The Blackbird engines were started by the SR-71 crew using controlled explosions caused by triethyl-borane

‘The NTSB lists Triethylborane [TEB] as the following most dangerous material, one step below fissionable nuclear material,’ Former SR-71 Blackbird pilot David Peters

The amazing photo in this post, taken at RAF Mildenhall in 1986 by Stuart Freer, shows an SR-71 Blackbird Mach 3 spy aircraft performing at the Air Fete Air Show and creating amazing fireballs.

According to Lt. Col. Doug Soifer, a former Blackbird RSO, this is mentioned in Richard H. Graham’s book SR-71 Revealed The Inside Story.

‘During that pass we [Soifer and Mike Smith, the pilot] had “13 fireballs” come out of the plane’s exhaust. It looked beautiful, and people wanted to know if it could be done again. They used the picture of us with the flames coming out for the next year’s Air Fete poster. Mike and I became known as the “Fireball Twins.” The maintenance people figured it was the TEB [triethylborane] shooting out of its container and igniting the JP-7. With that start, we had an exciting six weeks in England.’

JP-7 fuel was used by the SR-71, a unique fuel that retains its integrity at very high temperatures by adding an additive that increases its flash point.

Graham recalls;

‘The high flashpoint brings up another problem. Most jet engines use igniter plugs—nothing more than a very hot spark plug if you will. Using these igniter plugs they used with the JP-7 and just drowns it out, it won’t ignite. Kelly [Johnson] put his engineers to work, and he said, ‘OK, gentlemen, how are 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 would go 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, which 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.’

Every engine had a sealed tank installed on it, inerted with nitrogen gas, that was filled with 600 cc of TEB by maintenance before each flight.

Former SR-71 Blackbird pilot David Peters explains: ‘An interesting note to this is the transport of it. If we landed away, servicing had to be hauled to our location. The NTSB lists TEB as the next most dangerous material, one step below fissionable nuclear material. The folks that handled this stuff were highly trained and good.’

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Photo by Stuart Freer