Comment by nl | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nl | Hacker News Reader

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> Another pilot chimed in: "Only in LA."

The SR71 radio speed check was in LA too.

  I heard a Cessna ask for a readout of its ground speed. 
    '90 knots Center replied.
  Moments later,a Twin Beech required the same.
   '120 knots' Center answered.

  We weren’t the only ones proud of our ground speed that day
  as almost instantly an F-18 smugly transmitted:
   'Ah, Center, Dusty 52 requests ground speed readout.'
  There was a slight pause, then the response, 
   '620 knots on the ground, Dusty.'

  As I was thinking to myself how ripe a situation this was, 
  I heard a familiar click of a radio transmission coming from my 
  back-seater. It was at that precise moment I realized Walt and I 
  had become a real crew, for we were both thinking in unison.

   'Center, Aspen 20, you got a ground speed readout for us?'
  There was a longer than normal pause
   'Aspen, I show 1,942 knots.'

  No further inquiries were heard on that frequency.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/sr-71-blackbird-pilot...

Another apocryphal story: A new ATC was working in Houston and got a call from a SR71 coming back to the states through the Gulf of Mexico.

The SR71 requested flight level 800.

The ATC, thinking someone was joking, said, "If you can get up there, FL800 is yours."

The SR71 replied, "Maam, we're coming down to 800."

For those unfamiliar with the terminology, add two zeros to the end of the flight level to get the altitude in feet.

That story is often told but is generally considered apocryphal. There is too much wrong with it procedurally. It's funny, but not likely a conversation that actually happened.

Dont under estimate what the military get up to. The MK1 Lynx helicopter (Westland Lynx) didnt have a black box flight recorder, and as it had the world speed record, many pilots when entertaining new recruits would attempt to scare the wotsit out of them by flying over the mountain tops of Wales before nose diving the chopper towards the valley floor to see how fast they could get it to go. Noisy! On a par with flying with The Blades who are ex Red Arrow pilots.

What's the procedural problem with it?

It's possibly a little too cute or maybe embellished, but there's nothing in it that sounds impossible or beyond plausibility.

For reference I have a pilot's license.

The upthread-linked Reddit debunk [0] is A) SR71 would've been on a different frequency to both other planes; B) ATC computers at the time were capped at 990 knots; C) SR71s' speeds were classified, no way the crew would've asked or ATC responded with it.

Unfortunately.

https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/8x5ndw/til_wh...

Correct, people keep repeating this story - it's false. I know controllers who have actually controlled the U2 and SR71 and they've explained why it's not true (they don't use the same freq, etc.).

Also Brian Shul (the originator of this anecdote) and his RSO were the only SR71 crew removed from the program. There is a reason for that.

Would you mind explaining the reason? His Wikipedia page [0] doesn't mention anything, although it does mention the story with four citations. One explicitly states "Though they didn’t really control us, they did monitor our movement across their scope." [1]

Off topic, but be sure to run Javascript on theaviationgeekclub.com or else the code that breaks your clipboard will fail to run.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Shul

[1] https://theaviationgeekclub.com/sr-71-blackbird-pilot-tells-...

This is what I was able to dig up: http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?/topic/267042-...

The SR-71's top speed is still classified to this day, partly because they probably still don't know what it was, because nobody ever got one there. Shul's plane was cruising probably far below max speed (the number wasn't 1942, I don't remember exactly what he said it was).

As to "not using the same freq", military aircraft have radios with knobs that turn. They can certainly monitor and talk on civilian frequencies if they see fit to do so, and they fly in and out of civilian airports regularly on ferry flights (not the SR-71 obviously, but I know for a fact F-18s do all the time, because I used to stand duty at a command that owned a bunch of them and we had to file reports on what airport they were at). If they can't talk on civilian frequencies, how would that work? And they fly through civilian ATC owned airspace, they absolutely have to talk to civilian ATC.

As to Shul being removed from the program, have never heard that -- I'm not likely to take the word of some random on the internet about it.

They used UHF to talk to ATC.

Related post: https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/archive/index.php/t-56350...

> SR71s' speeds were classified

Even after the transatlantic world record "fastest air-breathing manned aircraft" flights in 1976? Especially if they were flying below the record speeds (depends on the exact numbers, going by wikipedia, the record was for approx. 1905 knots, which of course is lower than the figure in the story)?

(But, yeah, I've heard plenty of people, including other SR71 pilots in interviews, question the validity of Shul's stories)

The SR-71's "speeds" are not classified. You can even download the long ago declassified manual that says what the max mach number it can display is.

The actual top speed might still be, if it is, it's probably because they don't actually know what it really is. There have been multiple pilots who have said they could pretty much keep giving it gas and it would keep going faster.

Well if someone on reddit said it convincingly it’s settled.

Come on, I didn't claim that. I responded to 'someone on HN claiming to have a pilots licence' who couldn't see a reason it wasn't plausible. I'm just offering three anti-plausability reasons someone else on the internet had.

I thought it was apocryphal as well, but this is the pilot who did it. https://youtu.be/8AyHH9G9et0

Not saying it’s impossible that he made it up or embellished, but it seems likely that it actually happened.

I would like to know exactly which frequency/airspace he was using that allowed all mentioned parties to hear each other.

It's not unreasonable that the SR 71 was listening on the frequency of the airspace beneath them - if the're had been an emergency, it's always better to have a picture of who's on the frequency/within that airspace.

Other sled drivers have noted how fast & loose Shul can be with the facts.

I haven’t looked that far into it, I just watched that video when Youtube recommended it. The written story that I’ve seen online was uncredited, so seeing someone talk about it made it seem more likely to have occurred (at least to me).

That video is not a one-off. The guy now works as a motivational speaker doing 2-3 of these SR-71 themed speeches every week (http://galleryonepublishing.com/BlackbirdStores/News.html).

I'm sure he wouldn't let the truth get in the way of a good story.

In the original version I read they were in a blackbird and the pilot wanted to request the ground speed very badly but felt he shouldn't because he didn't think his partner would find it appropriate. Then just as it seemed like the opportunity was going to pass he felt the radio click and his partner requested the airspeed. They were a real crew after that.

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