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| Oh, they ARE in pain. The engines grow 3/4" when up to operating temperature. The aircraft grows several inches with the skin at 800F at altitude and speed. They had to be really careful about running out of fuel because the engine was cooled by incoming fuel and if they ran out it would wreck the bearings or the case would shrink faster than the rotors and lock the hot rotors up. Probably why they made 5 times as many engines as aircraft and have only a few left. The engine was made of watch spring alloy, the only thing strong enough to take the heat and the forces but then the case only had to be 1/32" thick. Its said that on the test stand with the engine up to temperature you can see the insides through the translucent case. Wild stuff for forty years ago when they were developed.
But it would be a true HOT ROD to ride or fly!
But the cost to fly it was astronomical. They'd fly over Nam starting from California (Beale) but need to be refueled before they got to Nam so a tanker would fly from Beale ahead of them. That took lots of fuel to fly the tanker across the Pacific, and then the Blackbird take off weight was something like 150,000 pounds, but empty it only weighed 29,000 pounds. Fuel everywhere and the articles and books say leaks everywhere until it got warmed up.
It didn't use electric ignition, it used a bit of hypergolic rocket fuel as the igniter. The main fuel was practically pure kerosene with a bit of teflon additive.
Gerald J. | |
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Re: Wicked SR-71 Blackbird Story from last April
