Message posted by Magoo on March 13, 2000 at 18:54:40 EST:
Jim Good question. See, you're getting the hang of this mate! The SR-71 (and YF-12 before it) has been in almost continuous service with NASA as a high speed research vehicle. NASA took over the two remaining YF-12s from the USAF in 1969/70, and operated them as research aircraft (mainly for the then upcoming Space Shuttle programme) until about 1978/79. Check out the NASA Dryden website (don't have the URL handy - sorry!) They also acquired a couple of the early SR-71 prototypes, refurbished them, and used these after the YF-12s were retired. NASA was also instrumental in assisting the USAF to get the SR-71 programme back up and running again in 1995/96/97, but retained two airframes of its own to continue research work. They currently have a single seater SR-71A and a two seater SR-71B flying, with two more 'A' models in flyable storage should they be required. SomeoneWhoKnows may be able to update us as to what they are being used for at the moment. The last major series of experiments I heard about was the Aerospike engine experiments that ended in late 1998. As for hypersonic experiments, certainly some of the information gained from Mach 3+ flight can be used for Mach 5+ theory, but the SR-71 is not a hypersonic aircraft and never could be, so it is still all theory. If you read the NASA section of that article I referred to, it goes into some detail about the experiments it was used for. Hope that explains it. Magoo
In Reply to: Re: SR-71s at Groom? posted by Jim on March 13, 2000 at 18:42:49 EST:
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