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by justin66 944 days ago
The SR-71 officially served for about 32 years, although the last few years weren’t very active - there was a retirement followed by a brief comeback IIRC. NASA had one that might have flown a few times after that, I’m not sure.

What led you to believe the U-2 “was expected to be obsolete quickly?” It would be interesting to know who amongst Lockheed and Air Force personnel were right, and wrong, about something like that.
1 comments
dotancohen 944 days ago
The U-2, being subsonic, was not expected to last long according to one of the books I read, don't ask me which. In addition to being vulnerable to high altitude interceptors, it was difficult to fly as the stall speed was just knots away from Vne. And landing it was an adventure all its own. That said, the airplane found its niche and outlived expectations.
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LaffertyDev 944 days ago
> The U-2, being subsonic, was not expected to last long according to one of the books I read, don't ask me which

Probably either Skunkworks or Kelly: More than my share of it all. I recall that very soon after shipping the U2, they saw the writing on the wall for its operational limits and started working on the SR71 very soon after. Looking at the timelines, U2 first flight was 1955 and the first discussions for the SR71 were done in 1957 with work beginning in 1958. Powers was shot down in 1960 in his U2.

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justin66 944 days ago
You can see how certain people would think the SR-71 would naturally be a permanent replacement for the U-2. It'll fly at the same extreme height a lot faster, etc. etc. If you're not aware of the enormous operational cost, which is what really killed the blackbird, it seems obvious which one should succeed. (or if it's not your money...)

Every time one of these threads comes up I think I should reread Ben Rich's book, which I read over twenty years ago and gave to a friend about five years ago. It would be interesting to recall his perspective on this. I think he had something in there about how proud they were about keeping the costs of the reactivation and final flights of the SR-71, which were sort of mandated by congress, as low as possible. They were still a lot more expensive than, for example, recent programs to equip the U-2 fleet with more modern avionics.

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