From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #129 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Monday, 11 July 1994 Volume 05 : Number 129 In this issue: SR-71 personal experiences (attn: Steve Birmingham) Re: SR-71 personal experiences (attn: Steve Birmingham) SR-71 personal experiences resend--part 1 SR-71 personal experiences resend part 2 SR-71 personal experiences resend part 4 SR-71 personal experiences resend part 5 Re: SR-71 personal experiences (attn: Steve Birmingham) SR-71 personal experiences resend part 2 See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the skunk-works or skunk-works-digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ron@habu.stortek.com (Ron Schweikert) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 94 08:40:41 MDT Subject: SR-71 personal experiences (attn: Steve Birmingham) >About 3 or 4 years ago, a gentleman named Ron Schweikert wrote a series >of seven articles documenting his experiences while working on the >Blackbird and posted them to this list. I've been trying to locate >archives of these articles, to no avail. I've made a cursory examination >of the archives and their dates, which show that the archives I saw did >not go back that far. > >Mr. Schweikert posted these from USWEST, but contact with their Postmaster >indicates that he is no longer employed by USWEST, and has no discernible >forwarding address. > >If any of you kind souls kept copies of these articles, I would much >appreciate you e-mailing me a copy of all 7 articles to the address >indicated below. Thanks in advance > >Best regards, > >Steve Birmingham "A wise man knows everything, a shrewd one, everybody." >E-mail: smb@odo.cypress.ca.us Phone: (714) 826-4433 Hello Steve. As luck would have it (!?) I'm a member of this list. I don't contribute often, but am mostly a lurker. When I do contribute it's just when questions about the SR are posted. I wouldn't mind finding the the original postings either. I posted them here I believe, but also in rec.aviation (and/or sci.military). Perhaps they're archived there? I have hard-copies of them, and maybe could find a scanner somewhere. If someone does dig them up, that'd be great. Security is tight here with ftp so I can't get them from the archives. One of these days I'll get a proper logon to the system here that does have access, but I haven't bothered yet. Guess I should. BTW, thanks to all the contributions on this list. Even though I can't contribute much, I do enjoy the discussions. The idea of reactivating the SRs is intriguing. It was very depressing when I visited Beale a while back and looked over the static SR on display. There were birds nest and droppings in the wheel wells ... how unfitting. Cheers! Ron ------------------------------ From: Per Danielsson Date: Mon, 11 Jul 1994 18:00:44 +0200 Subject: Re: SR-71 personal experiences (attn: Steve Birmingham) ron@habu.stortek.com (Ron Schweikert) wrote: >I wouldn't mind finding the the original postings either. I posted >them here I believe, but also in rec.aviation (and/or sci.military). >Perhaps they're archived there? I have hard-copies of them, and >maybe could find a scanner somewhere. Ron, I have kept copies of your articles. If noone else mails them to the skunk-works list in the next 24 hours, and I don't get lots of mail asking me not to post them, I will mail them to the list. Regards, PD - -- Per Danielsson pd@sics.se Swedish Institute of Computer Science, PO Box 1263, S-164 28 KISTA, SWEDEN N59.24.20, E17.56.53 "You got the UNIX-book.. Coool.." ------------------------------ From: shafer@ferhino.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 94 11:37:29 PDT Subject: SR-71 personal experiences resend--part 1 From: ron@eatdust.uswest.COM Newsgroups: rec.aviation Subject: SR-71 Personal Experiences. Intro and Part 1 (LONG) Keywords: SR-71 Date: 23 Mar 90 14:52:23 GMT Reply-To: ron@eatdust.uswest.COM () Organization: U S WEST Advanced Technologies I recently posted a request to see if my postings were making it to the net (they are now, but werent' before). In reply, some people were interested in my experiences working on the SR-71, and thought others might be as well. There have been lots of technical postings on the plane, perhaps some personal insights would be interesting as well. I decided that I'd make a series of short postings, replying to questions as well as mentioned, personal feelings on the plane. As a background, I worked on the plane from Feb. 1975 thru Sept. 1980 at Beale AFB. My duties as aircraft maint. crewchief in a nutshell were to supervise the pre-flight and postflight maint. activities and coordinate general maint. activity. When I walked out onto the flightline for the first time, I was very excited. I was a certified aviation fanatic with plans for a career in aviation. Fresh out of high school, the expectations of working on the Blackbird were high. This was a great time in my life, as I was also working on my private pilot's license. (This led in the next few years to a CFII, MEI and glider ratings). The first couple of years were most exciting as I went through various schools, learning the various parts of the plane (hydro, electrical etc). The duties for new people consisted of servicing the aircraft for flight, taking part in pre-flight inspections, assisting during the 'launch' and doing post flight inspections and maintenence. The hangers had a 'damp' smell to them most of the time, the concrete having been soaked in fuel and hydraulic fluid for many years. Ground support equipment between the hangers provided electrical power and air conditioning for the equipment bays during maint. They also provided a non-stop high-pitched whine. If you didn't wear ear plugs when around them, you lost your high-pitched hearing soon. Typically the hanger was full of activity, with one maint. shop or another performing tests, replacing parts etc. When a plane was ready to go and we shut down the equipment for the evening, things were eerily quiet. It was fun being on the line though, because during that time we had B-52's on alert and there was often those SAC alerts you hear about. We also had many drills for simulated accidents at the base (ie: one of the bombers crashing with it's nukes on board). Our part was pretty dumb duing most of these exercises. Everyone else on the flightline had stuff they had to do, so they made us simulate towing the plane for 'evacuation'. Evacuation to where??? Ah, a sense of military mindset... Day to day on the plane was fairly routine. We worked in a 'pool crew' system. If your plane was ready to go, you helped on someone else's. If everything was quiet, some people got to go home early. As a matter of fact, on some nights, some of the swing shift people would beat the day-shift people back to the barracks! (Day shift people rarely got to go home early.) If things were quiet, they sat on the trash cans to keep them from floating away. At least that's what we called it. Either that, or we'd for the umpteenth time sweep the hanger. In a sense of fairness, we rotated shifts. There were some nights were you worked over, so it all evened out. We also worked about every 5th weekend (rotation), unless of course you were late for the daily roll call (even by 30 seconds) or were out of regulations with your hair. Then you automatically could expect to spend at least part of your weekend at the base. This regimentality got old real fast. As an aside, I had another friend at another base that had very rare 'stand-up' inspections for hair, uniform etc. We had them daily. Getting the plane ready for a launch was interesting. After all preflight inspections were complete, we were ready to start servicing. We'd load the plane (typically) with 45,000 pounds of JP-7, the typical mission profile being that the plane would take off and immediately hit a tanker before going 'hot'. The distribution of the fuel was calculated on a complext fuel sheet and depended upon which nose was installed, which bays were occupied and what was in them. The plane would also be serviced with LN2 (liquid nitrogen). The dewars were installed in the nose wheel well. Servicing them was *always* intimidating as there was very little room in the well. You wore protective gear as your face was just inches from the servicing ports. We knew how cold the ln2 was and what it could do to you if a port froze open and you weren't wearing your gear (those training films were watched carefully!). The ln2 served two purposes. One was to provide a positive pressure to the fuel tanks. The main purpose however was to take the place of any air in the tanks as fuel was used up. In a typical mission profile, the plane would hit a tanker and take a full load of fuel (~12,200 gallons, approx. 80,000 lbs (I can't remember the exact weight of JP-7)). The full load from the tanker would effectively purge all air from the tanks. The plane could then go 'hot'. At cruise, the fuel was boiling due to skin temperature. As fuel was used up, the nitrogen (being an inert gas) took the place of the air. Would have been a dangerous situation to have boiling fuel and air in the tanks! Another mission profile, (typically only used overseas) was where the plane had to go 'hot' immediately after takeoff (for a surprise factor to where we were going). Because of this, we had to do a procedure called a 'yo-yo'. This would entail servicing the plane with ln2, then filling the plane up to the max with fuel (to purge the tanks). We would then defuel down to the proper takeoff load (typically about 65,000 pounds). This was a real pain. Since most of the planes leaked like a sieve, the added pressure in the tanks made it look like rain underneath. No kidding. On those flights, depending on the particular plane, we sometimes wore rain gear. We also left about 1200 pounds of extra fuel in the tanks, knowing it would leak out prior to takeoff. Other servicing issues were the tires (250 psi in the nose tires, 415 in the mains). We used nitrogen because it was dry. BTW, the tires were 22 ply Goodyear (or rich?) Silver Crowns, so called because of the silver coloring. That's about enough for today, sorry it's so long. Next installment: Launching the plane. Activity from crew briefing, engine start, launch, post launch activity, plane recovery and post flight maint. Ron ------------------------------ From: shafer@ferhino.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 94 11:38:19 PDT Subject: SR-71 personal experiences resend part 2 From: ron@eatdust.uswest.COM Newsgroups: rec.aviation Subject: SR-71 Personal Experiences, Installment 2 (long) Date: 30 Mar 90 20:22:38 GMT Reply-To: ron@eatdust.uswest.COM () Organization: U S WEST Advanced Technologies (I apologize if this already went out, it looks like it went into the bit-bucket locally, but if this is a copy for you, again I apologize...) This is the second installment of personal experiences on the SR-71. If you missed the first one, it was overall perceptions of working on the plane. This one will deal with some of the pre-flight preparations necessary prior to launch (the next installment will deal with launch specifics through recovery). Pre-flight preparations for the plane were pretty routine. Presumably by now all maintenence activity that was required due to pilot write-ups or post flight inspection activity was complete. At this point various specialist pre-flight activity was scheduled (ie: ECM, nav folks etc.). Sensors were loaded in the side bays, or in the nose. BTW, there were several types of noses that we could load. A plain 'dummy' nose with ballast, an OBC (optical bearing camera) which was your traditional camera-type nose, lens etc, and an SLR (side looking radar) nose. They had the same outside shape, but the SLR had dull-black sides for the radar to look through, and the OBC had clear glass panels. The map projector (a moving, color map showing flight information including speeds, altitude and route) is now installed. If the mission is a routine training mission you could get in the cockpit and turn it on and see where they were going. A typical mission profile would take off from Beale, hit a tanker over the Reno area, fly over to Denver, loop down by Las Vegas, across to Calif. and back. If the mission were sensitive, then the circuit breaker controlling the map projector was pulled and a seal was placed on it. If that seal was broken, all heck would break loose. One mission in Kadena was cancelled (postponed) because of this. It was later determined that the seal's break was accidental from the maint. person performing the pre-flight cockpit check, so no disciplinary action was taken. Prior to refuelling the plane, some specialists would come out to service the engines with TEB (tri-ethyl borane), a liquid ignition system. A tank on the side of the engine would hold enough TEB for approx. 15 'shots'. During servicing, *ALL* maint. activity would cease. The teb cart was brought into the hanger. A fire truck would be directly positioned behind the aircraft with the nozzle pointing at the cart. The person doing the servicing wore a full-fledged fire suit. TEB is a liquid which would explode on contact with air. Since JP-7 had such a high flashpoint a standard ignition system wouldn't work. When the engines were started, or anytime the pilot went into afterburner, a 50cc shot of TEB was injected into the #3 burner can, igniting the fuel. Note that this was even required when the engine was running at mil power to start the extra fuel for afterburner! It was humorous to note the concerned look on people's faces when they'd see people soaked in fuel, as well as it being all over the hanger floor. Their concerns come from their experience with JP-4, or other highly-volatile fuels. The maint. pre-flight was broken up into four numbered areas, area 1 was the front cockpit and nose, area 2 the rear, areas 3 and 4 being the left and right wing area respectively. We rotated areas each time. As those of you in general aviation, we used pre-flight inspection cards, although like you (come on now... :-) ) after doing it for a long time, (especially in areas 3 and 4) we mostly just carried the cards and covered the area by rote. Of course, during pre-flight, all panels were now on the plane and there wasn't that much to check. You carried a high powered light covering every square inch of the wing, top and bottom looking for cracks, missing screws etc. In the engine area we looked for loose, missing rivets etc. Tail pipe, same thing. Those that had those areas typically had to load the drag chute. It took four people to lift it up on the wing (it weighed about 205 pounds). It was hauled up, and slid into a fiberglass compartment, angled down about 45 degrees. It was about 3 feet deep, and about 24 inches wide. After sliding it down, you had someone in the cockpit pull the drogue chute handle, ensuring the electrical release system worked. You then had them rotate the handle 90 degrees and pull out about 12 inches to see if the manual release worked. If so, you reset things. You then hooked the main hook (what is that called????) into the latches and *CAREFULLY* released the strap holding the very tightly bound drogue chute spring. You first pushed the left door down and pushed the drogue chute just slightly underneath so the left door would hold it, you then closed the right door, checked that things fit, and then had the guy in the front push the drag chute handle back in, locking the doors. He then pulled the circuit breaker. You had to be careful with the drogue chute spring. If you let it go, it'd have to be re-packed (not by you). A real pain. The cockpit pre-flight was the most interesting, and the most coveted during winter. You could close the cockpit up and get out of the wind -- nice and toasty! Before getting in the cockpit you would ensure you had NO loose items in your pockets. If something dropped out and went somewhere you couldn't find it, the flight would be scrubbed because specialists would have to come out and pull the ejection seat out to find it. Ooooops... You also checked all pins (seven) were in the seat. You didn't want to accidentally blow the canopy, or splatter yourself on the I-beams at the top of the hanger. You checked that all lights worked, proper amount of fuel loaded...typical pre-flight stuff from any aircraft. During the winter, the engines would have to be pre-heated to keep the oil warm. This was accomplished with heaters outside the hangers, with the ducts brought in through holes in the side of the hanger. You would keep heat on them the entire night before. On mids, people pre-flighting areas three and four (engines) would like this. They'd have to crawl into the back of the nacelle to inspect the engine. Often they'd pull in the nacelle plugs, trapping the warm air from the heaters inside. You could lay on the 'doughnut' (the nozzle immediately aft of the engine') and 'inspect the rivets'. Nice and warm. One evening, we were getting ready for a routine idle engine run to leak-check some replaced fuel lines. We had been waiting a long time for the engine people to come out, so one of our guys crawled up in the back and went to sleep. We rolled the 'buicks' (start carts, I will detail in next posting) under the engine, and without hooking it to the engine revved it up...LOUDLY! Needless to say, the guy literally came FLYING out of the tailpipe fearing we were starting the engine. It was hilarious, but in retrospect kinda dumb since he could've gotten hurt. Oh well, he shouldn't have been sleeping while we were working!! :-) About two hours prior to launch, the crew chief would take the aircraft forms to the pilot who typically was eating a steak and eggs breakfast with the RSO, over at PSG (Physiological Support Group, the people who suit the pilot's up and help them get in the plane). With forms signed off by the pilot, all servicing and inspections complete, was it just a matter of getting all the launch gear together and waiting for the aircrew to arrive at the hangers. Next Installment - Launch ------------------------------ From: shafer@ferhino.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 94 11:39:52 PDT Subject: SR-71 personal experiences resend part 4 From: ron@eatdust.uswest.COM Newsgroups: rec.aviation Subject: SR-71 Personal Experience, Part 4, the Launch Date: 12 Apr 90 13:24:10 GMT Reply-To: ron@eatdust.uswest.COM () Organization: U S WEST Advanced Technologies (Sorry this is kinda late, our Posting capability has been broke for awhile)... ---------------------- When last we left the SR-71 :-), it was taxiing towards the end of the runway, with us chasing in the launch support pickup... During taxi out, we didn't do much, just followed to one side. As the plane got to the end of the runway area it would pull to a stop. We'd pull up off to one side and three of us would jump out. The two guys who were taking care of engine start and chocks in the hanger now had an end of runway inspection to do. They'd go in and place the chocks in front of the tires. The crew chief would walk to the front of the plane and signal to the pilot to hold brakes, mostly to let him formally know we were running around back there. He could see us anyway. The crew chief would then walk back under the plane and visually inspect the ramp area in front of each inlet for FOD (actually, FO, :-) ). I'd then walk back to the front of the plane and watch for hand signals from the pilot letting me know he was ready for an end-of-runway runup check. I'd stand on the side of the plane of which engine was to be tested and give him a signal saying it was clear by rotating my finger in the air. He'd do a short mil-power run-up, would take about 10 seconds, and then go back to idle. He was checking inside for oil and fuel pressure, temp. etc. I'd then walk to the other side of the cockpit and we'd do the same thing. When complete, we'd do a flight control check via hand signals. When that was done I'd walk back under the plane and do a last visual inspection for loose panels, dripping oil or fuel etc. I would also check the pressure gauges (hydro) located in the wheel wells up behind the 'tire cans' (heavily insulated 'cans' where the wheels would retract into to protect them from heat). If all was ok, I'd walk back to the front of the plane and after I got his attention, would signal for a pitot heat check by making an 'O' and wrapping my left thumb and index finger around the first two fingers of my right hand. I'd then *CAREFULLY* quickly touch the pitot tubes to make sure they were warming up, I'd then signal thumbs up. (There was one pitot tube, but it had an 'L' extension to one side (I forget the actual name). The main pitot tube served the function that all aircraft pitot tubes do, but the appendage to the side had four pin-holes in them. It was used by the flight control system to measure pitch and yaw. At this point if there was no problem I'd signal the guys under the wings to pull the chocks again. If the pilot hadn't stayed on the brakes during the run-up like he was supposed to, we'd have to persuade the chocks with a sledgehammer. If there was ever any problems, we could hook up our ground comm. gear again if needed. Also, the launch truck had a staircase and platform on top of it, so if need be we could get up into the cockpit should that be necessary. We now once again gave a salute (after chocks out) and walked back to the launch truck. Typically he already had clearance to the runway so he'd taxi into position and hold (the runup area was right next to the end of the runway). While we were waiting for him to go often other aircraft would land, that would be fun, especially in the early days when the B-52's were still there. While he was waiting, another aircrew (in a station wagon) would take off down the runway checking for FOD, and would pull off at the first taxiway down the runway. (Yes, they were in comm. with the tower). The plane taxied into position, and after a few seconds you could see him coming up to mil power. He'd then release the brakes and start rolling. A few seconds later the afterburners would kick in. We always had a quick bet as to which engine would light first. It was a rare pilot who could get them both kicked in at the same time. Typically there was about a one second difference. When that happened, you could see the flight control system quickly compensate by moving the rudders (yes, flight control connected on the ground!). The plane would make a deep roar (which I NEVER got tired of) and gathered speed quite quickly. At the appropriate point, he'd rotate and climb quite steeply. If he was showing off (fairly rare at Beale) he'd hold it low, suck up the gear to gather speed, and then pull it to what seemed to be almost straight up. Beautiful silouette. At Kadena AB, Okinawa, when he held it low like that, we'd lose sight of him as there is a big hump in the runway. The next thing we'd see is that beautiful silouette going straight up. Night launches were more beautiful obviously as the afterburner flame was approximately the same length as the plane. You could clearly see the shockwaves in the exhaust. If it was a clear night you could follow him right up to the point where he'd pull out of A/B as he headed for the tanker. As I said, if it was clear, you could still follow him by his anti-collision light. In six years, I never tired of this part of the job. We once counted 90 seconds from lift-off to the time he pulled out of A/B. When the pilot came back we asked at what altitude that was. He said about 25,000. Impressive. (Don't flame here with stats, I'm only conveying what he said). With the plane enroute, we headed back to the hanger for cleanup and preparation for recovery. Typically others who assisted in the launch that didn't go to the end of the runway had the comm gear rolled up and other items completed. Time now for lunch (or dinner on swings). Next installment, recovery of the aircraft after flight... ------------------------------ From: shafer@ferhino.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 94 11:40:38 PDT Subject: SR-71 personal experiences resend part 5 From: ron@eatdust.uswest.COM Newsgroups: rec.aviation Subject: SR-71 Personal Experiences, installment 5, aircraft recovery Date: 18 Apr 90 13:38:35 GMT Reply-To: ron@eatdust.uswest.COM () Organization: U S WEST Advanced Technologies This installment covers the recovery of the SR-71 after flight. ========================================================================= This is the fifth installment. The next one will be general maint. activity (such as trim-pad runs after engine changes, spike changes etc.). The sixth (and probably final) installment will be to answer questions that I have received concerning the aircraft, so, if you have questions that you'd like addressed, let me know. Also, for those who have missed installments, I've been able to send them to most people, although a couple have bounced back. I apologize for that. Perhaps when the series is complete, I can repost them again, one at a time, but in one evening. Thanks again for everyone's feedback. I'm glad you're enjoying them! It has been fun reminiscing. ========================================================================= The hanger is almost eerily quiet (and mostly deserted) compared to the hustle and noise of the launch. The noisy ground support equipment is turned off, and the only activity is cleaning up the comm gear and straightening out the hanger in general. If we're at Kadena AB in Okinawa, this also means using squeege's and mops to mop up the spilled fuel. The hangers over there are smoothed concrete so it's dangerous to leave it around (VERY SLIPPERY). At Beale the fuel soaks into the concrete pretty well. We often guessed as to what might happen should a real hot fire (if that's possible, probably not) ever start with such fuel-soaked concrete. We now head to lunch/ dinner. Depending upon whether or not there'll be a shift change before the plane returns, we may return the tools and comm gear to the tool crib, but 99% of the time it stays out. Even if there is a shift change, we'll usually just swap 'chits' with the next shift (for tool responsibility). (If it's not time for lunch or dinner, you typically go to another plane and help out there). There are always enough people on the flightline to recover the plane should it come back early. As the time for recovery nears, we set up the movable steps once again behind the hanger (with very RARE exceptions, the plane is recovered outside of the hanger. Only a few times in six years did the pilot ever taxi it into the hanger. This was for security and time purposes on extremely sensitive missions. Comm gear is layed out and the brake coolers are positioned. The brake coolers are just small (but powerful) fans that are placed in front of the wheels immediately after the plane returns. The brakes are always smoking. (I think the SR pilots have just as much pride in making a certain runway turnoff as do general aviation pilots, so sometimes they lean harder on the brakes than they should!) We watch as the plane typically makes a few low flybys. Only on the trainer does the plane do touch and goes, since you only get about 10 landings out of the tires. That was always kinda fun to watch (unless you were in a hurry to get home). If it was close to shift change, you hope he did a lot of flybys. :-) The plane is very, very graceful in the air, and seems to fly so slowly for such a large plane. The touchdown is usually quite soft, very nose- high. The orange drag chute pops out and you know it's time to go to work. The launch truck waits by one of the taxiways and follows the plane in. This is in case the chute fails to disconnect from the plane when needed, or if there should be any other problem. The ropes creating the security barrier around the hangers have been pulled back now, and it takes about 5 minutes for the plane to taxi in. There's a hump in the taxiway immediately to the south of the hangers, so you don't see the plane taxiing in, nor hear it. It just kind of all of a sudden appears with a loud whine. The crew chief takes over marshalling duties as soon as the aircraft leaves the taxiway and heads behind the hangers. The plane is marshalled to the correct position, and the crew chief signals the pilot to stop. At this point, the people who launched the plane now have immediate responsibilities to place the chocks in front of the tires and place the running fans in front as well for brake cooling. They immediately start removing the engine start panels, as others roll the steps up to the cockpit so that the ejection seat pins can be installed by PSG. If the pilot hasn't forgotten, he makes eye contact with the crew chief and asks for clearance to shut down whichever engine was started first. The crew chief makes sure his people are not under the engine manifold dump, and signals ok. Flight control and hydraulic checks are once again performed with the single engine running, that engine is then also shut down (after the pilot has determined EGT is within limits etc.). When the pilot and RSO ('Rear Seat Occupant', for those following the thread in this newsgroup about names for backseaters) are done, they get out of the plane, take off helmet and gloves, and will usually briefly speak with the crew chief and flight-line maint. coordinator (liason between job control and all maint. departments) and let him/her know of any major problems. They then proceed to their van and leave. The recovery team will then hook up the waiting tow vehicle and tow the plane into the hanger where the crew will continue taking off the panels required for post-flight inspections (MUCH more thorough than pre-flight). Ground power and air is hooked up, and voila, you're back to the same mess you had two hours earlier :-). I think in all maint. activity, this is what gets kinda depressing. You busted your tail for possibly days, round the clock to get the plane flyable, then the pilot comes out, takes a 'spin around half the country', and in two hours, brings it back broke, just to repeat the cycle. Oh well... The crew chief heads off to have a post-flight maint. review with the pilot, rso, and other maint. dept. representatives (about an hour after landing). You discuss all maint. related problems, fill out all the aircraft forms and head back to the flightline. Usually by now, Job Control has started to schedule out the appropriate maint. departments and maint. flow. This takes more effort than it may seem. Some people have to work on the plane with power off (which means you can't schedule other who need it on) etc. If major activity is required, you also need to coordinate what gets done first. Some maint. activity naturally requires that others get done first. Normal activity included the downloading of sensors and the aircraft 'tapes' (the airline equivalent black box). These tapes recorded many items of performance, fuel pressure, flow etc., as well as flight envelope parameters such as speed and altitude flown. For those now obviously curious, the tapes went off-scale at Mach 3.2, and 80,000 feet. It was not unusual to have them off scale most of the entire flight. Often, even if the pilot reported no problems at all with the plane, you couldn't get too excited. The tapes often revealed bad system problems that the pilot was unaware of (computer and inlet performance etc.). The post flight inspection is more thorough than preflight. You remove many more access panels, and have a lot more to look at. The best airplane on the line in the six years I was there was 956, the B model trainer. It rarely had major problems, and you could count on 'turning it around' in short order. Others were real dogs. My primary plane, 958 was a good one, as was 972, but you never knew. The inspections from our part entailed very close detail inspections for cracks and leaks. Other routine maint. activity included SOAP samples every 10 flights (Spectrometric Oil Analysis Program) which were oil samples pulled by the engine specialists. Tires were inspected for red threads showing. Many departments besides OMS (Organizational Maint. Squadron) have their postflights as well. A typical turn-around is 5 days+-. I once heard (but don't now recall) the actual man-hours required for maintenence. It was very high though compared to other aircraft such as the F-4 etc. The newsgroup briefly discussed aircraft cost, but understand that not only do you have a high number of man-hours and parts directly associated with the SR-71, but you also have many other support aircraft and crews (such as the tankers and crews). ---- Well, time to roll. Next installment, general maint., how we viewd the plane etc. ------------------------------ From: Mary Shafer Date: Mon, 11 Jul 1994 14:42:43 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SR-71 personal experiences (attn: Steve Birmingham) Your wish is my command. I've just resent the 7 postings that I saved in 1990. The first 6 are the original account, the last answers questions. Regards, Mary Mary Shafer DoD #0362 KotFR shafer@ursa-major.spdcc.com Some days it don't come easy/And some days it don't come hard Some days it don't come at all/And these are the days that never end.... ------------------------------ From: shafer@ferhino.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 94 12:15:00 PDT Subject: SR-71 personal experiences resend part 2 From: ron@eatdust.uswest.COM Newsgroups: rec.aviation Subject: SR-71 Personal Experiences, Installment 2 (long) Date: 30 Mar 90 20:22:38 GMT Reply-To: ron@eatdust.uswest.COM () Organization: U S WEST Advanced Technologies (I apologize if this already went out, it looks like it went into the bit-bucket locally, but if this is a copy for you, again I apologize...) This is the second installment of personal experiences on the SR-71. If you missed the first one, it was overall perceptions of working on the plane. This one will deal with some of the pre-flight preparations necessary prior to launch (the next installment will deal with launch specifics through recovery). Pre-flight preparations for the plane were pretty routine. Presumably by now all maintenence activity that was required due to pilot write-ups or post flight inspection activity was complete. At this point various specialist pre-flight activity was scheduled (ie: ECM, nav folks etc.). Sensors were loaded in the side bays, or in the nose. BTW, there were several types of noses that we could load. A plain 'dummy' nose with ballast, an OBC (optical bearing camera) which was your traditional camera-type nose, lens etc, and an SLR (side looking radar) nose. They had the same outside shape, but the SLR had dull-black sides for the radar to look through, and the OBC had clear glass panels. The map projector (a moving, color map showing flight information including speeds, altitude and route) is now installed. If the mission is a routine training mission you could get in the cockpit and turn it on and see where they were going. A typical mission profile would take off from Beale, hit a tanker over the Reno area, fly over to Denver, loop down by Las Vegas, across to Calif. and back. If the mission were sensitive, then the circuit breaker controlling the map projector was pulled and a seal was placed on it. If that seal was broken, all heck would break loose. One mission in Kadena was cancelled (postponed) because of this. It was later determined that the seal's break was accidental from the maint. person performing the pre-flight cockpit check, so no disciplinary action was taken. Prior to refuelling the plane, some specialists would come out to service the engines with TEB (tri-ethyl borane), a liquid ignition system. A tank on the side of the engine would hold enough TEB for approx. 15 'shots'. During servicing, *ALL* maint. activity would cease. The teb cart was brought into the hanger. A fire truck would be directly positioned behind the aircraft with the nozzle pointing at the cart. The person doing the servicing wore a full-fledged fire suit. TEB is a liquid which would explode on contact with air. Since JP-7 had such a high flashpoint a standard ignition system wouldn't work. When the engines were started, or anytime the pilot went into afterburner, a 50cc shot of TEB was injected into the #3 burner can, igniting the fuel. Note that this was even required when the engine was running at mil power to start the extra fuel for afterburner! It was humorous to note the concerned look on people's faces when they'd see people soaked in fuel, as well as it being all over the hanger floor. Their concerns come from their experience with JP-4, or other highly-volatile fuels. The maint. pre-flight was broken up into four numbered areas, area 1 was the front cockpit and nose, area 2 the rear, areas 3 and 4 being the left and right wing area respectively. We rotated areas each time. As those of you in general aviation, we used pre-flight inspection cards, although like you (come on now... :-) ) after doing it for a long time, (especially in areas 3 and 4) we mostly just carried the cards and covered the area by rote. Of course, during pre-flight, all panels were now on the plane and there wasn't that much to check. You carried a high powered light covering every square inch of the wing, top and bottom looking for cracks, missing screws etc. In the engine area we looked for loose, missing rivets etc. Tail pipe, same thing. Those that had those areas typically had to load the drag chute. It took four people to lift it up on the wing (it weighed about 205 pounds). It was hauled up, and slid into a fiberglass compartment, angled down about 45 degrees. It was about 3 feet deep, and about 24 inches wide. After sliding it down, you had someone in the cockpit pull the drogue chute handle, ensuring the electrical release system worked. You then had them rotate the handle 90 degrees and pull out about 12 inches to see if the manual release worked. If so, you reset things. You then hooked the main hook (what is that called????) into the latches and *CAREFULLY* released the strap holding the very tightly bound drogue chute spring. You first pushed the left door down and pushed the drogue chute just slightly underneath so the left door would hold it, you then closed the right door, checked that things fit, and then had the guy in the front push the drag chute handle back in, locking the doors. He then pulled the circuit breaker. You had to be careful with the drogue chute spring. If you let it go, it'd have to be re-packed (not by you). A real pain. The cockpit pre-flight was the most interesting, and the most coveted during winter. You could close the cockpit up and get out of the wind -- nice and toasty! Before getting in the cockpit you would ensure you had NO loose items in your pockets. If something dropped out and went somewhere you couldn't find it, the flight would be scrubbed because specialists would have to come out and pull the ejection seat out to find it. Ooooops... You also checked all pins (seven) were in the seat. You didn't want to accidentally blow the canopy, or splatter yourself on the I-beams at the top of the hanger. You checked that all lights worked, proper amount of fuel loaded...typical pre-flight stuff from any aircraft. During the winter, the engines would have to be pre-heated to keep the oil warm. This was accomplished with heaters outside the hangers, with the ducts brought in through holes in the side of the hanger. You would keep heat on them the entire night before. On mids, people pre-flighting areas three and four (engines) would like this. They'd have to crawl into the back of the nacelle to inspect the engine. Often they'd pull in the nacelle plugs, trapping the warm air from the heaters inside. You could lay on the 'doughnut' (the nozzle immediately aft of the engine') and 'inspect the rivets'. Nice and warm. One evening, we were getting ready for a routine idle engine run to leak-check some replaced fuel lines. We had been waiting a long time for the engine people to come out, so one of our guys crawled up in the back and went to sleep. We rolled the 'buicks' (start carts, I will detail in next posting) under the engine, and without hooking it to the engine revved it up...LOUDLY! Needless to say, the guy literally came FLYING out of the tailpipe fearing we were starting the engine. It was hilarious, but in retrospect kinda dumb since he could've gotten hurt. Oh well, he shouldn't have been sleeping while we were working!! :-) About two hours prior to launch, the crew chief would take the aircraft forms to the pilot who typically was eating a steak and eggs breakfast with the RSO, over at PSG (Physiological Support Group, the people who suit the pilot's up and help them get in the plane). With forms signed off by the pilot, all servicing and inspections complete, was it just a matter of getting all the launch gear together and waiting for the aircrew to arrive at the hangers. Next Installment - Launch ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #129 ********************************* To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe skunk-works-digest in the body of a message to "majordomo@mail.orst.edu". 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