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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: SR-71 Blackbird question
Message-ID: <1990Oct2.235358.23938@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 2 Oct 90 23:53:58 GMT
References: <1990Sep27.031756.7889@cbnews.att.com> <1990Sep29.155314.7821@cbnews.att.com>
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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>From: texbell!letni!digi!digi.lonestar.org!user1 ("USER1")
>The guy said that the skin got so hot on the plane that the wing
>span was three feet wider when it was flying at its operational
>height and conditions.  

The number sounds exaggerated, but thermal expansion and contraction
was a big concern in the design.  That's why the wing skins are corrugated,
so they can expand without messing up the wing shape.

>The fuel is so inflamable that it can not be lit by a match.

(A better word would be "non-flammable"; for historical reasons "inflammable"
and "flammable" are synonyms.)  The stuff is supposed to be pretty tame
compared to normal kerosene, since it has to behave itself in hot tanks.
Again, the specific claim sounds a bit exaggerated, but it could be true.
(Same general comment about the other things, actually.)
-- 
Imagine life with OS/360 the standard  | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
operating system.  Now think about X.  |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry