SR-71 Flight manual declassified

[Ralph Jones]

She was something!

Betchera$$ she was something. I got my PPL at her Kendall FLyingSchool in 1960. I was doing the simple instrument part in one of her Tri-Champs, with a CFI who was an ex-Hump pilot and wasn't about to let me get off with the simple instrument requirements of the time, so he gave me a no-gyro PAR into the ex-Richmond NAS. It didn't occur to him that the trees hadn't been cleared in years, and we took the top off an Australian pine. Mary and her A&P flew out in her other Tri-Champ with a prop lashed to the struts. He mounted the prop, opined that the bent wing strut wasn't too bad, and we flew the thing out, ummm, a bit out of trim.

Few years later she got a midnight call that one of her airplanes had taken off NORDO. She hustled out to the airport, took off in her Apache, and Miami Approach vectored her to the airplane which was headed for -- naturally -- Cuba. She did a hotnose maneuver, shook him up with wake turbulence, and bullied him into turning around.