Blackbird

We have a number of very good aircraft museums in the area, and I have covered most of them on my travels.  My most favorite plane has to be the SR-71, the Blackbird.  Two of them are on show in the Inland Empire, one out in the desert at Edwards Air force base and also there is another at the March Aircraft Museum.

They are large aircraft and very hard to photograph.  I don't know where this one was taken but my efforts have not been good, although I had several tries.

The Blackbird was retired in 1990 after 25 years of service but stories of its epic journeys are still talked about.  Back in the early seventies tales were told of one of these dark shapes leaving Mildenhall Air Force Base in Cambridgeshire, England at breakfast time.  It would return around lunchtime, having been to Washington D.C. and back.  It holds the record for the trip across the Unites States in 1 hour, 7 minutes and 54 seconds.  The journey from New York to London was clocked at 1 hour, 54 minutes and 56 seconds.  It had a top speed of over 2,193 m.p.h. but it's thought there was a little in reserve.  It's flying altitude was 85,000 feet.

If a surface to air rocket was launched the standard operating procedure was to accelerate!  It could outrun a bullet.