NASA appears to be pulling its SR-71 Blackbird, the fastest production plane ever made, out of retirement as the Trump administration teases its new line of hypersonic surveillance jets — but doubt…
Seeing Blackbird fly again after all these years would be incredible. I’d love to know what NASA has planned for it.
Iirc it starts nearly empty and is only fueled up in the air, so basically no way around tanker planes.
that’s apparently not true, it would take off with half fuel because the landing gear could buckle under the full weight.
even with a full tank it could only go for about 90 minutes though so anything nontrivial did indeed require a tanker.
I’m sure a skilled politician could sell this as being basically the same ;)