Don't know of any that were lost - one crashed off Okinawa due to mechanical
problems - in the 40 years it was operational it never ceased to amaze me -
I am about 50 miles South of Beale AFB and years ago went to an airshow.

Beale is where a lot of the spy planes take off -

They had an SR-71 demo --  the thing takes off and we are told it has to fly
over to Denver (a good 1,000 miles/1,600 km east) to make a 180 (why I never
learned) - but when it came back
it made a low pass over the runway - maybe 100' off - hits full throttle -
or the afterburner - and you could see a shock wave emanating from the
nozzles - like smoke rings except you knew it wasn't smoke -

On the story of ATC it comes from a book a retired SR71 pilot (guess they
are all retired now ) wrote - he was up at Reno for the air races a few
years ago and wanted an obscene amount ($300?) for his book - anyway the
story goes like this:

There was a good tail wind and a Cessna 150 pilot called Los Angeles ATC
wanting to know their groundspeed.

"Cessna Charlie Foxtrot we read 180 knots"

About 10,000 feet higher a Beech Baron (a twin) heard the exchange so he
calls ATC.

"Baron November Charlie we read 290 knots"

The Beech pilot is obviously pleased - some thousands of feet higher a Navy
F18 pilot decided he wanted to show them all and asks for his ground speed.

"Navy so & so we read 920 knots"

It was silent for awhile and the SR71 pilot wrote: "at this time the thought
came to me and my radar officer - we were at 60,000 feet inbound for Edwards
out of ATC control but my radar officer asks for his ground speed at the
same time I thought of asking".

There was a  long hesitation from ATC, then they said "Air Force so & so we
read 1,792 knots".

There was silence on the airwaves  for a good 10-15 seconds.

Denys if you are an airplane nut as me you should be subscribing to
Smithsonian Air & Space magazine. They had an article on the U2 a few issues
ago. The TR-1 is about 1/3 bigger than the U2 - and the electronics are
amazing. It takes commands from satellites and sends feeds to them.

The U2 in itself has a fascinating history - designed by that aeronautical
genius Clarence "Kelly" Johnson it was basically glider wings on an F104
fuselage. In the 50s the CIA asked for proposals for a spy plane and
Lockheed wasn't even on the official list.

Johnson put this together in a matter of months.

Sorta like the history of the P51 - it was idea to prototype all in about 6
months simply because North American couldn't supply the British with enough
P40s - The Mustang turned out to be one of the war's top fighters.

Bill

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