During the height of the Cold War, the United States was vigorously conceiving a top secret weapon that would give them the upper hand. The Lockheed Skunk Works took the project and the product of their painstaking planning was the SR71 Blackbird. The aircraft was a reconnaissance air vessel whose technology was way ahead of its time.
Reconnaissance operations were performed in order to collect critical information about the features of enemy territory. The data gathered from these operations plays an important role in the tactical planning of military missions that could spell the difference between success and failure. This made the Blackbirds as one of the major reasons behind the successful military operations of Americans during the war.
The main component of Blackbirds is Titanium. Not only is it a difficult material to work with but there was also a scarcity in it. So the C. I. A. Made use of fake companies to be able to buy Titanium from their enemy, the Soviet Union. The Soviet unsuspectingly sold Titanium to these companies not knowing that their merchandise were to be used by the enemy in the creation of a potent weapon against them.
The main features of a Blackbird are its speed and the altitude by which it travel. Whenever a ground missile is launched intended to bring down a Blackbird, the battle plan of the aircraft was simply to outrun the missile. The plane could travel at a velocity equivalent to 3.5 times the speed of sound and at very high elevations. It was also superbly designed that it could not be detected by a Soviet radar easily.
But at these velocities, without safety measures, the health of pilots is compromised. At very high altitudes, there is a possibility that the pilots will lose consciousness because of low atmospheric pressures. Emergency ejection during a high velocity flight could also seriously injure pilots. As a solution to these hazards, a pressurized suit was developed.
The Blackbird reaches extremely high velocities such that conventional brakes were not sufficient to slow it down in the runway. The engineers had to resort to using a parachute to aid the brakes in stopping the aircraft. The body of the jet also gets very high due to high velocity flight so the pilots need to wait for the body to cool down before they could get off it.
The aircraft possessed technologies that were way ahead of their time. New technologies were even developed specifically for the creation of Blackbirds and some are still applicable today.
It is remarkable that despite the lack in technology during the time of the cold war, a very complex and advanced aircraft was still created. But the aircraft had some unsolved flaws. Since a material that could stand extreme temperature differences during a high velocity flight did not exist during that time, the fuel tank of the plane was left open and leaks fuel. But when the material for the fuel tank gets hot due to high speed flight, it expands thus closing the tank. Nonetheless, the SR71 Blackbird is still a remarkable creation that played a major part in the successful missions of the Americans during the cold war.
Reconnaissance operations were performed in order to collect critical information about the features of enemy territory. The data gathered from these operations plays an important role in the tactical planning of military missions that could spell the difference between success and failure. This made the Blackbirds as one of the major reasons behind the successful military operations of Americans during the war.
The main component of Blackbirds is Titanium. Not only is it a difficult material to work with but there was also a scarcity in it. So the C. I. A. Made use of fake companies to be able to buy Titanium from their enemy, the Soviet Union. The Soviet unsuspectingly sold Titanium to these companies not knowing that their merchandise were to be used by the enemy in the creation of a potent weapon against them.
The main features of a Blackbird are its speed and the altitude by which it travel. Whenever a ground missile is launched intended to bring down a Blackbird, the battle plan of the aircraft was simply to outrun the missile. The plane could travel at a velocity equivalent to 3.5 times the speed of sound and at very high elevations. It was also superbly designed that it could not be detected by a Soviet radar easily.
But at these velocities, without safety measures, the health of pilots is compromised. At very high altitudes, there is a possibility that the pilots will lose consciousness because of low atmospheric pressures. Emergency ejection during a high velocity flight could also seriously injure pilots. As a solution to these hazards, a pressurized suit was developed.
The Blackbird reaches extremely high velocities such that conventional brakes were not sufficient to slow it down in the runway. The engineers had to resort to using a parachute to aid the brakes in stopping the aircraft. The body of the jet also gets very high due to high velocity flight so the pilots need to wait for the body to cool down before they could get off it.
The aircraft possessed technologies that were way ahead of their time. New technologies were even developed specifically for the creation of Blackbirds and some are still applicable today.
It is remarkable that despite the lack in technology during the time of the cold war, a very complex and advanced aircraft was still created. But the aircraft had some unsolved flaws. Since a material that could stand extreme temperature differences during a high velocity flight did not exist during that time, the fuel tank of the plane was left open and leaks fuel. But when the material for the fuel tank gets hot due to high speed flight, it expands thus closing the tank. Nonetheless, the SR71 Blackbird is still a remarkable creation that played a major part in the successful missions of the Americans during the cold war.
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