Lockheed SR-71 Spyplane- Palmdale, California - Static Aircraft Displays on Waymarking.com

SR-71 USAF mission. Maiden flight-1954. Flys with 2 man crew and is slightly heavier that the CIA designed mission spycraft the A-12. That's due to increased camera and radar sensor payload which is housed in an interchangeable nose and fuselage bays. Second crewman used the infra-red camera equipment. Max speed 485 mph and altitude 70,000 feet. Aircraft weight of 30 tons and carried 40 tons of fuel. Thirty-one SR-71s were built and 12 were lost in accidents. No operational loses of these aircraft are due to hostile SAM missiles fire. In service for 20 years and withdrawn for budgetary costs.

Aircraft 17972 held the record for speed and time flight between Palmdale and Smithsonian Air & Space museum Washington D.C. on March 6, 1990 in 68 minutes and 17 seconds. Her speed of 2,404 miles per hour. It's Pratt & Whitney J-58 engines are housed in large nacelles on each wing. The large 'spikes' or cones at the front of each nacelle slid in and out to slow the Mach 3 airflow to Mach .5 for the engines that needed subsonic air intake. Special fuel JP-7 due to the fuel tanks temperatures of over 300 degrees which would explode normal jet fuel. Two engines burned 700 pounds of fuel per minute for a cruising speed of 30 miles per minute.

Aircraft History: (visit link)

Type of Aircraft: (make/model): SR-71 Tail Number: (S/N): 17973 Construction:: original aircraft Location (park, airport, museum, etc.): 2503 E Avenue P, Palmdale, CA inside / outside: outside Access restrictions: Airpark, museum, gift shop is open Fri, Sat & Sun 11 am - 4 pm. Volunteer staff, some intimately connected to the Blackbird program. You can see the displays from the street through fence. Other Information:: Not listed

Visit Instructions:
Photo of aircraft (required - will be interesting to see if the aircraft is ever repainted or progress if being restored)
Photo of serial number (required unless there is not one or it is a replica)
Photo(s) of any artwork on the aircraft (optional but interesting)

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Date Logged Log User Rating   10/26/2014 CacheKidz! visited it 02/06/2007 calgriz visited it

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