Re: Differences between A-12 and SR-71?


Message posted by CoyoteUgly on August 13, 2009 at 18:22:46 PST:

An SR-71 pilot friend of mine said he once saw M3.35 on a mission out of the UK over the Arctic and, although the temps remained OK, he said "it was all I could do to slow the thing down" as his pre-timed turns were going to be too wide, he would've penetrated sovereign airspace, and he would have missed his tanker.

He said the airframe he was in that day was a particularly "tight" one with good inlets (being hand-built, they all had their own idiosyncracies), and would often "run away" from him, particularly on missions in cold areas.

He also said they rarely exceeded M3.25, and generally cruised in low/medium-threat areas at M3.1-3.2 and between FL750 and FL800, which backs up Peter's numbers as well, but they could "pop up" to FL850 or slightly higher and M3.3 in higher threat areas.


In Reply to: Re: Differences between A-12 and SR-71? posted by Peter Merlin on August 13, 2009 at 11:59:13 PST:

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