I was stationed at Beale AFB for a few years and worked with this aircraft. Seeing it take off was really quite awesome, but there are other things about it that amazed me as well, such as the very basic nature of the avionics, really not at all "high tech". An interesting note, whenever we did things with this jet on the ramp, there would be a tent over the open cockpit. This tells me what we thought (think) the resolution of intel sats are.
Another interesting thing: On the hangars, these jets leaked fuel like a sieve because of the design of the fuel bladders to expand and contract many inches at mach. The fuel itself was almost incombustible, requiring a catalyst (called TEB) to ignite.
None of this is secret, by the way... Just not widely known.
Another interesting thing: On the hangars, these jets leaked fuel like a sieve because of the design of the fuel bladders to expand and contract many inches at mach. The fuel itself was almost incombustible, requiring a catalyst (called TEB) to ignite.
None of this is secret, by the way... Just not widely known.