SR-71 Final Anecdote-I promise!

[Mark Wendt]

Bill,

         The old saying for the SR-71 was, "Mach 3+, 80,000 feet "and 
climbing"....


Mark





At 11:21 AM 12/15/02 -0600, you wrote:
>Hope I don't get removed from the list, but inasmuch as you folks seemed
>to find this interesting--
>I had a co-pilot once who had been an instructor in F-104's.  One day
>(he told me) he and another instructor were up in a F-104F two seater.
>As he put it, "a couple of instructors trying to scare each other."
>They went into afterburner, and put the airplane in a 45 deg. climb
>until the engines flamed out from lack of air.   They were sitting in
>the airplane as it completed it's ballistic climb.  The altimeter read
>over 100,000 ft. although, as he says, it works on air, and there wasn't
>any.  The sky had turned blue, and you could see the earth's curvature.
>The airplane was slowly tumbling, the controls were slack. As the
>aircraft went end-over-end, they looked above them, and saw a contrail.
>It was so far above them, they couldn't see any airplane at the head.
>They called Denver Center: "Denver Center, Air Force XXX, Say type
>aircraft at our 12:00 position."
>Denver didn't answer.  They repeated twice more; Denver still didn't
>answer.
>Finally, a different voice came back, and they realized it was the pilot
>of the mystery airplane.
>All he quickly said was:  "SR-71"
>How high?  How fast?  The government admits to Mach 3 and 80K feet at
>the max.
>My guess, (and my co-pilot friends) are much greater.
>I hope I haven't offended anybody by being so far off pattern; thanks.
>
>Bill Glaze
>
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