NASA is currently looking at bringing back the SR-71 Blackbird aircraft, first developed by Lockheed Martin in the 1960s.
This airplane travels at altitudes of more than 80,000 feet and can reach a speed of 2,200 miles per hour. The two pilots, who are the only passengers in the plane, must wear special space-type suits. It’s an amazing piece of engineering.
The plane was retired in the 1990s. No word yet on the reason for bringing it back.
The New York Post reports:
NASA mysteriously trying to pull world’s fastest plane, SR-71 Blackbird, out of retirement — and won’t say why
NASA appears to be pulling the fastest plane ever produced —the SR-71 Blackbird — out of retirement as the Trump administration suggested it’s working on a new generation of hypersonic surveillance jets.
Former NASA and Air Force engineers confirmed that they had been recently offered jobs to get an old Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird back in the air nearly 27-years after its last flight, Aviation Week reported.
Mike Relja, a former test engineer for the Blackbird — which is capable of reaching speeds of Mach 3.3, 2,200 mph — said NASA reached out to him last month to get the neglected plane up and running, but added that he was now too old for such a massive undertaking…
The aircraft, which debuted 59 years ago, still holds the achievement for fastest crewed jet-flight on public record.
At Mach 3.3, for example, it could fly from New York to Los Angeles in a little over an hour — compared to about 5 hours and 30 minutes for a commercial airliner.
Retired NASA employees also confirmed that other Blackbird engineers were contacted over the summer to do work on the jet.
