I was on TDY to Kadena AB in Okinawa, around 1978-79. The techs stationed there told us to watch for a KC-135 taking off, because one would always precede a Habu launch. Because the SR-71 was a "wet-wing" aircraft, with the tanks essentially not being fully sealed until the plane started heating up from air friction, they would always refuel mid-air after take-off, before speeding away on their mission.
I was able to watch a couple of them leave while I was there.
Possibly one reason for not creating a bomber version of the SR-71, is how hot it became during its flight. High temperatures and high explosives isn't always a good mix.
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The SR-71 was a awesome plane, I saw them taking off many times out of Mildenhall RAF when I was TDY there. Also had a chance to mid air refuel one when I was checked out on the Q model KC-135'S.Leave a comment:
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:Cool: The SR-71 actually outran the missiles...
by the time it was detected, the Blackbird was already out of range.Leave a comment:
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BSR-71
One thing I all ways wondered was that given it's success, no one thought to scale-up the SR-71 into a bomber the way Boeing scaled up the B-47 to the B-52. About the closest we came was the XB-70, which was able to cruise at Mach 3, but was cancelled due in part to improves SAMs. This also put to lie the Blackbird's alleged max speed of Mach 3, because if they were afraid of the Valk getting shot down at that speed, why wouldn't the SR-71 be equally vulnerable?
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