The Blackbird
The SR-71, commonly referred to as the “Blackbird,” is a long-range, advanced strategic reconnaissance aircraft that was developed from the Lockheed A-12 and YF-12A models. The initial flight of an SR-71 occurred on December 22, 1964, and the first SR-71 to be put into service was delivered to the 4200th (later known as the 9th) Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base in California in January 1966. The U.S. Air Force decommissioned its fleet of SR-71s on January 26, 1990.
Over its almost 24 years of service, the SR-71 held the title of the fastest and highest-flying operational aircraft worldwide. At an altitude of 80,000 feet, it was capable of surveying 100,000 square miles of the Earth’s surface every hour. The Blackbird’s extraordinary capabilities and operational success positioned it at the forefront of aviation technology advancements during the Cold War.
The reason why the Soviets never developed their own SR-71
Nonetheless, what prevented the Soviets from creating their own version of the “SR-71” and developing a rival aircraft to the Blackbird?
‘The Soviets built the MiG-25,’ says Iain McClatchie, an aviation expert, on Quora.
‘Notice how huge those air intakes are? Compare that against a Mach 2 airplane:
‘Dynamic pressure is what holds the aircraft up and causes drag. It scales linearly with air density and with velocity squared.
‘Air mass flow rate through the engines is what is needed for thrust. It scales with air density linearly and with velocity LINEARLY.
‘Since the wing works with dynamic pressure, dynamic pressure can’t vary more than a factor of 5 or so during the flight. So, if you want to go fast, you have to go high, where the air is less dense. For mass flow to keep up with drag, you’ll need big fat intakes. These won’t work well at lower speeds.
‘The moment we saw the MiG-25, we knew it was designed to go fast like an SR-71/A-12, whose intakes are each nearly the size of the fuselage.
‘The other problem that a high and fast jet faces is hidden. The engine intake slows the air to subsonic flow before it goes into the compressor. The air’s kinetic energy turns into heat… the temperature rise goes as the SQUARE of velocity. The engine then has to compress that air (heating it more) and then add lots of heat before expanding it through the turbine. The turbine has to survive air heated in all three ways.’
The first engine to use directionally solidified turbine blades
McClatchie continues;
‘The J58 engine in the SR-71 was the first engine to use directionally solidified turbine blades, which were able to resist creep at higher temperatures than any blades before them. This is a critical technology. Without high-temperature turbine blades, you cannot make a jet engine fast.
‘In fact, the SR-71 and MiG-25 are both thermally rather than power-limited. Both have reserve power to climb (rapidly) at full speed. Their speed is limited by the temperature of their turbines and not by power.
‘(These days, most turbine engines have hollow turbine blades, with “cooler” air from the compressor blown through them and out tiny holes in their leading edges. The air forms a film over the blade, insulating it from the heat of the surrounding gas. Neither the SR-71 nor the MiG-25 had these blades. Neither had the ceramic coatings we use today. These changes would have enabled an operating speed increase, but probably not more than Mach 3.6 or so).
The Soviets never developed their own SR-71. Here’s why.
‘As it turns out, the Soviets did not have the technology to make blades that could tolerate as high temperatures as the J58 turbine. As a result, the MiG-25 flew slower than the SR-71 (Mach 2.83 rather than Mach 3.4), and its engine did not last the 400 hours between overhauls that the J58 managed.’
McClatchie concludes,
‘That speed limit, btw, is very abrupt. NASA squeezed a tiny performance increase out of the SR-71 by reducing engine life from 400 to 50 hours. A MiG-25 was tracked at Mach 3.2 over the Sinai in March 1971. That speed excursion would have only lasted minutes, and the engines were scrapped after the flight.’
Check out the Born into the Wilde Blue Yonder Habubrats Facebook page for further Blackbird photos and stories.
Top SR-71 Blackbird photo: Stuart Freer
Photo by NASA, U.S. Navy, Alex Beltyukov, and Dmitriy Pichugin via Wikipedia
