SR71, A Symbol of Troubled Times

By Johnny McDonald

Vice president Dick Cheney's recent criticism of Russian president Vladmir Putin's government prompted that country's media to warn that it could regenerate another Cold War.

The Cold War (1947-1991) was a period of East-West competition, tension and conflict short of full-scale war, characterized by mutual perceptions of hostile intention between military-political alliances or blocs.

Symbolic of those troubled times is a sleek aircraft mounted in front of Balboa Park's San Diego Aerospace Museum, known as the SR71. At the time, it was America's Cold War answer to Soviet Union missiles.

It personifies man's quest to be quicker. Designers and engineers find ways to turn up the power.

As for the SR 71, we learn from assistant curator Al Valdez that performance was a case of necessity.

"It was a single-seat CIA plane developed in the early '60s to replace the U2, shot down in 1959 over the Soviet Union," he said. "They wanted a plane to fly fast enough to beat the known antiaircraft missiles of the time and the U.S. government spent billions to succeed.

"It had a splendid new engine from the Pratt and Whitney Company that flew in the hypersonic range. Its speed is still classified but it is considered well over 3,000 miles an hour.

"It heats up so much when it gets up to speed that it becomes critical that all the materials in it react predictably."

The SR 71 is the granddaddy of all fast planes and has set every record known to mankind.

"You can only go so fast before you obliterate yourself in the atmosphere," Valdez said. " In space you can go as fast as you want but the speed of light will never be reached... certainly not in our lifetime."