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Comment by barney54 | Hacker News Reader

I know Mach 3 is fast, but it still is amazing flying California to Russia and back in 10.5 hours.

> and back

That's what makes the actual difference :)

The SR-71 that is on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space facility at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles airport outside of Washington DC set an intercontinental speed record on its last flight (the flight it took to become a museum piece):

"On its last flight, March 6, 1990, Lt. Col. Ed Yielding and Lt. Col. Joseph Vida set a speed record by flying from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., in 1 hour, 4 minutes, and 20 seconds, averaging 3,418 kilometers (2,124 miles) per hour. At the flight's conclusion, they landed at Washington-Dulles International Airport and turned the airplane over to the Smithsonian." (http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?object=na...)

And rumors at the time were that it could have made the USA crossing significantly faster, but the military did not want to reveal the 'true' top speed of the aircraft.

You can fly from California to Russia and back in less than 10.5 hours today, it's not that far from Alaska.

The difference is they were flying the long way, across the Atlantic, not the short way over the Bering Sea.

Here's the direct route:

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=BAB-MMK

According to the article they passed south of Greenland, so they took a somewhat longer path. I assume that's because it helped them reach the tankers, or kept them within range of emergency landing spots or potential rescue forces.

Heck if you stand in just the right place, I've heard you can even see Russia from Alaska.

Can anyone explain why were they going from California?

It seems to make the mission much more complicated. Why not somewhere in North East USA, or even the UK (as they ended up doing anyway)?

Support base - all the logistics were out there including Lockheed contractors.

When you have missions all over the world and an aircraft that exists in small numbers and requires extreme expertise and specialized equipment, it can be easier to just fly them on long missions rather than re-base them.

For an even more extreme example, the B-2's home base is in Missouri. It has flown bombing missions into Serbia, Afghanistan, and Iraq directly out of its home base. Since it's not nearly as fast as an SR-71, these missions take a long time. The longest one took nearly two days. Fortunately for the pilots, it's a bit more comfortable than the SR-71 as well, with no space suits, and facilities for bathroom breaks and hot meals.

Hey, the SR-71 had a way to make hot meals, if you count heating a sandwich up using the cockpit windows as a hot meal.

Difficult to get that sandwich into your mouth through the space helmet.

Technically, I said nothing about eating them.

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