NASA just dropped a ton of rare footage of SR-71 Blackbirds doing what they do bestThe original trio of SR-71 "Blackbirds" loaned to NASA by the U.S. Air Force for high-speed, high-altitude research line the ramp at the Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. The long-range SR-71 Blackbird recon jet, dreamed up by Lockheed Martin’s famed Skunk Works division, has a reputation for a reason.
In the half-century since it first took flight at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, Florida, the Blackbird has unseated its record-setting Lockheed YF-12 predecessor as the world’s fastest jet-propelled aircraft, its twin afterburners capable of unleashing 34,000 pounds of thrust and accelerating the interceptor up to 35 miles per minute — 3,100 feet per second , per War Zone’s Tyler Rogoway .
No wonder the SR-71 became the preferred delivery craft for specially trained and colorfully attired multinational paramilitary squads : Of all the aircraft ever conceived by the U.S. Air Force, the Blackbird is most synonymous with speed.
Luckily, you can now spend all day watching the SR-71 and the YF-12 scream across anonymous skies, if you so desire. Over the weekend, NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center decided to crack open its vault and publish archival footage from decades of flight tests at Dryden/Edwards Air Force Base on its YouTube channel .
While the cache of hundreds of videos includes some random gems (like the landing of an ill-fated horned XB-70A Valkyrie), our favorite SR-71 fanboy, Rogoway, surfaced a handful of fantastic clips of two Blackbirds stretching their wings over southern California. Let’s take a gander, shall we?
Read on: HERE