TexasTea270

😎 At 2,432 mph you don’t get coffee.. and you don’t care.. Born in to the Wild Blue Yonder Habubrats 🇺🇸

SR-71 #974 sleeps below the fish in the deepest part of the ocean, the Mariana Trench. No communist spying will occur in that area. It’s important to know that where the SR-71 crashed is different from where the final resting place is. Since the end of the Cold War, more information has come to light, and many official documents have been declassified. My friend Paul Crickmore sent me the following email last year with some interesting information. I just read the piece you wrote about the loss of #974 a couple of days ago and thought you’d like a ‘sneaky-peek’ at part of the piece that’ll appear in the new book covering the subject… “Side‑scanning sonar imaging of the crash site took place on 29 and 30 April, 1989, and it was not long before the debris field of ’974 was located. The 280ft‑long salvage vessel USS Beaufort was dispatched to lift the wreckage with its 10‑ and 15‑ton cranes, fitted on the bow and stern, respectively, and to find the sensors and defensive systems Due to the proximity of the communist New People’s Army, a number of Navy SEALs were on board to provide protection to the divers and crew. One morning during the search, an order for General Quarters was sounded at 0400 hours. Crew members rushed to their action stations in readiness for an immediate confrontation. They saw a large number of small vessels (which had been detected on the Beaufort’s radar) making for the ship. Tension mounted until it was discovered that the would‑be attackers were fishing boats that had come towards the bright lights of the naval vessel because a very large shoal of fish had congregated around it. 🐠 When ’974 impacted the water inverted both engines, the main undercarriage and the aircraft’s sensors smashed through its upper surfaces. They were scattered on the ocean floor at varying distances away from the main wreckage field. On the evening of 1 May, wire hawsers were attached to one of the J58 engines. The late evening movements dislodged the TEB tank and caused a small leak, which released tiny amounts of the chemical throughout the night. TEB CAUSED GREEN PUFFS🟢 As the volatile chemical bubbled to the surface, it mixed with ambient air and exploded in small green puffs. The ‘magic’ of the ‘Yankee’ engineers caused quite a stir among the native fishermen who saw the eerie ‘TEB‑bubble show’. The next day both engines were lifted and brought aboard the Beaufort’s fantail, and two days later, many of the sensors were also recovered. When the ship’s crew attempted to lift the main section of the aircraft, the crane operator found that the large delta‑shaped wing planform greatly exceeded the lifting capacity of his crane, and the wreckage refused to budge an inch. A yard derrick was sent from Subic Bay, and the forward fuselage section was recovered on 7 May, while the main structure was lifted aboard the Beaufort’s fantail the following day. The black wreckage was a sad end for a once‑proud airplane, despite Dan’s skillful ( Dan House, the Pilot) and valiant efforts to save it.” This post is by Linda Sheffield With Paul Crickmore

The SR-71 was the first aircraft to use its own fuel for hydraulic fluid. It was called the fuel hydraulic system. An engine-driven pump provided 1800 psi of recirculating fuel to supply various engine components, then returned it to the aircraft fuel system to be burned. Fuel was used in the actuators to control the afterburner nozzles, which maintain the proper exhaust gas temperature and control the thrust output. The fuel also powered the engine actuators that shifted the two-position inlet guide vanes from their axial position to the cambered position and back again. This was just another of the many first-ever inventions of the SR-71. The J58 engine was hydromechanically controlled and burned a special low-volatility jet fuel mixture known as JP-7.  Emergency fuels could be used in the SR-71 if the crew was low on fuel and had to use ANY tanker (as already explained the Blackbird relied on KC-135Q tankers [that could simultaneously carry a maximum of 74,490lb of JP-7 and 110,000lb of JP-4 for their own engines] but the SR-71 could also be refueled by standard Stratotankers in the event KC-135Qs were not available or if the Blackbird crew had to deal with an emergency situation) they could find to avoid the loss of the aircraft. The emergency fuels were JP-4 or JP-5 but they limited the Blackbird top speed to Mach 1.5. There were six main fuselage tanks. All 80,285 pounds of JP-7 fuel were carried in six main fuselage tanks. The tanks numbered one through six moved forward to aft (back) tank 6B It could hold 7,020 pounds of gravity-fed fuel and two tanks sumps. This was also called the “doghouse” and was located in the extreme back portion of the fuselage. the A-12,M-21 and the YF 12 did not have the extra fuel tank in the back. Only the SR-71 had it. These are just a few interesting facts that I found by reading Rich Graham’s “SR 71 Revealed the inside story.” This book was published in 1996 before some of the facts about the SR-71 became unclassified. Last year when I was visiting SR-71 #972 one of my Grandson’s friends asked me “Why is this airplane so big? My immediate answer was… they needed the room to hold as much fuel as possible. Fuel was the lifeblood of this fastest-manned airplane in the world. I found the following in a declassified CIA brief. There it would first be used as hydraulic fluid at 600 F to control the afterburner exit flaps before being fed into the burner cans of the powerplant and the afterburner itself. Linda Sheffield Photo by Russell MacNeil at Robins Museam of Avation # 958 Thank you Russell for sending me your photographs.

it is legal to fly Mach 3+ flight over America anticipating the return of the SR 71. Yes, it is true that President Trump took action to lift the decades-old ban on civilian supersonic flight over land in the United States. On June 6, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14304, titled "Leading the World in Supersonic Flight." The directive targets a 1973 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulation (14 CFR 91.817) that historically banned civilian aircraft from flying at or above Mach 1 over U.S. soil due to the disruptive noise of sonic booms. President Trump also mentioned this a few hours ago at his speech in Florida at NASA headquarters. I believe President Trump knows about all of the projects that NASA is working on including the SR 71 possible upgrade.  I continue to lift my eyes toward the sky as we wait for a true miracle the return of the SR 71. Written by Linda Sheffield.