I am a professional pilot and have flown over the Tucson boneyard many times. A lot of our Cold War era aircraft were cut up and put on display so the Russians could see they are not capable of flying when we ended the Cold War in 1992. I am pretty sure that they could be reassembled flown. Rumor has it all the SR-71s are still airworthy and can be deployed in short notice if we lost our satellite system.
For example, in Utah at Hill AFB they have an incredible museum of retired aircraft. They have an SR-71 on display and it looks like they could push the engine back into the nacelle do an inspection throw some fresh batteries into it, gas it up and fly.
The SR-71s I've seen on display are altered from what I saw in the hanger. It may be superficial,. but the "skin" isn't the same to the touch anymore (it was like mid-grit sandpaper), and some areas that were "rubberized" like the leading edges are hard now. I'm not sure how far they took the preservation process.
Interesting well i guess that squashed that rumor. I’m sure though they could still get them airworthy rather quickly if motivated enough. Analog aircraft are rare these days and the reliance on digital tech is becoming so insane if there was an EMP most (95% or more) commercial airliners would be dead. I fly a Learjet and I’m pretty sure I could still fly in the event of an EMP I only have a couple digital systems on board. I wouldn’t be IFR capable unless the VORs and ILSs were still operational
Question - the leading edges were rubberized? I wonder how they survived the extreme temperatures the surface would endure in high speed flight. I thought the skin got over 1000 degrees in sustained super sonic flight
I'm not sure what the substance was, but it was all leading edges. It was a red material somewhat soft to the touch. It wasn't a cover that could be removed.
My time in the hangar was because my neighbor in Okinawa was a mechanic on it. They were prepping for one of the decommissioning flights, and he asked if I wanted to ride into work with him and have a close look. Since they were shutting it down security had become pretty lax. I got to run the starter cart when they started one of the engines, which as pretty cool. It was a cart with a V8 engine on it. It had a shaft that went up into the engine to crank it up.
That’s an insane amount of power required to get those engines spinning. I fly a Learjet and we have an electric starter to get the engines spinning. It pulls about 300 amps to get it going but no where near V8 power
I am a professional pilot and have flown over the Tucson boneyard many times. A lot of our Cold War era aircraft were cut up and put on display so the Russians could see they are not capable of flying when we ended the Cold War in 1992. I am pretty sure that they could be reassembled flown. Rumor has it all the SR-71s are still airworthy and can be deployed in short notice if we lost our satellite system.
For example, in Utah at Hill AFB they have an incredible museum of retired aircraft. They have an SR-71 on display and it looks like they could push the engine back into the nacelle do an inspection throw some fresh batteries into it, gas it up and fly.
The SR-71s I've seen on display are altered from what I saw in the hanger. It may be superficial,. but the "skin" isn't the same to the touch anymore (it was like mid-grit sandpaper), and some areas that were "rubberized" like the leading edges are hard now. I'm not sure how far they took the preservation process.
Interesting well i guess that squashed that rumor. I’m sure though they could still get them airworthy rather quickly if motivated enough. Analog aircraft are rare these days and the reliance on digital tech is becoming so insane if there was an EMP most (95% or more) commercial airliners would be dead. I fly a Learjet and I’m pretty sure I could still fly in the event of an EMP I only have a couple digital systems on board. I wouldn’t be IFR capable unless the VORs and ILSs were still operational
Question - the leading edges were rubberized? I wonder how they survived the extreme temperatures the surface would endure in high speed flight. I thought the skin got over 1000 degrees in sustained super sonic flight
I'm not sure what the substance was, but it was all leading edges. It was a red material somewhat soft to the touch. It wasn't a cover that could be removed.
My time in the hangar was because my neighbor in Okinawa was a mechanic on it. They were prepping for one of the decommissioning flights, and he asked if I wanted to ride into work with him and have a close look. Since they were shutting it down security had become pretty lax. I got to run the starter cart when they started one of the engines, which as pretty cool. It was a cart with a V8 engine on it. It had a shaft that went up into the engine to crank it up.
That’s an insane amount of power required to get those engines spinning. I fly a Learjet and we have an electric starter to get the engines spinning. It pulls about 300 amps to get it going but no where near V8 power