M-21 Blackbird | Curator on the Loose!
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- čas přidán 8. 06. 2021
- Senior Curator Matthew Burchette takes you inside and all around the Museum's M/D-21 Blackbird in this new Curator on the Loose video. Plus interviews with a HABU crew!
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Host/Curator: Matthew Burchette
Camera/Editor: Tori Hunt
Men of culture and boys of the 80s recognize this as what the Cobra Night Raven was based on.
I had one, my brother had the Stryker!
I still have it with the small drone also.
I still have Mine.
And the xjet from the X-men cartoon
Knowing is half the battle!
I visit the MoF once in a while, as I live in Tacoma. The M21/D21 are my favorite things there, not only because I've always loved the Blackbird series, (since before I even knew there was an A-12), but also because my dad worked for the CIA when the A-12s were being tested at Area 51. For most of my life I knew he had worked for the CIA, but never knew what he really did. In more recent years, he told me all about his time with the Oxcart program, and it was especially cool because I love both my dad as well as the Blackbird family. So to know he had been involved with them was very neat to know. One story he told me was that he witnessed one of the A-12s crashed during a landing. That plane, I later found out through reading, was #133, and it was made just before the Museum's plane, which is nose# 134. It happened in 1964, just three months before I was born. I love walking around this aircraft and knowing that my own dad walked under and around it, probably many times, perhaps even touched her at some point. My parents divorced when I was still a baby, and I last saw him in about 1981, but this year we plan for him to come visit and one of the first things I want to do is to take him to the museum to visit this plane.
Wow, thanks for sharing this incredible connection to the planes!
@@museumofflight Thanks for all the effort and dedication you guys put into maintaining not only the beautiful M-21, but all the incredible aircraft. =)
The king of aviation geekery returns!
Thanks, Brian! ;)
@@matthewburchette7852 Matt!! Glad to find you here after you went MIA from Wings over the rockies!
Just when I thought I knew a lot about this bird,you just totally blew my mind with SO much more info and facts! Bravo ! Great Site !
I was there and saw it not long after it got put in the museum with my grandfather that paid for me to get in with him. I stood there a long time staring at it. I got to set in it too. I was 21 years old. Now I am 52. And I still remember it like it was yesterday. I loved anything I could find on those planes and had models I made of them. To stand there close to a real one and set in it was amazing to me. My grandfather is dead now. I am glad I have those memories of him. After we got very drunk that night at a bar. He told me how he went thru all of WWII fighting both the Germans and the Japanese. And walk around taking note of what he saw after the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima a couple weeks after it was hit by the atomic bomb as he was ordered to do. He was a great man. Not a hero. He never like being called that. I know he was very proud of me. Though I was transgender and mentally female. I never told him but he knew. I drank him under the table and he was a very heavy drinker and walked him back nearly unable to the hotel room we were staying at. I know where I got my toughness from. I was still young, was the only reason I got us back. After I got him to the bed I passed out on the floor in the other room. Those were fun times. LOL :P
You didn't tell me you were a modeler, instant respect now.
being homeschooled in So Cal just outside March AFB(RIP), a massive USAF tanker facility, it wasnt unusual to be doing schoolwork on the lawn while catching "tanker practice" overhead with a multitude of aircraft! never saw the M21 in person, but seen quite a few of 71's!
AWESOME. The entire BlackBird family of planes are my all time favorites. I'm extremely lucky to live in Washington State - in a city named Federal Way which is a little south of Seattle. I have also been lucky enough to visit the MoF almost any time I want. I have also had yearly memberships to the MoF that would let me visit the MoF as much as I would want to. Seeing the M-21 / D-21 display at the MoF is aways awe inspiring. The MoF now has a recovered cockpit from a crashed SR-71 and you can sit in the cockpit - which I have done. There probably never will be another engineering accomplishment like what was done for the SR-71 program. If the SR-71 could have an alternate nickname ; I would vote for "Dagger" cause the SR-71's cut through the sky. The design is so impressive. Being born at Cannon AFB when my dad was in the AF meant flying is in my blood. No matter what angle you look at the SR-71 from it's always breath taking. The ( SR-71 ) was supposed to be called the { RS-71} but president Johnson introduced it as SR-71 by mistake so Lockheed let that stand as the planes designation.
I remember as a kid in the 80s seeing pictures and models of the M-21/D-21 combo. Being pre-public-internet and with the cold war going on details were scarce. And since drones were not really known, or understood, the consensus in the schoolyard was that the D-21 was a third engine allowing the SR-71 to go hypersonic.
The reality may not live up to the schoolyard gossip, when does it ever, but is still an amazing story, especially given the realities of the time in which it was built. I love visiting the plane when I get the chance and am so glad that the variation of the a-12/SR-71 that so captured the imagination of my friends and me is on display not far from where all those discussions and flights of imagination took place.
The Museum of Flight is such an amazing place. I am so glad to have finally stumbled across this channel.
I've learned a lot from this video, I've been a fan of the A12 & SR 71 since I was a kid.
Thank you!!
When I was 10 years old, I got to sit in the cockpit of the plane being discussed in this video. My best friend and I got to do this because his father worked at Lockheed and later at Boeing, and my best friend at the time happened to be very gifted when it came to aeronautical sciences. I am also gifted in my studies. However, my best friend was already taking college courses at 10 and ended up graduating from school altogether at 15 I had the chance to get an enhanced education also, but my family could not afford it so I ended up leaving at 14 and pursuing my education thru grants and scholarships after I got my parents to emancipate me. My best friends mother and father were genius level intellectuals, and so was his little sister they came to this country for work from Amsterdam and his mother taught astrophysics and his dad built stealth and other types of planes for Lockheed. My best friend now runs an aeronautics company that works with NASA and many other companies' manufacturing parts for rockets and satellites.
Not real crazy about the "how cool is that?" Stoner from Sesame Street presentation style but the video was wonderfully informative full of facts that an aviation geek like myself enjoys.
Yeah the dudes kinda hard to watch
He looks respectable every few years when he gets a haircut.
Awesome 👍, great job!!! Loved the long hair, fits Seattle scene better. I never knew this was in Seattle! Wow, I'm going to the museum first chance I get to see this beauty!!! Plus, if we ever need them again, we got good caretakers keeping them alive and well for it to report for duty. Thanks 👍.
I love how this guy explains things with a clear passion. great videos!
@@prokremelskidezolati1426 ?
Love learning about these aircraft.. I just wish it wasn't presented as if he were talking to a bunch of 6 year olds. I understand it's meant for all, but I feel he sorta crosses the line a little.
@@billwilliams7970 I was thinking the same thing, like he was talking to 6 year olds who eat glue.
@@billwilliams7970I completely agree. A lot of the information is too complex for children to understand, and yet it feels like he's talking to a kindergarten class. It feels belittling.
I love the genuine enthusiasm. You can't fake that!
GREAT video! Thanks so much for showing us this beauty!
My dad worked for Boeing (R.I.P.), and one of the crazy things I put together is.,....the USSR had some of the biggest supplies of titanium in the world, but the U.S. knew how to really use it.
In the seat of the SR ???
I’m JEALOUS !
I find this video a little odd. I was visiting the museum of flight about 30 years ago and the guide was talking about this very “A-12”. I mentioned to the guide that I thought when it had the drone attached was referred to as MD-21 or something like that. That”s all I said. And the guide instantly got pissed off. He angrily said: “it’s an A-12, IT’S an A-12”! and angrily walked away. I was a little shocked. But anyway. Love museum. Even though I’m on the east coast I’ve been there 3X over the years. Hopefully that guide didn’t stay very long.
Another fact about the A-12 compared to the SR71 is that they differ in length with the SR71 being the longer plane,but I don't recall the reason for this. If anyone wants to see an A-12 in the South there is one in Huntsville,AL at the Space & Rocket Center just sitting in the front parking lot. They didn't even bother to put it under a Awning/Carport or even occasionally clean it off which is kindof sad for such an incredible piece of aviation history.
fantastic, marvelous, super cool, and dozens more adjectives that left my mottled mind!!!! loved it.
Been a Blackbird fan since I was a wee bairn, watched hours and hours of youtube videos about the whole Oxcart family. They all just basically said the same things in different ways. This vid actually taught me things I'd never seen, heard, or read before about these planes.
Visit this Museum is my next travel plan.
Greatest plane ever built
Excellent presentation.
how can something look so cool and fly so fast.
14:38 You over-simplified it to the point of getting it wrong!
The shock capture of the inlet at Mach 3 contributed over 50% of the heat and pressure running through the powerplant. The turbojet added only a smaller amount of energy (in the form of heat by burning fuel and velocity from the compressor) while the afterburner added in the rest of the energy.
All that energy is expanded at the nozzle. The inlet did not suck the plane forward-- the inlet rammed the incoming air and contributed over half the overall pressure needed to get the whole thing thrusted out the back. That is, in fact, very much like how a pure ramjet works. The J58 at Mach 3 is essentially a ramjet wrapped around a turbojet.
This is so amazingly done. Not sure how I missed this so long. Thanks so much!
Easily one of the most enjoyable vids I've *ever watched* on CZcams!
Thank you!
Great great video. Please, how come the plane arrived in black livery, as seen in the picture back from 1991, but it is bi-tone balck and silver in the museum? Thank you very much
Great video!
The outer exhaust nozzle fillers that hold the ejector flaps are made of A110AT or grade 6 Titanium, alloyed with Al + SN.
That's what I make my SR-71 Titanium Rings from.
Agree this is a great video!
How cool is that? Really cool.
Just awesome!
I LOVE that museum. Cant wait to go back!
Awesome video! =D
Yet another amazing video, Sir!
When the SR-71 delivered to the united stated air Force museum inat wright Pattterson AFB in Dayton Ohio I lived in Dayton and saw ir fly over my apt and I knew whare it was headed as there wqas only one place it might go th museum at Wright Pat ..the next day it was outside on static display and I was able to actually touch it with my bare hands. at almosr exactly 5'8" from tarmac to the underside of the wigns I had access to the underside and the access panels the survailance electronics had been removed, but the plane was fully functional otherwise until installed in the museum building... I had a 1/48 scale testers model of that plane in SR-71-B form(trainer version) only 1 left of the 2 made... so the rarest Blackbird except the M-21... touching my dream jet was almost a religious experience for me then... and I still have that testers model stored for rebuild after moving damaged it long ago...I butlt it gear up/flight mode and hung it from the ceiling on monofilament fishing line for display in flying mode..... even damaged it's a treasured item I will keep....
11th design but the engines weren't ready so the A-11 which is this airframe was fitted with J-75 engines. Thus, when fitted with the design engines the designation had to be shifted up to A-12.
The distinction is important because in Soviet Intelligence in 1958 appears concerns about the A-11, which is actually the Blackbirds that went into limited production and would've been their designation if the J58 engines were ready when the airframe was.
How does video have only 46k views? Come on, it’s really cool!! But joking aside, I loved this video. The now legendary enthusiasm of Matt, plus the extended running here, AND a super awesome plane! How cool is that!?
The enthusiasm is a tad overdone; detracts from the presentation.
I loved seeing her when I went last year. Stunningly huge!
amazing video thanks. love your vibe
...and of course no one in their right mind would think there was anything suspect about the D-21's camera bay being the same size as the Mk 7 nuclear warhead, because no one could seriously think a mach three stealth hyper-plane could possibly be used to deploy pin-point city-killer warheads with little to no warning.
In re your comment at about 2:24 that the SR-71 never flew over USSR or Cuba. In the book "Aerial Espionage", p.69 in a section headed "Again Over Cuba",Dick Van Der Aart says, "As a gesture of goodwill to Havana, American President Carter had halted the SR-71 espionage flights over Cuba...". This sounds like they had been flying over Cuba. And later on the flights resumed.
I saw one of the YF-12A during the sonic boom testing it was refueling north of O'Hare field I was watching through a 20 power spotting scope when they finished refueling and went almost straight up in full burner. I live well north from the O'Hare so I had a clear field of view of the regular stack of planes waiting to land the refueling track was north of the regular stack.
Thanks Matthew! Awesome videos and awesome narration (as always).
Best episode yet!
This is great!!
WOW!
15-20 landings is about the life expectancy for carrier-based aircraft tires, too, if I remember correctly. The abrupt accelerations is what shortens their lives compared to land-based aircraft tires although I bet just about anything that lands over 170mph is going to have significantly life-reduced tires!
NICE!
I did think the "paint things black for higher emissivity" was proved to not work, but is the first time I'm come across it in this kind of situation (i.e. no marketing, pure functionality) so will have to look into this again.
He has the best job in the world.
0:37
I wonder how many people know what an A-12 WAS - or how it was related to the SR-71.
Those that know the entire Archangel/Oxcart programs, sure!
But a lot of folks never knew the family tree.
The narrator is like Mr Blippy with a beard!
3:12 a 3.5 hr mission seems super long when you’re going 2378mph
This is a bit of a wild comparison to make but you remind me a lot of the social media guy for RAW Rolling Papers (In all of the best ways!)
The Archangel 12 and all variants were a Mach 4.4 airframe.
The Archangel 12 flew faster than the RS-71/ SR-71.
The fastest unofficial public release speed of an SR-71 was Mach 3.86.
Please tell me where that is documented. I would love to read it.
Given that the M-21 is a two seater like an SR-71, how do you tell them apart aside from the drone sitting on its back?
The SR-71 is the only version of the Blackbird family whose fuselage extends beyond the back edge of the wing. If the Blackbird you're looking at has a 'stinger' in the back, it's an SR-71A or SR-71B trainer. If the fuselage ends at the wing's edge, it's an A-12, YF-12, M-21, or the SR-71C (whose back end was salvaged from a wrecked YF-12).
Another way is to look at the chine near the nose. The chine on the A-12/M-21 family is much 'pointier' than the SR71. The YF-12 is the easiest - the chine stops about the windshield. It does not go all the way to the nose (it would have interfered with the radar in the nose)
We has a SR-71 sac museum in Omaha Nebraska
I visited many years ago and remember being greeted by the SR-71 nose as you walked in the door. Up close and personal.
@ 19:33 What is on top of that bird? Is that one of those drones they were developing?
Yes it is! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_D-21
And I think the Swedish JA-37 Viggen is the only aircraft that has got a radarlock on a Blackbird on mission.
Hi Dear Curator! Please could you tell me what's a track playing in the background?
When I came here I had no clue there was even a drone
Believe it or not, drones go all the way back to WWII. They used B-17 or B-24 bombers which were controlled from a chase plane. Literally like a "life-scale" RC model, but jamb _packed_ full of explosives to blow up a really pesky bunker. President JFK's older brother Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr. was actually killed as a result, being one of the pilots involved with "Operation Aphrodite". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aphrodite#Procedure
Did that indicator go to Mach 4? And that bug was set to 3.6ish!
I know the A12's max speed was determined by inlet temps, or so I'm told. What do you think her max speed under the best of conditions were?
The CIA headquarters gate guard was formerly on display at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
They also learnt not to use cadmium plated tools, chlorinated water and Pentel pens on the titanium alloys.
The SR-71 and A-12 are debatable supersonic spy planes because of the maximum speed and maximum altitude.
Some say the SR-71 is the fastest spy plane, while others say that the A-12 Oxcart is the fastest spy plane.
Although the SR-71 has more attraction than the A-12 Oxcart in aircraft books. Why aircraft anatomy books didn’t talk about the A-12 Oxcart? No clue. The Oxcart started the Blackbird Family. But the Oxcart is the most underrated high-altitude spy plane.
I couldn’t decide which one is the fastest. Both are great.
Well, the SR-71 is more well known, and I don't believe the top speed of any variant has ever been published, nor any other data on her maximum capabilities. Over twice as many SR-71's were produced as opposed to the A-12/M-21.
A-12 was faster. Unfortunately, everything is still top secret,
already at the beginning of 90s it was said that the A-12 had a special coating reducing air friction and engines tuned that the maximum speed was 4000kph.
I guess I won't live to see the declassification!
Kelly Johnson once said after filming Star wars that we have things which you never even dreamed of!
Is the engine also Titanium or what?
were there any African Am,erican pilots
Why is the CIA spy plane called the A-12? In the Air Force, the A would designate a ground Attack aircraft.
Also, what does the SR stand for in the SR-71? I know the R stands for Reconnaissance, but I'm not sure what the S stands for.
Thanks for the interesting video.
A12 was from Lockheed internal name for the project gusto aircraft, archangel - the planes we know today being design variation 12. SR is strategic reconnaissance, though the sr71 was to be designated rs71 for recon/strike before being changed to sr. An interceptor version was also developed by Lockheed, internally known as AF-12 with the prototypes designated YF-12A by the Air Force.
SR is USAF designated term for Strategic Reconnaissance.. I remember when this bird arrived at the museum of flight. My mother who was a Boeing employee and I was a curator in n training. I also helped when they moved the Dash 80 (prototype to the 707 and was the one Tex Johnston Barrel rolled over Sea Fair
@@Derek-xr3uq The designation change happened when President Johnson, when publilcly announcing the existence of the airplane, got it backwards and said SR-71 instread of RS-71. No one in the military wanted to correct the boss, so it stuck.
so does this mean we are done with the rockies ?
Why is the D-21/M-21 have a 21 designation instead of 12? I know that A-12 is the twelfth Archangel design and the D-21 was originally classified as Q-12 after the A-12, but for the life of me I can't find any factually acknowledged reason for the change to 21 from 12 and where and why this designation of 21.
Lockheed flipped the numbers in an attempt to disguise the fact that the M-21 was an A-12 derivative.
It's the same reason why they let the Soviets think the A-12 and A-11 were 2 different planes when they were in fact part of the same design studies that led to the operational Blackbirds.
It was all about deception and confusing our enemies.
There was no reason to call the F-117 Nighthawk an F-117 other than to confuse enemies. It was a disconnect from the numbering scheme in use during the 1970s (it would have been called F-19 or F-20 under normal circumstances) but they were trying to hide the plane and what it was being used for.
I watch everything sr71. I thought the re was nothing but edge content that I would find. So wrong. This was nearly 100% new. Even the hold the food tubes to the canopy was something I had never heard before
M & D designators meant
Mad Dog 20/20
Look it up
415 pounds of nitrogen in a tire? Or 415 PSI?
These planes were never shot down bc. they were so fast, they would be gone before, being detected.
Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall... errr well maybe not that last bit. At over 3x the speed of sound, the commie SAM operators practically needed to be _clairvoyant_ to react fast enough to hit the button in time to even come anywhere near "close", yet still lag behind by well over a mile! 😅
Because Swedish Viggen pilots never had a reason to shoot them down. They did a bunch of times get radarlock on them though.
The paint is not black, it is indigo blue.
A little off-putting to have the speaker look off to the side and not directly into the camera; what is the purpose of this? Otherwise, interesting presentation.
he's reading a teleprompter
@@jerrystephenson1172 Of course; but why make it so obvious?
@@jerrystephenson1172 I'm talking about 11:26, for example.
@@apollo11guy It's just a common film technique to make it less bland.
It's a fad which will die in a few years when filmmakers will ask, why did we do that?
Great video bad disracting side shot stick to front
Ugh. Jump cuts to alternate camera angles with the speaker looking off into the distance is so annoying.
SR-71 got, 0.26MPG. lol 😆 😆 🤣 it's pretty much the lowest fuel efficient aircraft. Lol. The average for US Fighters/Fighter Bombers and Jet Aircraft in general, gets 0.4--0.8MPG. SR-71 is below the lowest end. Lol. Good thing it holds over 84k pounds of fuel. After the test bed production ones, i think the, SR-71 held, 90k pounds of fuel. Still needed air refueling because of the, 0.26MPG lol. Talk about high price at the pump ha. For fun, the F14B/D if left in full afterburner, would run out of fuel in 8.5 minutes. Lol. That's internal fuel load. The F15C if left in full afterburner would run out of fuel in 10 minutes. Again, internal fuel load.
I heard somewhere that the (literally!) stratospheric logistics and operating costs (along with the development of satellite technology) were part of the reason for closing down the whole A12/SR-71 platform. Many, many, many tens of thousands of dollars per flight/mission was the figure.
As a young, brand new aero engineer at GD/Ft Worth in 1975 I ran a calculation on F-16 fuel consumption. If you could instantly start it at Mach 1.2 at sea level and hold it, you would run out of internal fuel in 6 minutes. The other two calcs I did (I was in the performance group) were takeoff calcs. If an F-16 took off from Carswell AFB going south, by the time it crossed the interstate, it could either be 1)supersonic or 2) at 30,000. It's not that far from the end of the runway to the freeway.
Way past the age where long hair looks good. Just sayin.
Argon is almost 1% of the atmosphere. That's not very rare.
Yeah i was a bit confused as well when he said argon was rare because i can go down to the local welding supply and buy all I could want and not overly expensive so i knew it couldn’t be very rare even though i didn’t know the numbers
@@54racemanit occurs to me that separating argon from the atmosphere is probably easier today than it was 60 years ago. It may have been relatively expensive and hard to come by.
edit:
After briefly looking at the 'argon' and 'air separation' Wikipedia pages, I'm SURE it's a lot cheaper today. There's no doubt that cryogenic fractional distillation has come a long way in 6 decades.
Mig31 Has POWERFUL BYPASS ENGINE'S
The joke is, is that it is retired....
Is his target audience pre-schoolers? Back to California you go "dude."
Mathew 8urchette behaves like he is only 14 years old......
Sadly the annoying drama makes this unwatchable.
is the guy writing the script even 10 years old?
Be Good Looking, Grow Your hair back!
Subscribed and then unsubscribed because of this guy's delivery... just present the info, don't try to be all wacky or whatever you're going for with all the inflection in your voice.
24:02 yea, from that weird "who-hoo" noise he made right thru the whole section... like wtf am I watching? It's one of the most incredible planes ever made. You don't need to oversell it.
Yeah, he's a little too enthusiastic & repeats "how cool is that? too many times.