I’ve only ever seen SR-71s on static display at the Edwards AFB airshow. This was back in the middle 1970s.
I was stationed briefly at Patrick AFB just south of Cape Canaveral FL. There was then a part-time detachment of U-2s there. Which as best I can tell still gets activated now and again.
I got to see them take off & land a bunch. Which was really weird in itself. They had the old J75 engine which was noisy as heck. So the pilot would go to full throttle, the black smoke and noise would come blasting out. He’d quickly accelerate in just a few airplane lengths to a whopping 70-80 knots (WAG) then lift off more or less level *a la *the B-52.
Then he’d smoothly pull it up into about a 45-60 degree climb and simply drive slowly straight into the sky. It was almost like watching a blimp climb. Crazy angle, massive noise, and it still takes minutes for it to disappear while going a lot more up than out.
Landings couldn’t be more different. The approach is real flat, the noise level is much lower and again everything happens in super slo-mo for anyone used to watching jets. After touchdown at a silly-slow airspeed they’d get on the brakes pretty good, slow to a walking pace in what seemed like just a few airplane lengths, then tip over onto a wingtip. It always reminded me of that skit on Laugh-In with the old guy in the raincoat on the tricycle who’d trundle along for a couple feet then tip over.
It’s been a bunch of years since I’ve been to Castle or any place else in Central California, but if you like history, high technology, and have some time to kill, you might see if traveling via Mt. Hamilton Road and stopping at Lick Observatory fits in with your plans. Large telescopes, both new and from 1888. It’s a beautiful, albeit very lengthy, drive from the East Bay to the Valley via Mt. Hamilton Road/SR 130.
For some reason, I had thought you might be taking 152 to 99 to get to Atwater, and if so, there was a old restaurant roadside attraction near 99. Basically, some guy really liked salt water fishing and used his restaurant to show off his fishing trophies. This was 20 years ago, and I guess they’re a bit threadbare now, but evidently they’re still there. If you want to see several different kinds of marlin, that’s a place to do it. It’s a bit of a detour though from the route I think you’d take to get to Atwater.
Though I used to travel through Los Banos several times a year, and I love cheese, I never did stop and make it to the one spot where they make Teleme cheese.
If you instead are taking 580, you can see if Lawrence Livermore Labs are having tours.
I visited Castle before they got their Vulcan. Bummer, as it’s been one of my favorite planes. Never seen one fly, but I’ve heard they are just incredibly loud, louder than my personal loudest experience of a C-5A doing a low pass during an airshow.
So to update this thread I went to Castle Air museum yesterday. Got lots and lots of photos, many many of the SR71. I photographed using HDR (high dynamic range) using 3 x RAW files at different exposure values, so I need to process the photos in photoshop before I can post any, which I’ll do when I’m back home this weekend. (Yeah your iPhone can do HDR but nowhere as a good as a real DSLR with RAW files).
The SR71 is really quite hard to photograph, its just so friggin long and all the interesting bits are at the front and back with a rather boring uniform section in the middle. Really didn’t appreciate just how long it is or how big those engine nacelles are until I saw it in person. Yes I did get to touch it (without stepping over the chain, it overhangs).
Luckily I had my 8mm ultrawide flat lens so I think I got some good stuff. Will post an update when I got photos processed.
Just to add a plug for Seattle area museums. The Boeing Museum of Flight has a very approachable M-21 Blackbird and matching drone.
The MOF can take days to see - everything from fabric and spruce to modern UAVs. Separate wings for WWI, WW2, spaceflight and walk throughs of several passenger aircraft (including a Concorde).
At Paine Field, 30 miles north, you can tour the Boeing Plant, visit the MOF restoration shop (and walk through a Dehavilland Comet). Paul Allen’s Flying Heritage Collection is also at Paine Field - many flying examples of combat aircraft from all combatants in both world wars.
Nice, unfortunately I’ve never had any reason to visit Seattle for work, but that sounds great. (I’m an Apple guy).
That link looks amazing, the Blackbird in the MOF is all polished and clean and lit up nicely. The one at castle is unfortunately just in the open, which means the skin is rather dirty from being out in the open, so don’t expect too much from my photos.
When I was about 11, we were stationed at Misawa AB in norther Honshu. My dad, who worked in the elephant cage on base, called the house and said “Today would be a good day ride by the flight line. Around 2 O’Clock.” Being the good little boy I was, I rode by when an SR-71 flew overhead about 350 feet, coming in for a landing.
It was awesome! An image forever burned into my brain.
Something I’ve wondered about those aviation museums, do the aircraft still have their engines and avionics installed, or are they pretty much an empty shell?
On a sidenote I recently wrote a short story featuring the Blackbird, set in an alternate history early 1980’s Cold War. I always say that if the Sr-71 had never existed and it was presented as a new aircraft today it would still look futuristic, I can only imagine the impact it had back in the 1960’s.
From my visit to castle the older planes have their engines still in. Newer planes have covers over the engine In ports and exhaust so can’t tell. Avionics also couldn’t tell, they had foil inserts in the cockpits to protect them from sun. I think an indoor museum would be more interesting on that front.
Ah I see, thank you, I don’t think I could feel the same way about a display if it didn’t have the engines at least, it would seem more like a giant airfix kit than a real plane.
A big determiner is how obsolete the type is/was when it went on display. if somebody got an F-4 out of the boneyard today to display someplace there’d be no reason to bother taking parts off it. OTOH, since B-52s are still flying, if somebody pulled one of those out of the boneyard for a museum, they’d try to scavenge as much useful stuff as they could while still leaving a good looking display piece.
It’s generally easier to leave at least the gross shell of the engine in place than to remove it. It might be missing its oil pump or other internals, but it’ll still look pretty normal.
As to avionics, any “black boxes” that were still useful at the time the aircraft was museum-ized would have been scavenged. Likewise other useful parts off engines or elsewhere in the aircraft.
Whether there’s anything left in the cockpit depends on whether they intend to display that part.
Lots of outdoor museum aircraft, particularly at more minor museums are little more than the shell and the landing gear.
On Sunday I took our 13 year old son to the National Museum of the USAF near Dayton, Ohio. Saw an SR-71 - a very cool aircraft. But the most awesome sight was the Valkyrie.
Yeah I was a little disappointed that most of the jets had covers so I couldn’t see all the details of the engines. However the older early jet era planes did seem to be intact and those were the ones with the shiny aluminium skins with riveted plates . Very photogenic !
I imagine that without the nacelle plugs you’d just see right through, because museum airplanes are often gutted – including engines. Less weight, no residual nasty chemicals (fuel and lubricant, e.g.), sensitive technologies kept away from unauthorized eyeballs*…
*Not so much of this about the J-58 engine of the SR-71, since it’s pretty well openly documented. But avionics and mission systems? Oh, yeah.
