Last Call- Your Car Is How Fast? Edition

Intrinsically evil-looking, record book shattering, and detente-driving are only some of the phrases that could be used to describe the SR71. With the possible exception of the Lamborghini Reventon no car has ever come close to matching the batman-on-crack styling of these planes, even though they are a product of late fifties technology and engineering. Made obsolete by spy satellites, the SR71s have since been decommissioned, but that doesn’t mean all their secrets have been made public.
Image source: [Lockeed Martin via Flickr]

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  1. Kvhnik Avatar
    Kvhnik

    One of my most vivid memories of the last thirty years was watching one of these banking preparing to land at Kadena AFB on Okinawa, Japan. Flat black and wicked looking it was in a tight turn very low to the ground and just a mile or two away. There was a brief moment of “WTF??” before quickly realizing what it was. Awesome.

    1. M0L0TOV Avatar
      M0L0TOV

      Do you mean the habu? I remember seeing those things take off and land when I was little in Okinawa. There was a pizzeria right next to the airfield and the sonic boom would shake the building. Aaah, memories 🙂 When were you there? I lived there during the early 80's.

      1. Kvhnik Avatar
        Kvhnik

        Yep, they were called Habu there (after the local allegedly Mongoose-fighting snake). Yes I was there in the early 80s.

  2. B72 Avatar

    The title looks like you are just begging for some "my car is so fast" jokes.
    My car is so fast I get blinded by my own headlights.
    My car is so fast I get where I'm going before I left.
    My car is so fast that physics students ask me to take them for rides so they can be younger than their friends.
    That's all I can do on short notice…

    1. nofrillls Avatar
      nofrillls

      My car is so fast you can watch the spectrum shift to red as I pass.

      1. BPR Avatar
        BPR

        Nice!____My car is so fast that due to Lorentz–Fitzgerald contraction, I can park anywhere in Manhattan!

      2. BPR Avatar
        BPR

        Wikipedia says:
        More generally, it is normally impossible for any information or energy to travel faster than c (the speed of light). One reason is that according to the theory of special relativity, if something were travelling faster than c relative to an inertial frame of reference, it would be travelling backwards in time relative to another frame, and CAUSALITY WOULD BE VIOLATED!
        My car is so fast that – I didn't do it officer!

        1. jjd241 Avatar

          All you need is a Flux Capacitor!http://tinyurl.com/48cayy

    2. Alff Avatar

      My car is so fast that it runs on people juice.

  3. mdharrell Avatar

    "…the batman-on-crack styling… a product of late fifties technology and engineering."
    I believe I can think of one other car that comes very close to that description.
    <img src="http://wizbangblue.com/images/2009/03/LincolnFutura.jpg&quot; width="300" />
    <img src="http://faculty.etsu.edu/gardnerr/batman/batmobile.jpg width="300" />

  4. mdharrell Avatar

    "…no car has ever come close to matching the batman-on-crack styling of these planes, even though they are a product of late fifties technology and engineering."
    I believe I can think of one other car that comes close to that description:
    <img src="http://car.kitt.net/uploaded_images/ford2003-729941.jpg&quot; width="300" />

  5. damnelantra™[!] Avatar

    these were always amongst my favorite micro machines.

    1. muthalovin Avatar

      Hot DAMN! Me too! The fastest of my many, many micro machines.

  6. Ambersand Avatar

    I have the supreme luck of living about 2 miles from Udvar Hazy (read National Air and Space Museum aka Smithsonian) and get to see their SR-71A pretty much on demand. It is an amazing piece of machinery. Just standing next to it makes me feel all covert and stuff. If you ever get the chance, check one out…pretty amazing.
    Here she is, there's also a little thing behind her I like to check out from time to time…and my favorite, "Little Boy"…ok, I'll stop – here's the photo.
    <img src="http://www.nasm.si.edu/images/collections/media/full/A19920072000CP09.jpg"&gt;

    1. dukeisduke Avatar

      Wow, that's awesome. I hope to go there someday, to see that, and the Boeing 307 (that had to be restored *twice*, since it had to ditch during a post-restoration checkout flight, after running out of fuel) and the Boeing 367-80, famously barrel-rolled by Tex Johnston.

    2. JeepyJayhawk Avatar

      The one at the Everest Air and Space Museum is pretty awesome too, they more or less let you walk up to and over it. So very bad ass.

    3. engineerd Avatar

      Great, between the photo above and your photo, I won't be able to leave my desk for a while.

    4. dukeisduke Avatar

      Wow, that's awesome. I hope to go there someday, to see that, and the Boeing 307 (that had to be restored *twice*, since it had to ditch during a post-restoration checkout flight, after running out of fuel) and the Boeing 367-80, famously barrel-rolled by Tex Johnston.

    5. dculberson Avatar

      Awesome picture.
      Living 2 miles from Dulles must be noisy!!

  7. coupeZ600 Avatar

    I had no idea how different they all were from each other. Makes sense, because the Guvm'nt probably only ordered one at a time, and had all sorts of changes they wanted to make to each successive one.
    All of us kids when I was growing up had an Estes model rocket of the X-15 (which was a lot like the older SR71 on the left in the pic) that was designed to spiral back down to near the launch site so you could send it up again. I can't remember any being recovered after the maiden flight, but you would find one years later in the craziest places, like embedded into the wall next to the girl's window you were trying to sneak into.
    "Oh That, it's been there forever, I think it's my brother's…… Are you coming in or not?"
    "Just a second, Lady…'

  8. engineerd Avatar

    I had the opportunity in college to tour Edwards AFB and NASA Dryden Research Center. Our tour guide was an alum and got us special access to hangars that are normally off limits to the public. One of these hangars was the SR-71 hangar (NASA still flies them for research purposes). We got to look all around the birds, and climb up to the cockpit. It amazes me how advanced they are considering they were designed with slide rules and pencils.

  9. dculberson Avatar

    Notice the one in the far back is a "trainer" model. It's got the bumped up rear cockpit for the instructor so he can see straight ahead as well as the trainee in front. The regular model must have been quite claustrophobic for the observer. There was only one of these built, I believe.
    My car obviously can't hold a candle to these things, but it's easy to forget how impressively fast some seemingly sedate cars are. My daily driver is a '95 LS400, and is electronically limited at 149mph. I haven't taken it close to the top, but at 110+ it's still completely composed. At least more composed than the operator. And it doesn't take very long to get there, either. Yikes.

    1. dukeisduke Avatar

      That one is the sole SR-71C, "The Bastard", that now resides at the Hill AFB Museum.
      http://www.hill.af.mil/library/factsheets/factshe

    2. dukeisduke Avatar

      That one is the sole SR-71C, "The Bastard", that now resides at the Hill AFB Museum.
      http://www.hill.af.mil/library/factsheets/factshe

  10. Mad_Science Sr. Avatar
    Mad_Science Sr.

    One of my roommates from college went to work for Pratt and Whitney after graduation (1978). His first assignment was doing engine design mods for the SR-71 engine. They were still improving them as late as the early '80s.
    After that, he worked on F-16 engine designs. Pretty awesome stuff.

    1. rovingardener Avatar

      That improvement is not surprising. I was TDY'd to Holloman AFB, NM and one came in that broke. It was hangared and leaking like a sieve. They had the exhaust covered in the hangar to keep us from seeing the layout of the AB rings. They kept improving that beast up until the last flight.

  11. AteUpWithMotor Avatar
    AteUpWithMotor

    My understanding is that the SR-71 (it's hyphenated, incidentally) always leaked on the ground. The tanks were set up to accommodate the substantial heat expansion at speeds above Mach 2, and they didn't seal properly at lower temperatures. The temperature difference between sitting on a runway and flying at three times the speed of sound (even at 80,000 feet) is enormous.
    Former Lockheed engineer Ben Rich made some interesting comments about how the SR-71 was "engineered like a Chevy, not a Mercedes." There were a lot of compromises that were less than ideal that they adopted for convenience or cost.

  12. muthalovin Avatar

    You know what was another awesome faster than the speed of sound plane? The Concord. I so wish I could have flown on one before they were deemed to dangerous. Still makes me quite sadface.
    <img src="http://web.telia.com/~u13206896/images/concord.jpg"&gt;

    1. engineerd Avatar

      The "danger" was just the straw that broke the camel's back. They were just as safe as any other aircraft type, however they were becoming very expensive to maintain and operate. They never made money and many parts were no longer made and were being cannibalized from grounded aircraft.
      Still, this is an impressive plane and I would have loved to fly on one, too!

  13. PowerTryp Avatar

    God damn I want one of those, and not just because of the phalic imagery and the fact that my penis is practically concave.

  14. Tripl3fast Avatar

    Fast, Pointy, and Black. (or French if you are the Concord) not much I can do to top that. But my car has turbo! what's that you say? Afterburning Turbo Fan? nope, leather seats, yes! Three times the speed of sound? uh no but I can go three times the residential speed limit ah ha!
    My car is fast enough for an occasional oh sh!t…. I like that way.

  15. Mad_Science Sr. Avatar
    Mad_Science Sr.

    One of my roommates from college went to work for Pratt and Whitney after graduation (1978). His first assignment was doing engine design mods for the SR-71 engine. They were still improving them as late as the early '80s.
    After that, he worked on F-16 engine designs. Pretty awesome stuff.

  16. highmileage_v1 Avatar

    Anything faster than a 30-06 is cool. The shuttle has a higher Mach on re-entry and the X-15 went faster than the SR-71/A-12 as well, but they couldn't sustain the speed. I'd still give my left-you-know-what to fly any of them.