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Old 04-26-2006, 15:13 PM   #66 (permalink)
highsea
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Join Date: 12-10-04
Location: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy
...SR-71 specifications are still classified.
Another tidbit, the SR-71 was designed to eject from at 100,000 ft. and Mach 3. Though it never happened (thankfully), that was the design criteria. Frightening.

When we were still operating them, they occasionally popped up on ARTCC radar. My brother was working in the Denver Center, they would occasionally see an AC on the radar that was unidentified. When they would try to get a fix on it, the altitude and speed readout would just show all zeros. Lol, but the vector line would stretch clear across the display.

Basically the computers were saying "we don't know how high he is, or how fast he's going". It was off the scale.

That was how they knew they were watching an SR-71 transiting the airspace. It was the only thing flying that could do that.
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