SR 71 Blackbird - Anatomy [2020]

[Music] soviet union july 4 1956 cia pilot harvey stockman completed his first reconnaissance flight mission over enemy territory on board the lockheed u2 article number 347. despite the mission being a success as subsequent operations were executed it became clear that eventually this intelligence gathering method would soon become vulnerable to interception the answer stealth technology lockheed's president clarence l kelly johnson initiated a small project for an eventual successor of the u2 a project that would give birth to one of the most iconic planes in history a series of studies were performed to determine if an airplane invisible to radar was possible after many tests lockheed researchers came out with mainly two conclusions first stealth was conceivable and several configurations were tested with relative success second enemy radar capabilities would get better over time this indicated that this technology alone was not sufficient to ensure mission success it didn't take long for them to realize that the best way to penetrate enemy territory collect and successfully aggress with reconnaissance data two other preconditions were necessary fly extremely high exceptionally fast [Music] hello everyone subject zero here in 1957 the cia initiated project gusto its goal was to develop youtube's replacement enter general dynamics conveyor division and lockheed martin skunk works general dynamics approach used two airplanes the first being the b-58b and the second the first invisible super hustler fish the idea was to have b-58b carry fish up to launch altitude but eventually general dynamics failed to sell its b-58b prototype to the united states air force imposing a major review to the project because fish was initially meant to be carried by another airplane they quickly had to change this concept to which they nicknamed kingfish lockheed's side many designs were studied such as the arrow 1 archangel 1 and archangel 2. on november 25th 1958 both companies received compensation to continue refining its prototype airplanes for the next year lockheed would spend most of its time refining no less than 10 of its major designs a3 to a12 one pattern is stood out from all models and that was the design trend of the delta wing as portrayed on a10 model and later established on the finalized version a12 the competition for the cia secret airplane development came to an end on august 29 1959 when lockheed received an official notification for its winning design the a12 a 4.5 million dollar advance award was given to continue development of the plane eventually the air force saw a potential in developing an interceptor variant of a12 becoming af12 under the project code name cadlock the project added some modifications to a12 such as the second seat in order to have a fire weapons control section thunderwind tests show that the new requirements made the plane unstable and require the nose section to be reconfigured other parts of the plane were also reconfigured when most notably the new j57 engines were installed later gained the new name yf-12 at the same time the sr-71 was being developed and its purpose was to become everything in one due to the high cost of all programs and being several years late for delivery everything almost came to an end on february 5th 1968. it was nasa on the following year to save the program in a joint effort with the united states air force their goal was to use the plane to study high altitude flying at high speed but we all know today what their real intentions were it was then that the sr-71 became the king of disguise in the beginning of the project lockheed flirted with stealth technology although the sr-71 is not stealth it did contain some features that helped minimize its radar signature most notably are the chine features of the plane in a triangular sawtooth pattern if it wasn't for this feature the plane would most likely be cylindrical and rely mainly on speed and altitude as its main line of defense this was clearly a first attempt to create what they now call radar absorbent structure and it works something like this as the radar signal hits the structure it bounces from side to side losing energy you could say that the sawtooth absorbed the signal for it to work properly this pattern was allocated all around the plane however the heat signature of the plane was what mostly gave it away being highly visible to any radar to overcome this problem a black matte paint was used to dissipate heat and season was added to the fuel to minimize electrical conductivity even though these steps greatly minimize its rcs once in a while enemy raider was able to find it nevertheless there wasn't much they could do after all its escape maneuver was just to increase its speed to mach 3. building a mach 3 plane is no easy feat since the goal was to fly as high and as fast as possible the structure of the plane would have to survive the most extreme of temperatures to achieve that they decided to use a metal that was never used before up to 93 of the plane was made out of titanium while the rest were composite materials at its purest form its ultimate tensile strength can reach 434 megapascals today titanium alloys can more than triple that number in comparison to other metals it is evident white titanium was chosen what really mattered about this selection was the fact that titanium structure can work at much higher variance of temperatures and in this case since the astar 71 worked through extreme temperatures a metal that could survive freezing cold all the way to more than six times the boiling temperature of water was a must as a frame of reference the heat signature of the plane at mach 3.2 looked something like this the nose of the aircraft reached 300 degrees celsius while the leading edge of the cockpit windshield was at 327. at the wings you would find the most extreme of temperature variance at the edge leading to the engine the temperature was at 272 degrees celsius and immediately at the engine nasals it jumped to 308 reaching 565 at the center and 648 degrees celsius at the opening of the jet exhaust it was crucial for the metal to not deform and to maintain its strength this was clear evidence of the precision of engineering and manufacturing success however temperature added another problem since cooling any internal components of any plane is done using forced air from outside when flying a mach 3.2 it's just not possible a lot of insulation was necessary to keep things working including the pilot and the reconnaissance system officer with their special suits in order to make the plane work every single part of it was designed with specific functions that complemented each other the plane can be divided into 21 parts four main sections and 17 subsections at the four main sections we have the nose forward fuselage aft fuselage and outer wing with other nasal half at the nose section we have the pit.mast inside the nose it contained a radar with an optional imaging system depending on the mission the nose could be empty on the forward fuselage we have the two cockpits for the pilot and the rso immediately behind the air conditioning bay right next to the aerial refueling door it is in this section that all reconnaissance components are located and could carry a wide range of different cameras and sensors this section could hold payloads as large as 40 by 43 by 233 centimeters and weighed as much as 409 kilograms almost at the very end is where the technical objective cameras were installed and used for the most part of the early 1980s they had enough film to cover 2644 kilometers at 80 000 feet with a precision of 10 to 12 centimeters resolution under ideal conditions then we have the fuel tanks divided into three sections tank 1a tank 1 and tank 2. however tank 2 is also partly located at the aft fuselage that holds tank 3 4 5 and 6. while tank 6 is further divided into subsections 6a and 6b at full load the tanks could carry a total of 46 254 liters with a total weight of 36 414 kilograms for the blackbird a special type of fuel was used what they called jet propellant 7 a chemical mixture mainly composed of hydrocarbons this special fuel was a colorless liquid with similar odor as kerosene it had a melting point of minus 30 degrees celsius and boiling point at 1 atm varying from 182 to 288 degrees celsius as i mentioned before the high temperatures to which the plane had to withstand was also reflected in fuel technology jp7 had an auto ignition point of 241 degrees celsius and if you recall the plane temperature at mach 3.2 was way above that this is where the cooling system comes in the fuel was used to cool itself and other parts of the plane however to achieve that it was necessary to use air from the engines in a series of heat sinks to cool it down to 100 degrees celsius and below further cooling was done by the air conditioning system located behind the rso moving fuel around on any airplane usually affects its center of gravity it had to be carefully managed for that specific reason to maintain the blackbird's center of gravity for that a series of powerful pumps worked together that could pump fuel as needed ranging from 10.4 to 29 kilograms per minute which was the standard automatic rate and if necessary the transfer rate could be dramatically increased to 105.8 kilograms per minute the left engine was supplied by tanks 1 2 3 and 4 and right engine was supplied by 1 4 5 and 6. if any problem occurred a cross feed valve could be opened to allow fuel to go to both engines they could sustain mach 3.2 for a little over 90 minutes all of this was designed to feed its hungry engines the first of its kind that could remain in afterburner mode for extended periods of time a piece of technology so demanding that the entire airplane was designed for the engines that powered it the pratt and whitney j58 a marvel to behold alright folks to be continued in part two you

Channel: Subject Zero Science

Views: 149,432

Rating: 4.9240856 out of 5

Keywords: Subject Zero Science, SR-71 Blackbird - Anatomy, sr 71 blackbird, sr 71 blackbird sonic boom, sr 71 blackbird fly by, sr 71 blackbird speed check, sr 71 blackbird takeoff, sr 71 blackbird documentary, sr 71 blackbird cockpit view, sr 71 blackbird top speed, sr 71 blackbird rc, sr 71 blackbird flying at mach 3, sr 71 blackbird buzz tower, sr 71 blackbird breaking sound barrier, sr 71 blackbird flight, sr 71 blackbird black ops, a 12 archangel, a 12 archangel vs sr 71

Id: sFxz-rIFpnw

Length: 13min 49sec (829 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 19 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Manobo69]

Blackbird, automatic up vote.

[u/Tafinho]

u/savevideo

[u/v4pe2]

If you are a child then buy a model of this one and build it. Carve one out of wood if you can, thats basically how Kelley did it in a few days in a shed.