Blackbird

The key to this height and speed is the power. The figures thta the engines produce are as huge as they are meaningless, but one figure is food for thought. Flat out just 20% of the thrust is produced by the engines. 80% then is coming from nowhere at all. How is this posible? Essentially, the big pointy things that stick out of the intakes steer most of the air into escape channels that never go near the blades. The air is then compressed and then, as it reaches the exhaust, ignited. And the nore air you push in, the more thrust you get. You simply burn the air and watch the speedo climb. Literally, the faster you go, the faster it goes. Simple, but the results are heavenly. On full throttle, two giant blue plumes are left in its wake, eachframing a series of perfect blue balls of equally perfect energy. It is a magnificant sight to behold. When the blackbird flies it generates s much friction, and consequently heat, that the whole plane grows by a foot. Then upon landing it cools and shrinks.

Inside ther cockpit ther are so many dials, yet no computer screens. You get the sense that it is mechanical, rather than eletronic. And that helps reinforce the sense of the Blackbird being a living, breathing thing. No computer. You have no sense that a wire and microchip are alive because they don’t actually do anything. But when you pull a lever and hydraulic fluid causes a part to actually move, that’s different. And that’s what happens in the Blackbird, a product of the fifties that could still cut it up to its last ever flight in 1999.