Posted: 10/24/2007 2:49:23 AM EDT
|
I just read the book Skunk Works by Ben Rich, the guy who ran the operation after Kelly Johnson retired. It was a pretty good read, giving a look behind the curtain. A few interesting bits from it: The cockpit windows of the F-117 have an anti-radar treatment because the pilot’s helmet has 100 times the radar return of the airplane. --------- They didn’t really know what they were getting into when they decided to build the SR-71 out of titanium. The material gave them a lot of unanticipated problems and they had a steep learning curve to make it work. --------- An SR-71 flew out of England to make a run over Lebanon. The French denied overflight permission, so they had to go down the coast of Spain and Portugal, then into the Med through the Strait of Gibraltar. In the pilot’s words, 
(Interviewing the French pilot would have been fun!) -------- The pilot who flew the final record-setting coast-to-coast flight tells of cranking it up to 3.3 for that run. He covered the leg from St. Louis to Cincinnati in eight minutes and 32 seconds. LA to DC took 64 minutes. Kansas City to DC was 26 minutes. Mind-boggling speed. -------- Kelly Johnson could be a tyrant to work for, but I have to admit I got a little choked up as Rich described Johnson’s final days. It's a good book for aviation enthusiasts, hard to put down. |
|
“We completed our pass over Beirut and turned toward Malta, when I got a warning low-oil-pressure light on my right engine. Even though the engine was running fine I slowed down and lowered our altitude and made a direct line for England. We decided to cross France without clearance instead of going the roundabout way. We made it almost across, when I looked out the left window and saw a French Mirage III ten feet off my left wing. He came up on our frequency and asked us for our Diplomatic Clearance Number. I had no idea what he was talking about, so I told him to stand by. I asked my backseater, who said, “Don’t worry about it. I just gave it to him. What he had given him was ‘the bird’ with his middle finger. I lit the afterburners and left that Mirage standing still. Two minutes later we were crossing the Channel.” I bet that french pilot was having a hard time telling his superiors what just happened |
C'est un UFO! Mon Capitaine.  |