Hacking Google Maps and Google Earth (ExtremeTech)

140 Part II — Instant Gratification

FIGURE8-9: ISS and Hubble Tracker.

ISS Hubble

The Lockheed SR-71

When I was a kid, I had posters on my wall of the Lockheed SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft, oth-

erwise known as the Blackbird. The design of the airplane had a number of purposes, not least

of which was to allow the plane to fly very, very fast. The cruising speed of the SR-71 was Mach

3.3 (that’s 3.3 times the speed of sound), and it still holds the record for the fastest production

aircraft (2,193.167 miles per hour). The plane flew not only fast, but also at very high altitudes:

The original design reached 80,000 feet, with a record altitude just short of 85,069 feet (which

was later broken by the Russian MiG-25).

To put those speeds into perspective, the Blackbird holds the U.S. coast-to-coast speed record of

just 68 minutes, and the New York-to-London speed record of just under 1 hour and 54 min-

utes. As though you needed any further proof of the speed, in case of missile attack, the stan-

dard operating procedure was to simply accelerate and outrun it.

The Blackbird was also one of the first aircraft to be designed not to show up on radar — an

astonishing feat for a plane that is more than 107 feet in length and more than 55 feet wide.

The effect was to create a plane that appeared, on radar, to be about the size of a barn door

rather than the size of a barn.

With all of this in mind, it is easy to see why the Blackbird has garnered such a cult following.

The plane and its fictional derivatives have even appeared in numerous films, although not

always in a factual or believable environment.