Buicks where used to start the mighty SR71

[Robert]

When I started to read the article I was a bit surprised also. Its a great story of engineering and whats possible when the attitude is we need to get the job done.

How were the engines started on the SR-71 spy plane? Was it an electric starter like a car?

https://www.quora.com/How-were-the-engines-started-on-the-SR-71-spy-plane-Was-it-an-electric-starter-like-a-car

[carolinarider09]

Interesting and what you should do.  If it seems reasonable, make it so.

[Serk]

Back in the 80's my Commodore 64 BBS was called Beale Air Force Base - I was totally obsessed with the SR-71. At one point I could tell you the tail numbers of every craft built and where it ended up.

Lots of fun stories around that plane and the exploits of it...

Kinda sad that for the most part it's been replaced by drones, satellites and the (Still fascinating, but not quite as much) U-2.

One other funny story, it was originally the RS-71, but when LBJ made a public announcement of its' existence in 1964 he screwed up and called it the SR-71. Rather than embarrass the president, they changed the name and over 29,000 blueprints to SR-71...

(Some claims that it was Air Force Chief of Staff General Curtis LeMay who consciously wanted it changed to SR...)

..and in the "People are scum" department, there's one on static display at the USS Alabama. There's a section of wing that one can stretch and touch. Instead of just touching it, pieces of the wing have been broken off, as souvenirs I suppose... Blake and I were content with photos when we rode down there during Rams' ride in this past spring...

[Moonshot_1]

Imagine how much faster the SR-71 would have been with a green and silver color scheme. Just saying...

[Oss]

There was one on the Intrepid docked at 42nd street on the Hudson

What an engineering marvel that plane was

[carolinarider09]

I was looking at the maximum altitude that was "listed" on a website on line.  It was, if I remember, correctly 20 miles.  Cannot find that again but did find the one listed below which says it was a little over 25 miles.

The SR-71 was the world's fastest and highest-flying operational manned aircraft throughout its career. On 28 July 1976, SR-71 serial number 61-7962, piloted by then Captain Robert Helt, broke the world record: an "absolute altitude record" of 85,069 feet (25,929 m). Several aircraft have exceeded this altitude in zoom climbs, but not in sustained flight.

When I was working at Midlands Nuclear in Midlands, MI (1975 or so) one of the gentleman on my shift was someone who had flow on the SR-71 as a crew member.  I was interested in aircraft, military and commercial, and we did talk about his experiences.   One thing he told me was that if they were allowed to really tell us what the maximum altitude of the SR-71 was and where they had flown the crew would have earned Astronaut Wings. 

This is sort of supported by the following words from the second link below: 

The estimated maximum altitude is 85,000 feet but some sources say that the SR-71 can fly up to 100,000 feet and can probably go even higher.

A very interesting aircraft. 

https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Records/sr-71-blackbird-absolute-altitude-sustained-flight-manned-aircraft

https://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/sr-71/

Oh, I did look up the requirement for Astronaut wings and it said 50 miles. Still.......  

[scooperhsd]

100,000 feet is only 18.9 miles....  50 miles = 264,000 feet. I don't think the SR71 could go THAT high....