T Bolt
Colonel
Great start Dirk! 
Doesn't that lettering just annoy the p**s out of you!!
Doesn't that lettering just annoy the p**s out of you!!
**** DONE: 1/72 Revell SR-71 Blackbird 17978, Playboy Bunny
- Thread starter dirkpitt289
- Start date
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A4K
Brigadier General
Atleast it dosen't say 'Made in China'...
Nice work on the consoles too Dirk!
Nice work on the consoles too Dirk!
vikingBerserker
Lieutenant General
Nice work so far. Interesting verbage they added to the model.
- Thread starter
- #26
dirkpitt289
Master Sergeant
The plan is to build this model with the cockpit open allowing people to view the interior. To liven things up a bit I choose to dress the crew in two different color flight suits. While the gold suits (Almost looks Orange in most photos) were the primary color suits there were others such as white brown and blue. The blue suit was and still is the primary color suit for U2 Pilots.
Pilots assigned their seats and strapped in using Tamiya tape
Thanks for looking
Pilots assigned their seats and strapped in using Tamiya tape
Thanks for looking
Crimea_River
Marshal
Looking good Dirk
Vic Balshaw
Major General
Hey Dirk, that's a blo*dy good start, I like the captions as well and with the boys sitting in the office it's looking pretty good.
A4K
Brigadier General
With vic!
Nice start Dirk!
T Bolt
Colonel
Looks great Dirk!! I can't believe all the switches and knobs in that cockpit! Those pilots must have had genius level IQs to keep track of all of them.
At lesst not yet!!
At lesst not yet!!
- Thread starter
- #32
dirkpitt289
Master Sergeant
A story from an SR-71 Pilot
We trained for a year, flying out of Beale AFB in California, Kadena Airbase in Okinawa, and RAF Mildenhall in England. On a typical training mission, we would take off near Sacramento, refuel over Nevada, accelerate into Montana, obtain high Mach over Colorado, turn right over New Mexico, speed across the Los Angeles Basin, run up the West Coast, turn right at Seattle, then return to Beale. Total flight time: two hours and 40 minutes.
One day, high above Arizona, we were monitoring the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes below is. First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers to check his ground speed.
"Ninety knots," ATC replied.
A twin Bonanza soon made the same request.
"One-twenty on the ground," was the reply.
To our surprise, a Navy F-18 came over the radio with a ground speed check. I knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, he had a ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the bug-smashers in the valley know what real speed was.
"Dusty 52, we show you at 620 on the ground," ATC responded.
The situation was too ripe. I heard the click of Walter's mike button in the rear seat. In his most innocent voice, Walter startled the controller by asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace.
In a cool, professional voice, the controller replied, "Aspen 20, I show you at 1,982 knots on the ground." We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast.
I believe this story came from Brian Shul's book, "Why I Fly"
We trained for a year, flying out of Beale AFB in California, Kadena Airbase in Okinawa, and RAF Mildenhall in England. On a typical training mission, we would take off near Sacramento, refuel over Nevada, accelerate into Montana, obtain high Mach over Colorado, turn right over New Mexico, speed across the Los Angeles Basin, run up the West Coast, turn right at Seattle, then return to Beale. Total flight time: two hours and 40 minutes.
One day, high above Arizona, we were monitoring the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes below is. First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers to check his ground speed.
"Ninety knots," ATC replied.
A twin Bonanza soon made the same request.
"One-twenty on the ground," was the reply.
To our surprise, a Navy F-18 came over the radio with a ground speed check. I knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, he had a ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the bug-smashers in the valley know what real speed was.
"Dusty 52, we show you at 620 on the ground," ATC responded.
The situation was too ripe. I heard the click of Walter's mike button in the rear seat. In his most innocent voice, Walter startled the controller by asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace.
In a cool, professional voice, the controller replied, "Aspen 20, I show you at 1,982 knots on the ground." We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast.
I believe this story came from Brian Shul's book, "Why I Fly"
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Nice work Dirk.
- Thread starter
- #35
dirkpitt289
Master Sergeant
Very cool, thanks
Crazy airplane. I was a KC-135A crew chief and while on 30 TDYs to RAF Mildenhall, these little black slicksters would sit at the end of the runway and spool up their engines. We'd be waiting for them to release brakes for the take-off roll-out in a Chevy maintenance van. The road to the parked airplane hardstands crossed the runway and there was a regular traffic light at that crossing. The engines were so loud I think every fastener in the van was rattling. The sound would be reverberating in our chests as we screamed at the oblivious pilot to take off, already. Those engines were in constant afterburner. I spoke to some SR troops at the chow hall. You could pick them out as their fatigues were stained with JP7 fuel. Yep, they never could develop a sealant that would withstand the heat of the skins. It cooked out each flight but the saving grace was heat expansion sealing the joints. The JP7 was like syrup. It was pumped through the skins to cool them down and the heat would change the fuel to a lower viscosity fit for atomizing through the fuel nozzles of the burner cans. But, gads, they were deafeningly loud. Squeezing your earmuffs against your head was pointless.
They could only be refueled by a KC-135R, BTW. They were reserved for SR support. Any KC could refuel them but we'd have to flush the fuselage bladder tanks of JP4 carrying KC-135As for hours to ensure the final load of JP7 wasn't affected. Nasty, long job so a certain number of KC's were reserved for the job and recoded as "R's".
1982 knots= 1 kilometer per second. Or, a fair bit faster than a .308 bullet.
They could only be refueled by a KC-135R, BTW. They were reserved for SR support. Any KC could refuel them but we'd have to flush the fuselage bladder tanks of JP4 carrying KC-135As for hours to ensure the final load of JP7 wasn't affected. Nasty, long job so a certain number of KC's were reserved for the job and recoded as "R's".
1982 knots= 1 kilometer per second. Or, a fair bit faster than a .308 bullet.
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Matt308
Glock Perfection
Good luck bud. Learn from my mistakes. Can't wait to see the final result.
kgambit
Tech Sergeant
- Thread starter
- #39
dirkpitt289
Master Sergeant
I made some progress on the SR-71 last night
Here I was able to clean up the raised letters on the fin
Fuselage halfs put together
More to follow
Here I was able to clean up the raised letters on the fin
Fuselage halfs put together
More to follow
T Bolt
Colonel
Looks like you have the same clamps as me Dirk, Including those high-tech wooden ones! 
Looking good
Looking good
