The History Guy: Fall from an SR-71

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In 1966 an SR-71 "Blackbird" disintegrated at 78,000 feet. The pilot's first thought was "No one could live through what just happened. Therefore, I must be dead."
spawnflaggersays...

I'm a little skeptical now that I'm older, but a few decades ago I read that the SR-71's wings actually had a small gap that fuel leaked out while at low speed/altitude. Once it got up to speed, the metal heated up, expanded, and closed the gap.

Digitalfiendsays...

Everything I've read about the SR-71 in the past seems to support the idea of expansion gaps being designed into the panels due to the amount of heat created from flying 3x the speed of sound.

spawnflaggersaid:

I'm a little skeptical now that I'm older, but a few decades ago I read that the SR-71's wings actually had a small gap that fuel leaked out while at low speed/altitude. Once it got up to speed, the metal heated up, expanded, and closed the gap.

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