blackbird

Fastest flier

The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird – the two-cockpit training model is seen here – is the fastest air-breathing aircraft ever put into production.

BBC FUTURE 2 JULY 2013

Secret project

The SR-71 was designed to provide intelligence using cameras and electronic listening devices was able to fly at Mach 3.3 (2,200mph/3,530km/h).


Stealthy design

Designed and built in the 1960s, the SR-71 was revolutionary, pioneering stealth technology by reducing its radar profile and heat emissions.


All-seeing eyes

The Blackbird used a range of sensors – cameras, radar imaging devices and electronic listening devices – to glean intelligence from the strosphere.


Edge of space

It flew high as well as fast. Its maximum ceiling – 25km (15 miles) above sea level – was so high that the pilot could see the curvature of the Earth.

Built for friction

When the aircraft travelled at its cruise speed of Mach 3, the leading edges of the Blackbird heated up to around 315C (600F).


Hot seat

When flying at supersonic speed aircraft used a heat exchanger to dump heat from the cockpit – otherwise it would have heated up to 120C (248F).


Inventive engines

The plane travelled so fast that the engine inlets needed special inlet spikes to slow down the supersonic air so that it didn't shatter the engines.


Bowing out

The SR-71 was taken out of service in the 1990s. Its reconnaissance role is now undertaken by satellites, as no other aircraft can match its abilities.


SR-71 Blackbird: The Cold War's ultimate spy plane

After a Soviet surface-to-air missile battery showdown with a USAF U-2 spy plane near the closed city of Sverdlovsk in 1960, the US government realised they needed a reconnaissance plane that could fly even higher – and outrun any missile and fighter launched against it.

The answer was the SR-71 Blackbird. It was closer to a spaceship than an aircraft, made of titanium to withstand the enormous temperatures from flying at 2,200mph (3,540kph). Its futuristic profile made it difficult to detect on radar – even the black paint used, full of radar-absorbing iron, helped hide it.


A whole ______ ______industry was created to provide the Blackbird's __________ parts. For example, the fuel, a high-tech _______ called JP-7, was made just for the Blackbird.

Based at Beale Air Force Base in California, ___________ of the SR-71 flew from Mildenhall in the east of England and from Kadena on the Japanese island of Okinawa.

Just a ___________ of pilots ever flew the plane. BBC Future interviewed Colonel Rich Graham at Imperial War Museum Duxford, in front of the very plane he used to fly. Here are some of his stories about what it is _________ like to fly this __________ spy plane.


top-secret,high-

tech,handful, detachments,

sophisticated,actually,

cocktail

high-techsophisticate

d cocktail

detachments

handful

actually top-secret


The Soviet Union actually helped build the Blackbird: "The airplane is 92% titanium inside and out. Back when they were building the airplane the United States didn't have the ore supplies - an ore called rutile ore. It's a very sandy soil and it's only found in very few parts of the world. The major supplier of the ore was the USSR. Working through Third World countries and bogus operations, they were able to get the rutile ore shipped to the United States to build the SR-71."Find the words from the text with the same or simillar meanig

1. a strong, low-density, highly corrosion-resistant, lustrous white metallic element that occurs widely in igneous rocks and is used to alloy aircraft metals for low weight, strength, and high-temperature stability.

2. a metal-bearing mineral or rock, or a native metal, that can be mined at a profit

3. counterfeit or fake; not genuine4. a lustrous red, reddish-brown, or black tetragonal mineral that is an ore of

titanium

titanium ore

bogus

rutile


The top speed was limited by the engine temperature: "The speed limit for the airplane ironically is nothing to do with the airplane, it's to do with the engines. Right in front of the engines was a temperature probe. When that temperature was around 427C (800F) that's as fast as we were allowed to go. The makers of the engine - Pratt & Whitney - would not warranty or guarantee anything beyond 427. After that all bets were off, the engine could come unglued or you could shed turbine blades."Find the words from the text with the same or simillar meanig

1. loosened or separated; unfastened 2. question or examine thoroughly and closely,examine 3. expression used when something unexpected happens,

and it becomes impossible to guess the final outcome

4. to let something fall off as a part of a natural process

unglued

probeall bets

off

shed


The Blackbird’s fuel could extinguish cigarettes: "When they were building the airplane, Kelly (Clarence ‘Kelly’ Johnson, the designer) realised the external temperatures would get over 300C (600F), all the leading edges 300C and the rest of the aircraft around 200C (400F). Consequently, the fuel, the 80,000 lbs of gas it carries in six main fuel tanks, would heat up to 190C (375F), just from the skin temperature, and so the chances of an explosion or a fire would be very high. Kelly had to develop a special fuel with a very high flashpoint, and this is where he came up with JP-7. It has very high flashpoint. I've seen a crew chief throw a match, a cigarette butt into this JP-7 and it just extinguishes.“

1. Which wing component is mentioned in the text above?2. What is a flashpoint?3. What is a cigarette butt?

1. leading edge

2. point at which something is

ready to blow up

3. small part of a cigarette that

is left after smoking


You set off controlled explosions to start the engines: "The high flashpoint brings up another problem. Most jet engines use igniter plugs, nothing more than a very hot spark plug, if you will. By using these igniter plugs, they used it with the JP-7 and it just drowns it out, it won't ignite. Kelly put his engineers to work, and he said, 'OK gentlemen, how we going to start this?' They came up with a very unique way. Triethylborane – TEB for short. Each engine has a one-and-a-quarter pint. If I had it in a squirt gun and I squirted it into the atmosphere, it goes Kaboom! – it explodes with contact with the atmosphere. And that's how we started the engines. As the engines rotate, at the right time it sprays this amount of TEB into the turbine section which goes kaboom and that in turn lights the engine. When you take the throttles up into the afterburner it puts this metered amount of TEB in, that lights up the JP-7. You get 16 shots for each engine."

igniter plug for jet engines

squirt gun - a toy gun designed to squirt a stream of water.

afterburner - a system of fuel injection and combustion located behind the turbine of an aircraft jet engine to produce additional thrust


The plane was purposely designed to leak fuel: "The fuel tanks are the skin of the airplane. If you rap on this airplane, the fuel tank is on the other side. There's no internal fuel tanks. Because of the ________________ cycles [due to _________________ of the aircraft at different speeds] it sometimes leaked and dropped from underneath the airplane. It was measured in Drops Per Minute – DPMs we called them – and maintenance used a stopwatch and counted them, and in certain locations on the aircraft there are _____________________ Drips Per Minute."

INSERT THE OPPOSITES

acceptable and unacceptable, heating and cooling, expansion and contraction

heating and cooling

acceptable and unacceptable

expansiona and contraction


Rainstorms could be deadly: "In Okinawa, unfortunately, we had a lot of rainstorms which just come out of nowhere. And when you mix JP-7 with a little bit of rain it gets very, very slippery on the ground. An SR-71 was coming back from a mission. He was coming back into the hangar. Don [Graham’s navigator] and I were on back-up duty so we were in the hangar. As he came in to the hangar, he slows down, he's right on the centreline… and we notice his brakes are locked up, the wheels aren't rotating anymore, and he's still going through the hangar, sliding. And you would not believe how many maintenance people realised immediately something was wrong with this airplane. We had maintenance guys throwing chocks under the wheel but it kept on moving. Don and I were grabbing on to the wingtip to try and stop it, people were grabbing every part of the airplane as they realised it was an emergency. It was like a dream in slow motion as this airplane just went through the hangar. And it stopped, when the main wheels just caught the other side of the hangar onto the concrete. And its pitot tube, the tube at the front, came about a foot from ramming a curved blast deflector we have for jet engines.“

questions


1. slippery measuring instrument consisting of a right-angled tube with an open end that is directed in opposition to the flow of a fluid and used to measure the velocity of fluid flow

2. chocks strike or drive against with a heavy impact, to dash violently against

3. pitot tube

an aircrew member

4. ram a device intended to turn aside the flow of something (water or air or smoke etc)

5. deflector Difficult to hold or stand or move on because it is smooth, wet or polished

6. navigator

a metal or wooden block designed to stop a wheel moving

3

4

6

5

1

2

MATCH


ANSWER THE QUESTIONS

1. What happened in the hangar in Okinawa?

2. What did the maintenance stuff do to prevent the

plane from moving further forward through the

hangar?3. What did Rich Graham and his assistant Don do

prevent the plane from moving?

4. How did the plane eventually stop?

5. Were there any damage in the hangar?

6. What caused the accident?

7. What is JP-7? back to the text


Blackbirds ended the Yom Kippur War: "An average mission was probably three-and-a-half to four hours. A long mission would be eight or more. Through the whole history of the programme, through 22 years, we had 13 sorties that were over 11 hours; very, very long missions. But they were very rare."Twelve of those missions were flown out of the East Coast of the United States during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and we flew to the Middle East and all the way back to the East Coast, and the product was given straight to the President. The President wanted to find out whether the Arabs and the Israelis had really moved back from the front line like they said they did. We went over there, took the imagery, came back and showed photographic proof they were both lying about where their forces were. He called both countries and said, 'Get them back, I've got proof you're not where you're supposed to be.' That’s what ended the Yom Kippur War.


LET’S SEE HOW WELL YOU’VE REMEMBERED THE THEXT YOU’VE JUST READ

1. An average mission lasted a) eight hours b) 20 min c) 3 to 4 hours d) a

fortnignt

2. Long missions lasted

a) Eight hours b) eight or more hours c) a fortnignt d) 20 hours

3. Blackbird operational history is

b) 22 years b) 20 years c) almost half a century d) 25 years

4. Through the whole history of the programme, we had 13 ______ that were over 11 hours; very, very long missions.

c) scoutings b) sorties c) missions d) attacks

5. Twelve of those missions were flown out of the East Coast of the United States during the Yom Kippur War in

d) 1937 b) 1977 c) 1983 d) 1973


LET’S SEE HOW WELL YOU’VE REMEMBERED THE THEXT YOU’VE JUST READ

6. The President wanted to find out whether _______________ had really moved back from the front line like they said they did.

a) the Arabs and the Russiansb) the Israelis and Palestiniansc) the Arabs and the Israelis

2. We went over there, took the imagery, came back and showed photographic proof they were both lying about where their forces were.

d) evidence b) documents c) pictures d) proof

3. ___________ called both countries and said, 'Get them back, I've got proof you're not where you're supposed to be.' That’s what ended the Yom Kippur War.

a) UN Secretary b) the US President c) NATO official d) Ministry of Defemce


Beware the Soviet MiG-25: "Normally you wouldn't be aware of

one, but it takes a perfect storm to see this. I was cruising up to a

place called Petropavlosvsk, it's at the end of the Kamchatka

Peninsula. Up there the Soviet Union had a major nuclear facility

and also a nuclear sub pen. And we'd go up and image the

southern part of the peninsula. On the way up, we'd refuelled off

the coast of Japan, I'm climbing back up, cruising at Mach 3, and I

look down. Probably 200 miles (320km) off the nose I could see –

because it was a nice clear day, which you normally don't get –

there were no clouds and they were contrailing. It was a perfect

storm that I could see them contrailing. They were three MiG-25s

in a clockwise orbit. As I got closer, probably 100 miles (160km)

out, I'm up at 75,000 feet (23km), they're down here at about

30,000 feet (9km), I saw them come off trail and they're contrailing

in a straight line. Now they're in a trail formation about 10 miles

(16km) apart. From then on, I saw that the contrail stopped which I

assumed they had lit their afterburners and they're trying to

intercept me. All three went right by underneath me. No problem

at all."


1. contrail (condensational trail)

a bunker which is designed to protect submarines from air attack; the term is generally applied to submarine bases constructed during World War II

2. peninsula a formation in which all aircraft are in single file, each directly behind the other

3. sub pen (submarine pen)

a long narrow strip of land projecting into a sea or lake

4. trail formation

a white trail of vapour given off by an aircraft in flight (normally at high altitudes)

1.

2.

3.

4.


true false

1. Blackbird was designed to leak fuel.

2. The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird is the fastest air-breathing aircraft

ever put into production.

3. When the aircraft travelled at its cruise speed of Mach 2, the

leading edges of the Blackbird heated up to around 315C (600F).

4. The SR-71 was taken out of service in the 1980s.

5. Its reconnaissance role is now undertaken by satellites.

6. The Blackbird used a range of mechanical devices and electronic

listening devices to glean intelligence from the strosphere.


7. Blackbird’s futuristic profile made it difficult to detect on

radar – even the black paint used, full of radar-absorbing iron, helped hide it.

8. Blackbird’s top speed wasn’t limited by the engine temperature.

9. TEB stands for Triethylborane.10. Each engine was given 14 shots of TEB.11. JP-7 is a special fuel with a very high flashpoint. 12. Its maximum ceiling – 25km (15 miles) above sea level –

was so high that the pilot could see the curvature of the Earth.

true false

blackbird

Business

ore of titaniumbbc future2

natural processbbc future2

engine temperature

high flashpoint

supersonic speed aircraft

aircraft metals

reconnaissance plane

hightemperature stability