SR-71B Blackbird Walkaround with its former Crew Chief

Video from the channel Air Zoo about Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 28:36. Language: English. Video type: Onboard.

Exterior walkaround, from nose to tail, of SR-71B serial number 61-7956, guided by David Burns, a retired US Air Force master sergeant who was its crew chief. Burns explains that he took charge of this aircraft in 1974 and looked after it for four and a half years at Beale Air Force Base, and that he also worked with the operational A version at Kadena. According to him, only two SR-71Bs were built and this is the only one that survives, since the other was lost in a 1968 crash.

Being a trainer with an instructor in the rear seat, the aircraft always carried ballast in the nose and equipment bays. The nose was held by only four bolts and, on the operational version, could be swapped in about 45 minutes, alternating between an optical camera, side-looking radar, or later the ASARS synthetic aperture radar. The structure is mostly titanium, with composite panels on the chines and leading edges, alternated with wedge-shaped metal panels: what was then called low radar reflectivity. In the nose landing gear bay there are two 106-liter tanks of liquid nitrogen to inert the fuel tanks. Burns recounts that in 1976 there was a plan for a round-the-world flight for the bicentennial, but it was dropped because it required too many in-flight refuelings. He also shows the air intakes with their movable spike and bypass doors, the spikes marked "L" and "R" after being mounted on the wrong sides, the three-wheel main landing gear, the redundant hydraulic systems, the start cart with Buick engines, and the triethylborane ignition. He also shows the fixed ventral fins unique to the B model, the elevons and rudders, the control mixer, the exterior lights, and the fuel dump outlet.

The aircraft is on display at the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo (Michigan). Burns sums up his 20-year career: he started with the T-33 and F-111D, moved on to the SR-71, continued with the F-4 and OA-37, and finished with the A-10.