Flashy – that story is not entirely implausible:

In 1984, during a major NATO exercise, Royal Air Force Flight Lieutenant Mike Hale intercepted a U-2 at a height of 66,000 feet (20,000 m), where the aircraft had previously been considered safe from interception. Hale climbed to 88,000 feet (27,000 m) in his Lightning F3

🙂

I keep looking at Sled Driver on eBay….one day….
On speed things, whilst it was in service, the RAF never had anything fast enough to catch Concorde 😀

This a scan taken from a very old slide of mine which I took at Mildenhall. I’ve seen the SR-71 fly loads of times and each time it did a display it was actually taking off for an offical flight. Seeing it close up too was amazing as the fuel used to just leak out of it as the tanks would open up when they were cool but would seal up again in flight. Truly an incredible airplane and one I will never forget seeing

Close up at Fairford

OP; probably. The patent classification relating to PDE technology is pretty healthy with publications from some pretty big hitters.

I

Hadge, nice pics, love the shock rings in the afterburner exhaust. Somewhere I have a photo of the Blackbird at Fairford identical to yours. I’ve also got a lovely little enamel skunk pin, the official Skunk Works logo, that I bought from an official stand. Afraid to wear it now, I’ve scoured the ‘net but never found another like it.
There’s a great book about Lockeed called ‘Skunk Works’, IIRC, which I must get a copy of.

i remember reading about the blackbird in a readers digest years ago.was really interesting article.beautiful plane isn’t it.

Cute little fella.

Is it just me, or does anyone else look at Hadge’s Fairford picture and think they’d rather go up in that cute little blue & yellow biplane ?

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1250fZuhUg[/video] after reading all your comments (the ones that i could understand anyway,the in depth physics/engineering ones way over my head) i do agree with some of them (like the contrails pictures being made by normal jets e.t.c) but i still believe that the technology is sufficient today that a super fast 8000 m.p.h plane has been built. just think how much of america’s money goes into the military e.t.c but as i say it’s just my opinion.

but i still believe that the technology is sufficient today that a super fast 8000 m.p.h plane has been built

If you haven’t got any reasoning to back up this random 8000mph figure then you’d better sit on the fence a bit more I reckon 🙂

Countzero- I can recommend Skunkworks. I read once that when Ben Rich (Skunkworks head man) was on his deathbed he said that they were working on aviation technology 50 years ahead of the time. He died in 1995. Have a look for a book called Dark Eagles as well.

This is the best thread ever 😀 am def buying both those books.-edit- BUGGER ME! just googled sled drivers,err no…

Duckman. I just looked for Sled Driver too 😯

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d.html/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/279-5802312-0213345?a=0751515035
I read it a while back, my boss at work picked up a copy in Oxfam, but I really must get a copy of my own.