You did what now?
(midwest.social)
The Picard Maneuver
NonCredibleDefenseThat's just because Lockheed never put a gun on The Blackbird.
SR-71 would easily have been able to, they were just too chicken to give it guns and hardpoints like god intended. Cowards.
They made an interceptor version of the SR-71 called the YF-12. I don't know if it ever entered service though.
I was always a fan of the YF-19
The also made one with ... a parasite, mini me version of itself.
https://www.museumofflight.org/Exhibits-and-Events/Aircraft/lockheed-m-21-blackbird
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_D-21
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_A-12#M-21
Two, actually.
They made two pairs of the M-21 and D-21.
And yes, that's D for Drone, in 1963.
A nearly hypersonic drone, in 1963.
That is possibly the most sci Fi ass looking thing I've seen outside of an 80s b-movie. You know some hyper nerd designer was extremely proud of that
They only built 3 of them.
1 crashed in California in 1971. Another was given to NASA for testing until 1978. The surviving 2 are in museums. Couldn't find any information on whether they saw actual active duty, but they were technically in service in the 1970s.
‘Y’ means it was the second prototype batch after ‘X’. Sometimes the Ys would be modified with the final spec and enter service but typically they would lose the Y designation at that time. For instance the prototype YB-36 entered service as a reconnaissance RB-36A after modifications.
I'm not sure a weapons system that could be used before it disintegrated from the stresses of the SR-71 accelerating to cruise speed, exists.
It has a weapon: information speed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_F-11_Tiger
The Tiger gained the dubious distinction of being the first jet aircraft to shoot itself down.[8][9] On 21 September 1956, during a test-firing of its 20 mm (0.79 in) cannons, pilot Tom Attridge fired two bursts midway through a shallow dive. As the trajectory of the cannon rounds decayed, they ultimately crossed paths with the Tiger as it continued its descent, disabling the aircraft and forcing Attridge to crash-land the aircraft; he survived with a broken leg and multiple broken vertebrae.[10][11]
- nice
- so it didn't do much "outrun" the bullets, but moved under them as they fell? Still funny and impressive either way.
- "survived with a broken leg and multiple broken vertebrae" - okay, so maybe "funny" in a different way.
How is that not catching up to them?
FYI if you're unfamiliar with ballistics, as most people never think about it. When a bullet is fired out of a gun, it is dropping downward at the same speed as if you were holding in your hand and just let it go.
People who don't normally shoot rifles never really stop to think about that. The forward velocity doesn't keep the bullet from falling towards the ground any slower. Rifles usually fire the bullet at a slight upward trajectory because of this. So it may climb an inch and a half higher over the first 100 yards before it starts heading towards the ground.
Since he was decreasing in altitude (presumably at approximately a straight diagonal vector) and the bullets were traveling in an arc, I guess the linear distance travelled by the plane is less than that travelled by the bullets?
Either way, I think "out-ran" is appropriate here since the plane was necessarily ahead of the bullet on the horizontal plane since it was hit by the bullets.
