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View Full Version : SR-71B near resurrected


chopper2004
31st Mar 2020, 16:03
Interesting article on how the HABu could have been pulled out of retirement to support intel assets for the global war on terror...

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32788/the-sr-71-blackbird-was-almost-brought-back-for-the-global-war-on-terror

cheers

Commando Cody
1st Apr 2020, 21:05
I wish it were so, but USAF was so hostile to the SR-71 that reactivation would have been extremely unlikely.

When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and General Norman Shwarzkopf was put in charge, reportedly one of the first things he asked for was the return of the SR-71, which had been forced into retirement earlier that year. SR-71. There were still pilots current on it, flyable birds and a lot of the support gear still existed Plus teh SR-71B was coming out of overhaul (for NASA). Lockheed responded that They could have the first one operational in three weeks (main delay being caused by getting equipment back that had been scattered) . The next one would have been a month after that. However what was told to General Shwarzkopf was that it couldn't be done and so he didn't pursue the idea further.

After that, except for the NASA birds, nothing was done to preserve the a/c. The ones that were to be brought back had not been cocooned or even mothballed, despite Congressional direction that five As and the B were to be preserved. However, except for the ones loaned to NASA, they were just drained and stripped, had the cockpit windows , intakes and exhausts blocked and towed out in the desert and left. Fortunately the air was so dry that in combination with the expertise retained in NASA, they remained in such good shape that they were capable of being restored. They came in under budget on the reactivation. USAF remained reluctant the whole time of the restored program, though, and tried to ground the plane even before the President Clinton line item vetoed the program. Interestingly, after that veto was ruled unconstitutional, the appropriated money for the program never made it back to the program.

By 2001, there were no more current crews, non were flyable, the JP-8 had been re-blended into conventional fuels, and the special tank sealant was gone. Also, there weren't that many left in USAF that still realized what the craft could do, so there was not a supporting constituency in place and those at the upper levels had been weaned on the belief that the SR was a Bad Thing, and didn't realize that even then there were things it could do that nothing else could.

And no, while it was expensive, it wasn't that expensive. Quick example: For the cost of putting one recon satellite in orbit, you could maintain the entire mid-1990s SR-71 program for over 30 years!