Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Will the real Eric stand up. Wow! The short account of your experience has made for a great read. Eric I am very very impressed.

I'm an aircraft nut primarily, Rick bass nut secondary, so I do appreciate the lines of the YF-23. I was pulling for it in the competition in the early '90s. At least Lockheed improved the lines of the production Raptor over its prototype, but I still like the "Black Widow II" better. There's a bronze sculpture at the main entrance of the Pima County Air Museum in Tucson depicting three F-23s in formation. If only.

I really like the lines of the SR-71 Blackbird. I've stood under one for almost an hour drinking in all the sexy curves. And to think it was all designed using a slapstick.

Humor is slapstick, slide rules are slipsticks

Bet you did that malaprop on purpose, John

Uhhh, yeah, right.....

Actually, I was fortunate never having to use one. And thanks for the correction, seriously.

Yeah,Paul,same for me,I love me my flying machines!Agreed,the production F-22 looks much better than the YF did..We called it the Pelican..

Hey John,it's a good thing that Blackbird you stood under didn't have any gas in it,those things leaked like crazy until they were brought up to "operating temperature" (M3+ @80,000ft) If a Blackbird on the ground doesn't leak,then it's empty.

One of the jets at Blackbird Park in Palmdale is actually an A-12..

So's the one in the Seattle Museum of Flight. For those unfamiliar, the A-12 was the first version of what have become known as "Blackbirds." It was a single seater, produced for the CIA and flown by them operationally before the Air Force's two-seat SR-71 version. There was also a super interceptor version developed, but not put into production past a few prototypes; the YF-12A.

.... the production F-22 looks much better than the YF did..We called it the Pelican.

Eric, this is the Pelican (HH-3F) that I remember, just a little different from your Pelican.

Our SR-71 here at the Air Zoo is a two seater SR-71B trainer.

http://www.airzoo.org/aircraft/blackbird/

Right. The trainers had the rear cockpit elevated to give the instructor a good view (students are usually in the front seat in trainers).

I sat in the cockpit of the SR-71 exhibit at the Seattle Museum of Flight, very cool.

I'll bet - I wanted to climb up the little ladder and take a look around, but didn't want to get thrown out and banned for life!

So in captivity(zoo), do they feed them MIGS?

Reminds me of a quip from Bob Hope on one of his famous USO tours in SE Asia:

"Ah, the 555th, 'Triple Nickle,' world's largest distributor of MiG parts."

They do have a MiG-21 they could feed it....