This is funny.
One day, high above Arizona, we were monitoring the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes below us. First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers to check his ground speed. ‘Ninety knots,‘ ATC replied. A twin Bonanza soon made the same request. ‘One-twenty on the ground,‘ was the reply. To our surprise, a navy F-18 came over the radio with a ground speed check. I knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, he had a ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the bug-smashers in the valley know what real speed was ‘Dusty 52, we show you at 525 on the ground,‘ ATC responded. The situation was too ripe. I heard the click of Walter’s mike button in the rear seat. In his most innocent voice, Walter startled the controller by asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace. In a cool, professional voice, the controller replied, ‘Aspen 20, I show you at 1,742 knots on the ground.‘ We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast.»
Major Brian Shul: “I loved that jet”
However, there’s something in this article that doesn’t add up:
My first encounter with the SR-71 came when I was 10 years old in the form of molded black plastic in a Revell kit. Cementing together the long fuselage parts proved tricky, and my finished product looked less than menacing. Glue,oozing from the seams, discolored the black plastic. It seemed ungainly alongside the fighter planes in my collection, and I threw it away.
Twenty-nine years later, I stood awe-struck in a Beale Air Force Base hangar, staring at the very real SR-71 before me.
For you arithmetic junkies out there, name x as n minus 29.
I came to the program in 1983 with a sterling record and a recommendation from my commander, completing the week long interview and meeting Walter, my partner for the next four years.
This identifies n as 1983. What is x?
Having arrived at x, consider this:
The SR-71 was the brainchild of Kelly Johnson, the famed Lockheed designer who created the P-38, the F-104 Starfighter, and the U-2. After the Soviets shot down Gary Powers’ U-2 in 1960, Johnson began to develop an aircraft that would fly three miles higher and five times faster than the spy plane-and still be capable of photographing your license plate. ... In 1962, the first Blackbird successfully flew, and in 1966, the same year I graduated from high school, the Air Force began flying operational SR-71 missions.
Consider also that even though the SR-71 was flying operationally in the 1960s, its existence was not admitted to the public until much later.
So, how did Revell make a plastic model of the SR-71 years before it was even designed? Odds are, Shul is remembering something fanciful and futuristic that might in retrospect have resembled the Blackbird but wasn’t, actually.
H/t: Instapundit, who doesn’t appear to have caught the timeline problems.
