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You may have heard of the SR-71 Blackbird. Built almost entirely from titanium and stainless steel at the Lockheed Skunkworks in Burbank, California, the Blackbird was able to cruise at Mach 3.35 for extended periods, at altitudes of over 80,000 feet. Designed from the start as an invulnerable platform for strategic photographic and electronic reconnaissance, the Blackbird flew with impunity over the Soviet Union, China, and virtually every "hot spot" in the world until it's retirement in 1998.
Of course flying at such extremes of speed and temperature had both advantages and disadvantages. The air friction outside is so much that normal metals used to create aircraft would simply melt. Furthermore, ejection at that point would put a pilot into such extreme low pressure - it's right on the edge of space - that his blood would literally boil. So being a test pilot in such a plane has more than the normal share of risk.
Here's a first hand account of what happens when flight testing the fastest aircraft ever made goes ever so slightly awry. Next time you have an engine loss at 3000ft and have to put down in a field or divert to an alternate airfield think of how much worse it could be.
(Link courtesy of Alexis Park Inn)
Of course flying at such extremes of speed and temperature had both advantages and disadvantages. The air friction outside is so much that normal metals used to create aircraft would simply melt. Furthermore, ejection at that point would put a pilot into such extreme low pressure - it's right on the edge of space - that his blood would literally boil. So being a test pilot in such a plane has more than the normal share of risk.
Here's a first hand account of what happens when flight testing the fastest aircraft ever made goes ever so slightly awry. Next time you have an engine loss at 3000ft and have to put down in a field or divert to an alternate airfield think of how much worse it could be.
(Link courtesy of Alexis Park Inn)
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