Sunday, June 19, 2011

Blackbird in a Box (or not...)

Moving the SR-71

The first trip wasn't as fast as future ones would be...

Apparently this picture isn't of a SR-71 Blackbird in a box as I tweeted earlier. It is the SR-71's predecessor, the A-12 secretly being transported to Groom Lake, otherwise known as Area 51 (See Area 51 Declassified at National Geographic They have some cool pics in the photo gallery). How many 'UFO sightings' do you think this airplane was responsible for?

After a bit of research, I have replaced the SR-71 at the top of my 'bad-ass' aircraft list with the A-12. The reasons are three-fold?

  1. The A-12 was faster.

    What??? But the SR-71 has the speed record to this day!

    That is an 'official' speed record... You can't have a speed record for an aircraft that nobody knows about. Which brings me to my second reason.
  2. The A-12 was classified until 1981. They last flew in '68 but were kept in top secret storage until de-classified. The A-12's were CIA planes... Spooks!
  3. The only remaining M-21 (a variant of the A-12 to launch a D-21 drone) is located at the Museum of Flight not far from where I live. I can go stand under its wing and see the massive Pratt & Whitney J58 engines first hand.


BTW, happy fathers day, fathers! I'm luckily to have a dad and a father-in-law that share my fascination of all that flies. It's always enjoyable to talk airplane with them!

Read more...

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

My Favorite 787..

...No, not the the Boeing 787 built just a few miles from where I live that first flew on my birthday... ...The Mazda 787B, which if memory serves me correctly is one of the loudest race cars ever.

Um Videos auf dieser Seite anzuzeigen muss der kostenlose Flash Player in Ihrem Browser installiert sein. Bitte downloaden Sie den neuesten Flash Player.


Dang, that thing screams!

Read more...

  © Blogger templates ProBlogger Template by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP