Customer Reviews

Flying the SR-71 Blackbird: In the Cockpit on a Secret Operational Mission

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This is a great book! It's exactly what the title says it is -- a pilot's inside the cockpit explanation of flying the SR-71, in expansive detail. The author is perfectly qualified for the task as a former SR-71 pilot, instructor pilot, chief stan/eval and commander of the 1st Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron. There are 80 pages of original SR-71 checklists, there are detailed cockpit pictures, and there is explanation of every switch you'd see in a complete mission. Make no mistake, this is not a pretty picture book, this is for true pilot nerds who want to do what is now impossible -- climb inside the Blackbird and take it flying at Mach 3.2 and FL 780.

The foreword correctly states the book, "provides the missing link among the many Blackbird volumes that have been written over the past quarter century. While many nuts-and-bolts references have been written covering the aircraft's development, flight test, and operational history in minute detail, none, until now, have addressed the subject of flying the mission from the perspective of the pilot." It includes illuminating discussions about abnormal and emergency procedures, as well as some sidebars with tales of specific flights. It also includes a few pages of color pictures. The SR-71 was a stunning thrill-ride, and also a hughly complex techno-social system. Graham has written a quality tribute to the aeroplane and the thousands of people that made the system work.

Buy the big picture books by Brian Shul for glossy photographs and fluid descriptions of the feel of flying the SR-71. Buy the various history books for the development story and technical details. But for the this-switch-does-that (and why) (and when) detail of actually flying faster than a bullet, you need to buy this book. If this sort of thing is your cup of tea, you may also enjoy 'The Concorde Stick & Rudder Book' by Mike Riley for details on flying another big plane really really fast. I hope this review helps you.

Flying the SR-71 Blackbird: In the Cockpit on a Secret Operational Mission
HAVE YOU EVER WANTED TO FLY AN SR-71? Well there are two things you need, one is this book, the other, well an operating aircraft. That I can't help you with, but I can suggest you should get this book!

Rich Graham was an instructor pilot on the SR-71, and his infinite knowledge of operating the Blackbird is laid out in the step by step procedures of flying the aircraft. Each check list item is described and laid out to explain it in terms you can understand.

This is Col Graham's third book, and 'Flying the Blackbird' like the others is a must for the Blackbird fan. This book is unique in that it tells you the complex cockpit procedures of this marvel of aviation. No other book or writer could give you the insight that Col. Rich Graham does.

A must.

The previous reviews are right on the mark, so I won't restate what they said. This book has a tremendous amount of detail on the physics of flight, engine parameters, navigation challenges, and steps taken to do an actual mission. It is not for casual readers, although there are short sections boxed in the text that relate to humorous or unusual incidents, that all readers would enjoy. I am still amazed that engineers working for Kelly Johnson built this aircraft with slide rules, paper tables, and drawings made by draftsmen, not computers. They achieved Mach 3+ flight using "steam gauges" and pilot skill. Contrast that with the Stealth fighter which flys because a computer moves the control surfaces in response to pilot input. I have seen the SR-71 fly at Beale and this book adds a great insight into its design and operation. I highly recommend it.

If you are interested in knowing every minute detail about the SR-71 Blackbird, this is the book for you. I have seen the Blackbird up close, sat in the cockpit, and have spent many hours flying the SR-71 on Microsoft Flight Simulator (SR-71 sim available online). Now, with this book, I am learning all of the Blackbird's intimate secrets. The author leaves nothing to the imagination as he steps you through a mission. The planning, the preflight, the cockpit check, taxiing, runup, takeoff, climbout, mission navigation, descent, and landing. It is all there. Did you know that the SR-71 gets only 20% of its thrust from the two jet engines? Where does the rest come from? The author will tell you. There are diagrams and descriptions of every instrument, switch, and lever in the aircraft. This all was top secret stuff a few years ago.

I'm a technically oriented person but I found this book to be very dry reading. There are only a few good anecdotes scattered here and there to create some interest but otherwise very little to really get your teeth into. There are endless pages of checkout procedures which are about as interesting as waiting in line at the DMV. Pages 201 through 273, almost 25% of the book, are nothing but the Pilot's Checklist. There are some nice photos but otherwise I wasted my money on this yawner of a book. My advice: don't be sucked in by the title and cover photos.... there's very little inside worth reading.

This book is well written by a very experienced pilot. I have his other books and have enjoyed every one of them. Having seen and HEARD the SR-71 fly, this book makes the flight experience come even closer. I only wish I could have had the flight experiences that the author had!

This is a valuable and very interesting view of this magnificent airplane and we are in debt to Graham for taking the time to share it with us. If you are not into the details of technical flying, this is not for you. However, with Graham's writing style I found myself inside the cockpit with him, and was fascinated with what it took to put one of these things in the air.
A valuable addition to the history of the plane and the remarkable men who flew them.

Ever since I was a little boy, I've dreamed of being a military pilot. The SR-71 Blackbird was one of my favorites, and today it is my #1 favorite U.S. Air Force aircraft. Buying this book was definitely worth it. Col. Graham, USAF(ret.) spared no detail in explaining how the Blackbird works, and he spared no detail about all the vast preparation that goes into the machine's missions. If anyone has ever dreamed of flying the fastest, and highest flying, manned, air-breathing aircraft in the world, he/she would have to be clinically insane not to order this book.

As aircraft historian Jay Miller rightly says in his Foreword, this book is the "missing link" in the existing literature on the Blackbird. At the book's core are detailed descriptions of the actual step-by-step procedures the pilot and his backseater would apply, in fact this book is the first to reproduce the actual Abbreviated Pilot's Checklist (there is a separate one for the Reconnaissance Systems Officer/RSO in the rear cockpit). This is excerpted from the original flight manual that runs to over 1000 pages and, needless to say, was highly classified until the 1990s. While this sort of virtual tour of an SR-71 may be of special appeal to pilots or to fans of the Blackbird who devour every morsel of information, there's more to this book than airmanship. Graham was not only an SR-71 pilot and instructor (1974-1981) with 756 Blackbird hours, he was later also the commander of the squadron (9th SRW) that had responsibility for worldwide U-2 and SR-71 operations and all the related support hardware. So, on the one hand he can describe every single switch on the plane and on the other speak to the bigger picture such as the difference between "spying" and "overt intel gathering" and cite specific examples of SR-71 missions changing word history. To the person not used to thinking of such matters, the complexity of issues such as overflights (incidentally, Graham is adamant that the landmasses of the USSR and China were never overflown post-U2) and landing rights on foreign soil or the risk/benefit analysis in deploying a Blackbird will make for fascinating reading.

From flight planning the day before departure to rehashing the mission over vodka and tonics, Graham then describes in detail each phase. In the cockpit, Graham describes the exact procedures in the order specified by the checklist, using the same jargon, phrases, acronyms, and voice commands and call-outs the pilots would use. A marvelous description by "Mr. J58," Pratt & Whitney's engine manager Arnie Gunderson, will make even ordinary mortals think they actually understand one of the truly revolutionary aspects of this aircraft: ram recovery. From an engineering point of view, these are fascinating principles, not always easy to understand, but the writing is clear, inviting, and easy to follow in broad strokes even if you might be baffled by some of the details. There's not a wasted word in this book. Unless you've worked in or around a Blackbird yourself, this book takes you places that are normally off-limits.

Full review at <speedreaders.info>. Copyright 2010, Sabu Advani

A well written book. I am a retired military and airline pilot with over 20000 hours of flight time. Even with all this time I found some of this over my head! But if you want to know in great detail how this amazing thing worked this is the book for you! Read slow and analize as you go along and I am shure you will enjoy flying the most amazing bird.