SR71 BlackBird & The Van's Aircraft RV-12

Geico266

Geico266

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What do they have in common?

http://www.wvi.com/~sr71webmaster/sr-71~1.htm

Last night we had our monthly EAA meeting at the SAC Airforce Museum near Omaha. One of the exhibits is an SR71 Black Bird. For those of you who don't know this plane was Ultra Top Secret re-con aircraft, built in the 50's & 60's, flew until the 90's. Flew at Mach 3.2 at 85,000' The fastest jet aircraft in the world, it literally can out run a .30.06 bullet. Pretty cool right? Well it gets better.

Standing there was one of the pilots! 5'2" 83 year young Harlon Hain was telling war stories about flying the fastest plane in the world. WOW! The plane weighed 60,000#'s carried 80,000#'s of JP7. JP4 would not work as the fuel in the tanks would get super heated and boil due to friction in the air. The fuel range was 1.5 hours or 2,500 miles, that is a fuel burn of about 10,000 GPH!:eek:. It takes 150 gallons of fuel to re-start the engine..each! Navigation was done by using stars, it flew so high it could use stars like we use GPS, yes, it had an auto pilot! Harlon is an active CFI pilot and gave lessons yesterday! The man is simply amazing, and he certainly has the "right stuff". I could have listened to his stories all night.

So what do the SR71 Black Bird and the Van's RV-12 Little Bird have in common? Harvey would like to fly in the -12 and the pitot tube is in the nose. ;)
 
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Wow that must have been amazing I'll bet you could have listened to him all night. The stuff we learn , I would have thought the fuel would freeze at the altitude the black bird flew at but its just the opposite.
 
AdamZ said:
Wow that must have been amazing I'll bet you could have listened to him all night. The stuff we learn , I would have thought the fuel would freeze at the altitude the black bird flew at but its just the opposite.
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They would load up just enough fuel on the ground to get to the tanker. When the plane is cold fuel leaked out until the skin got hot, some areas up to 1,500F. They would then fly 2,500 miles in 1.5 miles and hit the tanker again. He had several engine outs, restarts, emergency landings, ect. I was like a kid in a candy store.
 
TangoWhiskey said:
Well, hopefully that's NOT the similarities you'll find with the RV-12!
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With an estimated 13 to 1 glide ratio I'll have plenty of time! :rofl: I was up at 12,500' doing some test flying and I decided to shut the motor off to find the best glide. 75 MPH IAS and 500 FPM drop. The engine restarted with a touch of the starter, but I shut it off again to practice a dead stick landing. With that kind of glide ratio touch down mid way down the runway was pretty easy.
 
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jesse said:
Judging by the build quality -- I don't think that will be the case.
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Most of the issues described would be caused by an engine issue, so not likely to be too influenced by the excellent quality of his build!
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Really? Through the spinner? I thought the RV-12 was a tractor configuration.
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Yep, it is a tractor config. The pitot tube like the SR71 is through the nose.

Pay no attention to the geek standing by the plane. He was just walking by while I was taking the picture. :rolleyes:

RV-12_4.JPG
 
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Geico266 said:
Yep, it is a tractor config. The pitot tube like the SR71 is through the nose.

Pay no attention to the geek standing by the plane. He was just walking by while I was taking the picture. :rolleyes:

RV-12_4.JPG
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Thank you for posting. That is America. When you fly and talk to ATC you say "we" even when you're alone. You and the airplane. We. Lindburgh knew it and wrote a book with that name.

Priceless.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Seems like a complicated way of doing that
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Probably done that way 'cuz the wings are removeable. Also may not be as hard as you think since the prop is not on the crank (reduction drive). I would like to see how it is routed though.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Seems like a complicated way of doing that
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Actually, it makes it simple to remove the wings in 5 mins. No chance of causing a pilot tube leak. You don't have to disconnect anything. The aluminum tube going through the spinner is stationary. The spinner rotates around the tube with a ceramic sleeve.

Blue masking tape on the nose gear is optional. :rofl:
 
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Neither flew at the Centennial of Flight celebration at Kitty Hawk in 2003?

Allegedly, every flying manned aircraft in the US military inventory overflew the monument at some time during the week. Though there are still two SR-71's in the NASA inventory supposedly they haven't flown since 1999.
 
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