- about 20 oz., said to be good for 16 starts.

I'm not sure about top speed but the SR before delivery to the A.F. was reported to have made 3.4 Mach flights.

Some of what you were told sounds like the very serius chap that told me about the "radar reflecting paint" used on the "secret" reconnaissance airplanes flying out of Yokota AFB in Japan.

I was assigned to that squadron for nearly 8 years and the "radar reflective paint" was black nitrocellulose lacquer :-)

I'm sure the pilot said that too, that it was a flying boat, and I just missed the part about it flying. Thanks, Eric