For my Quiz No. 100; rewording the Psalm 23 a bit, a pilot in what aircraft quipped that "though I fly through the Valley of Death I shall fear no evil for I am at 90,000 feet and climbing." Incidentally, this was a true statement.
1. Manufacturer of the aircraft and its official designation?
Unfortunately Doug, the Internet has made this one a little too easy and I will leave the answer to others who may perhaps use different and more challenging search means.
The book containing the quote is highly recommended.
I will leave it to you to "spell it out" as and when!
Malcolm.
Malcolm,
Thank you for your most kind reply and welcome decision. I totally agree with your statement on the impressive and revealing book. I did not check the web for any quiz clues BEFORE making up this one hundredth quiz. My bad!
So, the quiz remains open for the answers. All are cleared for answers/inputs.....
Doug
There's really only one aircraft that could reach that altitude..
I'm seeing some references that it was 80k feet in the original quote, but that's not relevant to the question
Rather than fannying about Doug and so we can look forward to Quiz 101, I'll spit it out.
Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.
Thank you, Rob!
Lockheed's Mach 3 Archangel project aircraft had several names/nomenclatures along its development and test phases. The developed Lockheed A-12 Blackbird was the exact version the pilot was referring to in his quip, from the large page/format book "SECRET JETS, A History Of The Aircraft Developed At Area 51", by Bill Yenne, published by Zenith Press in 2014. (192 pages including many illustrations and an excellent index). I highly recommend the book. Other names from the SR-71 development were YF-12A and for a cover story- a YF-12A was called a YF-12C.
A 1962 version Lockheed A-12 Blackbird specifications follows:
Crew-one.
Powerplant-two 144.57kN (32,500 lb thrust each) Pratt & Whitney J58 afterburning turbojet engines
Design speed-in early 1963, Mach 3.2
Max speed-(cruise) 3661km/h (2,269 mph)
Max altitude-84,978 ft.
Wingspan-55 ft, 7 in.
Length-102 ft, 0 in.
Height-18 ft, 3 in.
Weight-maximum 120,000 lb.
The book is an excellent history of Area 51 including Groom Lake and the Tonopah Test Range near the town of Tonopah, Nevada where incidentally my mother lived in 1912-1914. She was born in 1900; her father took the family west as there was a big silver strike at Tonopah at the time. He was Publisher and Editor of the Tonopah newspaper business that he purchased, but the silver strike petered out and the family returned to Southern Minnesota where he repurchased the local weekly newspaper, the Kiester Courier of Kiester, Minnesota. I appreciated the book's extra information about Tonopah, Nevada, it's test range and Area 51.
