you mean you didn't know concorde was VTOL able.

Quote:

You can if you visit the Big Apple. http://www.intrepidmuseum.org/intrepidmuseum/index.php?MERCURYSID=9a042960b95f72...

Have to be quick as it closes in October until May 2008.

I'd have to imagine all those aircraft exposed to the elements like that, need to be refurbished.  Near where I live, there was the SAC Museum that used to be on the tarmac at Offutt AFB.  The aircraft took a beating by the elements.  They build a huge indoor museum and carted all the aircraft about 30 miles away on country highways to the new museum.  They changed the museum's name and it's now a very nice inside, the home of one of only 3 B36 Peacemakers left.


http://www.strategicairandspace.com/general/general.htm
http://www.onfocus.com/cam/sac/
http://community.webshots.com/album/210756529HxLcKp

Not to pick nits but I recall from my visit to the Intrepid museum that the plane is an A12, not an SR71.  The A12 was the CIA's single seater version of the aircraft.  The SR71 was later developed for the air force and one of the modifications was the addition of the second seat.

One of the cool things is the tires on the rear landing gear: they had a special additive to keep them from either getting too hot and exploding or melting (can't remember which).  Instead of being black round donuts like normal tires they're actually silver.

If you really want to get a good look at an SR71 though check out the Air Force Armament Museum at Destin/Fort Walton Beach Florida.  THey have one on display with the engines removed.  You can see in to the gaping hole left by the missing engine and check out the titanium bowels of the plane, and crawl around underneith and stand inside the wheel wells.  The various little vents and things on the plane are fascinating: totally different from what you see on normal aircraft due to the extraordinary speeds that aircraft saw.

Many years ago, I walked through a hangar with an operational SR-71 for 6 months to get to my workplace.  I don't rememebr seeing silver tires, but I do remember seeing pans all over the hangar floor under the plane because it leaked so much.

The leaks are intentional.  When the plane gets up to altitude and speed, the friction on the skin causes it to heat up and expand, thereby sealing the leaks.

I find the SR71/A12 to be the most impressive aircraft I've ever heard of, an ENORMOUS technological achievement for its time.  I heard an interview with a '71 pilot.  He was overflying Libia after the US bombing in the 80's to do bomb damage assessment.  They were flying in shortly after the F111s had left the airspace and the Libian airspace was hot, the air defenses were fully woken by the previous bombing.

Anyway, he was quickly fired on by a SAM and decided to simply outrun the missle.  He put the throttle to the stops and accelerated, leaving the missle behind.  Yikes.  Shortly after his back seater informed him he was flying "outside the envelope", going faster than the plane was rated to go.  The pilot implied that nobody really knew how fast the '71 could go, and even though he was flying the plane faster than anyone else ever had he said it felt like the plane could go much, much faster.

8)  How cool is that?