Shop OBEX P1 Docs P2 Docs Learn Events
360 Tour: SR-71 "OXCART" Cockpit — Parallax Forums

360 Tour: SR-71 "OXCART" Cockpit

ercoerco Posts: 20,256
edited 2014-05-14 01:56 in General Discussion
For pilots and aviation lovers, here's one of the best HD 360 views I can recall. You can read every gauge and see every scratch, there are plenty of both in the cockpit. My first job was at Pratt & Whitney GPD, which made the Blackbird's J58 engines. I heard the stories (long before my time), it was a black ops program. Most of the engine designers never saw or knew anything about the airplane which used these engines, they just designed it "in the dark". They thought the initial specification to idle at Mach 3 was a mistake.

http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/media/068/SR-71A%20Front%20Cockpit.html

(Use your cursor to move the cockpit around so you can see all the circuit brkr panels, radio controls, etc.)

Lots of fun facts about the Blackbird at http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/sr-71 such as:

The airframe of the SR-71 is very unique. To withstand the friction-generated heat at Mach 3+, over 90 percent of the airframe is made of titanium composite. ... The component parts of the Blackbird fit very loosely together to allow for expansion at high temperatures. At rest on the ground, fuel leaks out constantly, since the tanks in the fuselage and wings only seal at operating temperatures.

Comments

Sign In or Register to comment.