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SR-71 Blackbird Stories, Tales, and Legends
Following the shoot down of Gary Powers in his U-2 "spy plane", the USAF needed a new type of aircraft to fly over "sensitive areas" and gather information on rival countries. With a top speed of 2,346 mph and a maximum altitude of 18 miles straight up, Lockheed Martin had designed the SR-71 Blackbird. Author and former SR-71 pilot, Rich Graham captures the stories of this secretive era of the 1960's to the 1980's. From test pilots of the first "Blackbird" models to world record breaking flights and the incredible maintenance personnel of this plane, Rich Graham captures all of it. Stories range from in-flight disasters to crashes and successful landings. This book is made up of the words of the actual pilots of the SR-71 program, asked to give their words and stories of their time in this amazing program.
With 18 chapters and advanced concepts, there was more than enough reading to take up my free time. Rich Graham does a great job of making this book readable for everyone, even without prior knowledge of the Blackbird. He does this by placing his input and descriptions of concepts in boxes. This book also includes pictures of crewmembers and introductions to each one before they tell you their stories. This book was easy to like and a great read. I recommend it to all aircraft fans. A+.
2 comments:
This book sounds like a great one. I will have to pick it up some time to read it. Also, what is the fastest airplane and what speed did it reach?
The fastest aircraft in the world was the X-43A reaching a top speed of 7,459 mph or mach 9.8, however it was unmanned. The fastest manned plane was the X-15 reaching 5,115 mph. Oh yeah, I forgot to include that the SR-71's top speed was 2,346 mph or mach 3.3.
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