Aeroplane: Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird” (17958) Engines: 2 Pratt & Whitney J-58/JTD11D-20A De La Vaulx Medal The following day, the same airplane, flown by two different crews, set a World Record for Altitude in Horizontal Flight at 85,068 feet (25,929 meters) and a World Record for...
22 December 1964: Lockheed test pilot Robert J. “Bob” Gilliland made a solo first flight of the first SR-71A, 61-7950, at Air Force Plant 42, Palmdale, California. The “Blackbird” flew higher than 45,000 feet (13,716 meters) and more than 1,000 miles per hour (1,609 kilomete...
“In college as soon as pictures of the Blackbird showed up, I had one hanging on my wall,” Steve Justice. Steve’s room is pictured from 1976 with his SR-71 Blackbird poster hanging in the top right-hand corner. Kelly Johnson, founder of the Skunk Works, pictured in the late 1930s...
Johnson would later design many of Lockheed’s most famous aircraft, such as the SR-71A Blackbird Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance airplane. As a student at the University of Michigan, he worked on the wind tunnel testing of the Lockheed Electra Model 10 and made recommendations that were inco...