SR-71, moldy oldy

Cant wait!! I actually got to see one up close at the Warner Robbins museum here in Georgia. Not sure how original it was but it was very cool to stand underneath this beast!!

If that's the same kit my dad built back in the '80's, you'll be sniffin' putty as well. I still can't believe the Testor's putty he used is still intact! Hang in there with it!

Glenn

Yup- it's a Blackbird, so you've got my attention!

If that's the same kit my dad built back in the '80's, you'll be sniffin' putty as well. I still can't believe the Testor's putty he used is still intact! Hang in there with it!

I have built several of the various brands of SR-71s and all of them require a good deal of putty, especially that upper fuselage to lower fuselage joint.

Darwin

One flew low over my house outside of Eglin AFB in the late 60s. Eglin was/is a testing center for new weapons systems and other stuff. The SR-71 was heading south, straight for the Gulf of Mexico like a bat out of hell. I had heard of them but had never even seen a picture of one at the time. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen in my short life up to that time. Even cooler than the C-5 Galaxy the flew low and slow like it was suspended from cables in the sky earlier that year. That was before I had even seen a 747.

Got walk around pictures of the one on display at Eglin.

I remember that kit from way back; shoot, I probably built it back in the day.

Pima County Air Museum has an SR-71 also.

- Every SR-71 kit that I have examined has the aft nacelle wrong.  They have the flame holders at the back end of the engines right at the edge of the tertiary doors, (that ring of rectangular doors just in front of the exhaust flaps), while they should be about 6 scale feet in front of that point.  The space in between is the afterburner itself.  Cutting Edge has an excellent after market resin set to correct this in 48th scale, but in 72, you have to do it yourself.

- My solution was to cut the flame holder center from the tertiary door ring, cut out the end of spray bottle cap, glue the flame holder into the upstream end of the bottle cap and then glue the open end of the bottle cap to the inside of the tertiary ring.

- The three stages of this process are shown in the photo, L-R, stock ring and cap, flame holder cut from ring and end out of cap, the assembled unit.  The assembled unit still needs to be painted and then glued into the exhaust flap section.

Darwin

Pretty trickly little fix you used there. Never would have thought of that in a million years.

Darwin! I'm watching closely! You da man on the HABU!

Yeah, this is very interesting! I'm watching this one too! Good luck with your project Darwin and have a nice day

Paweł

Good to see you back again, Darwin. I recently read a book by a pilot who described a landing in zero visibility. The GIB used his look down camera to get them centered over the stripe on the runway.

Good to see you back again, Darwin. I recently read a book by a pilot who described a landing in zero visibility. The GIB used his look down camera to get them centered over the stripe on the runway.

Thanks for the comment.  What book were you reading for that comment on 0/0 landing?  I have heard that before and I think that it is an old wives' tale.  The SR-71 was NOT authorized to make zero visibility landings and there is NO camera with a real time readout to give the capability to do something like that.  The RSO does have a viewport that works kind of like a periscope that looks down.  It is strictly visual and if the pilot cannot see forward, then that thing cannot see down either.

Darwin

I'll meet you half way on this and bring it in when I have more time.

I have a copy of "SR-71 Revealed" by Richard Graham, Col. USAF (ret.)

ISBN 13-978-0-7603-0122-7, signed.

Beyond that, I have to skim it to find that story, but I'll try.

PM incoming

A little progress has been made, but not documented on film.

- More scribing done. all of the fuselage top and bottom done, repairs made to "goofs"

- Chine bay camera windows enlarged and closer to correct shape

- Main landing gear bays cut out and plans made to add some detail to this area.

Darwin  

I have one of those from the 80s also and it is still on my shelf unbuilt.  I opened it and started to dry fit it.  I got scared of all the needed body work and packed it back up.

Here are some more pictures of my latest progress on the old Blackbird kit.

Top fuselage scribing with the inboard section of radar attenuating "pies" on the inboard portion of the starboard wing.  The port wing has not been done as yet.

 The outer portion of the #1 engine nacelle and wing with the "pies" on the leading and trailing edges.  Notice the 3 different sizes and shapes for the LE, TE and outer corner.  That was a LOT of measuring and marking.  I probably should have made some kind of jig to make it quicker and easier.

Excellent work so far!

Keep it coming!

My eyes have turned inside out with all the panel line scribing on the SR-71, so I took a little break.  I picked up this little jewel on evil-bay awhile back and decided to attempt putting it together.   This is the work stand that is placed next to the SR-71 cockpit for crew boarding/deboarding or any maintenance work in the cockpit area.   This is my first effort at using photo etch.

The instruction sheet.

All of the pieces removed from the fret and folded as necessary.  I still need to assemble and paint the thing.  All powered and non-powered ground equipment was painted yellow through the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.  Somewhere in the 80s, some genius figured out that the key to success was low visibility, so all AGE was painted olive drab.  I am not sure yet which color I will use.

Another status update on the Blackbird.

The scribing on top wings and aft fuselage completed and most of the "goofs" filled in.  The scribing on the bottom wings will have to wait until after I join the top and bottom fuselage pieces.  That step is waiting for the landing gear bays to be finished.

Main landing gear bays cut out

Chine bay and C-bay camera port windows built and installed.  The TROC camera in the C-bay had a round window.  The OOC cameras in the aft chine bays had rectangular windows while the TEOC cameras in the forward chine bays had square windows.

Hello Darwin,

you put a whole lot of work in this one! It's good to see you knowing this aircraft so well and also knowing exactly what you want your model to look like. Good luck with it and have a nice day

Paweł

  I finished the work stand or boarding platform for the Blackbirds and decided to paint it yellow.  I haven't put the wheels on it yet as it is already a little too high.  It lines up differently with different brands of Blackbirds.

Mrs Yardbird's SR-71A from the Monogram kit

My SR-71C from the Testors kit

My SR-71A from the Monogram kit

YF-12A from the original Revell kit from 1968  (I built this in 1968 or 1969)

All four Blackbirds of our fleet

Darwin

yardbird78

Good to see you back again, Darwin. I recently read a book by a pilot who described a landing in zero visibility. The GIB used his look down camera to get them centered over the stripe on the runway.

Thanks for the comment.  What book were you reading for that comment on 0/0 landing?  I have heard that before and I think that it is an old wives' tale.  The SR-71 was NOT authorized to make zero visibility landings and there is NO camera with a real time readout to give the capability to do something like that.  The RSO does have a viewport that works kind of like a periscope that looks down.  It is strictly visual and if the pilot cannot see forward, then that thing cannot see down either.

Darwin

Graham, page 26:

"We dumped fuel to reduce our landing gross weight as we neared Grand Forks. The weather was deteriorating rapidly. It was now 200 feet overcast, one-half mile visibility, and a slippery runway with an RCR of six and freezing drizzle. During this emergency I flew the ILS approach down to minimums. At minimums, where you should execute a missed approach if the runway is not in sight, the visibility was so bad I could not see anything. Since there were no suitable alternates available and since we were low on fuel, the idea of a missed approach was not too exciting. I'll never forget Ed's words as I sat there at minimums staring into an opaque windshield, "I have the strobes in sight, you're on centerline, keep on coming". With no forward visibility from the back seat, he was looking through his View Sight and had picked up the Sequence Flashing Lights beneath the aircraft. It was this bond, or trust, I had in him that made me pull the throttle to idle and sit there until I felt the runway.

Can't say much more after a story like that.