I used to work at P&W Florida where this engine was tested. My desk was about a hundred yard away from the test cell. When this engine ran during my shift, I went home feeling like I was beaten with a stick from the low frequency vibrations. This video doesn’t begin to show the beautiful shock rings when the engine ran at full AB. I will always be proud that I was a part of the instrumentation team.
Glad you could see it!! Got to see it fly in Mildenhall as a kid in ‘83. I’ve also seen the U-2 takeoff from NAS Jax twice in the late 90’s. First time under thick overcast, and it was LOUD! As a born lover of all things that create noise from JP, thanks for the sounds & smells!!
I was at vmat 203 and I will never forget my first trip down to high power lol. Anchoring the aircraft down with a huge chain then running it at 100% or more. Absolute sensory overload!!
I was a jet engine mechanic on the SR-71. We built that test cell in 1965 before we got the first bird in January 1966. It was in the middle of nowhere.
@@jackwertz8301 Read elsewhere you posted you cal'd test cell at Beale AFB. I calibrated 5 different test cells twice annually at 3 different bases in CA as Active Duty USAF 30 plus years ago. We used the standard big green heavy test cell calibration trailer full of test equipment. Anything special needed for the J58? I cal'd multiple types from an old T6A to T20As & T21As including both size hush houses (had to assist the acceptance of the large one with a golden engine from Tinker AFB when it was new). Even had to cal one between runways which was wild. Almost always a blast including testing then new system called ETTAS. Visited Edwards AFB for work on then new T20B & T21B digital test cells after telling the man better to do there than between 2 runways on another base. Thought the J79 looked cool with lights out in a hush house on AB, but this blows that away between the TEB start and diamonds out the back. Man must use a lot of fuel for that test! Enjoyed as brought back old memories. Thanks!
Will add got to watch a J58 engine run day before our air show while installed in a SR-71 that actually flew at our air show as my former base provided worldwide logistics for the SR-71. It made like 3 passes before going over the mountains back to Palmdale or Edwards AFB (don't remember which). Not sure what the issue with the engine was for the run. Just remember the huge start cart and then got an up close look at the SR-71 once they put it back in the hanger including with all the drip pans and a B stand to go up and look at the top of the fuselage and see the astro-inertial guidance sensor on top. Very cool!
And this is just the Alpha Stage of the overall propulsion system. Once it gets above Mach 1.5, the cycle shifts from Alpha to Beta, the ramjet cycle, where the inlet and ejector is now creating over 75-85% of the overall thrust. Imagine how big and long that cone of flame would be at that point. This was the Saturn V of jet aircraft.
It's funny how all of you talk about this like you have any experience whatsoever. This was a thing before y'all were in your daddy's sack. Just shut up lol
its not in full after burner, due to how dense the air is, only when the aircraft or the engines front cones would advance rearwards would the mach 1 to mach 2.5 would be achieved its impossible to get it to run at full throttle simple because of this fact?
What a historic event captured on video! That green flash at 0:54 is the chemical ignition using TED triethylborane. I witnessed the last J58 overhaul tested at P&W Florida. There was a handful (out of 3000 people at that facility) that made a point of driving down to the test area to see Zone 5 afterbune since that was the loudest test of all current engines. I didn't get to see the back end get transparent, but you can look through it. I got as close as I could bear it and got an mild acoustic concussion from the SPL (!) At such close distance, one step could be +5 to +10db.
Nofer Trunions I remember trying to stand close too. I felt the reverberation against my chest. It also cleared my sinuses. At this test, the MX, Ops and some of the pilot and RSOs were there. They couldn’t believe the show. My dad (John Wiltison) was in the booth running the test. In AB you could see the bugs fall to the ground as they couldn’t fly due to the shock waves. Great place to grow up.
.... 9 months since my 1st reply. Man, those were the Good Ole Days. I should have transferred to the test area from engineering when I worked at Pratt & Whitney in FL....
I'm a huge Lockheed fan, especially the OG Skunk Works guys with their slide rules, pocket protectors and THICC glasses....but I don't think KJ had much or anything to do with the J58 other than telling P&W what was required out of them and ordering a stack of em. If anyone's face would be in the exhaust it would be the R&D engineers from Pratt & Whitney, whatever their names may be....maybe a Bill, a Frank or a John perhaps? Lol
@@rickfeith6372 The base Pratt & Whitney J-58 engine in the Blackbird family existed before Project Oxcart, but it had nowhere near the required performance levels for the Blackbirds until Skunkworks got their hands on it. Skunkworks designed the conical inlet (designed by Skunkwork's Ben Rich), much of the bypass features, auxiliary intakes/vents, and exhaust ejector. At cruising speed and altitude, these systems accounted for over 80% of the plane's thrust. So yes, the engine core (compressor, combustor, and turbine), which is what largely matters for this ground test, was manufactured and mostly designed by PW, but during normal operation, overall powerplant performance was over 80% Skunkworks.
I witnessed a fly over at the Toronto Air show around 1996 by the SR 71- a few fly by passes for the crowd, then they pitched the nose up and cracked those 2 SOB's full AB- I have never heard anything like that and likely won't again! The entire ground shook for about 45 seconds as they disappeared vertically out of sight-back home. Got goosebumps again watching this video. Cheers to engineers and crews who worked on this project!
I don't know where this took place, but it reminded me immediately of my Dad walking with me up the mountain that overlooked the Santa Susanna facility when I was a kid. I never did find out how he always knew when there was going to be an engine test, but we saw a lot of them, nighttime and daytime. He took me to a lot of cool places. I miss him.
@@red_d849 forget about what you didn't have and take your kids to places that you've never been. You'll learn a lot. They'll miss you when you're gone. Good luck to you on your journey sir!
Proud to be a P&W veteran, these engines were on the assembly floor in West Palm when I worked there temporarily in the late 1960's, a marvel of engineering at the time and still today!
@@andrewtoombs3867 I disagree. The X-15 program was already underway before the Blackbird was even on the drawing board, and they achieved the record for fastest human flight by going Mach 6.7 just a year after the SR came out. Shepard and Glenn made it to space several years before the Blackbird came out with Project Mercury, and Project Gemini was doing EVAs when the SR was just getting introduced. Probably the greatest achievement of NASA with the Apollo program had very very little to do with the SR which was still very very very secret at the time. They also used actual computers while the SR did not, used rockets while the SR did not, and used very different principles of flight since they were doing two very different things. Before SR came out, NASA already conceived of Skylab. It wasn't the Blackbird that achieved all this, it was Congress' willingness to throw insane amounts of money at NASA to compare sizes with the Soviets. NASA didn't have their hands on a Blackbird until 1991.
The J58 was designed in a time by men with a pencil in one hand, a slide rule in the other while puffing on cigarette, whilst wearing a crisp white shirt and black tie. Different world back then but what a time to be in aviation where america ruled the world. I'm saying this as an Englishman. Carry on.
Actually, it's coffee being poured in cups in the morning, time zone after time zone, that makes the earth rotate. The decaf explains why the rate is slowing! LoL
@@glitch1182 A shot of TEB was used to A) start the engine and B) to engage the afterburner. So for a standard mission, you start the engine(t TEB shot) and taxi to the runway Begin our roll go to Military power, then engage afterburner( another TEB shot), gear up by 300 knots, climb to 25,000 feet, pull back the throttles and take fuel. At about the 17 minute mark you are almost full and you cant keep up to the tanker anymore with both engines at Military, so you sneak one engine into min a/b (another TEB hit-for one engine) After about 20 minutes you're full and you back away possibly pulling both engines from Military power. After you're clear of the tank you go to ful a/b on the engines(another TEB hit) and you cruise climb to your operational altitude. After about 1-1-1/2 hours you begin your slowing/descent to find your next tanker at 25-35,000 feet and rinse and repeat. On that one engine you've used 4 TEB hits leaving you with 12 left. A TEB shot is used whenever you start the engine AND whenever you engage the afterburners. Another mission limiter aside from TEB was teh amount of liquid nitrogen the jet carried. As the J58's burned JP-7 that fuel volume was replaced with teh inert gas, nitrogen. Eventually with muliple refuelings/burndowns you'd run out of nitrogen to keep youir fuel tanks safe.
Awesome, thank you! I used to have a very similar video on VHS that has disappeared, i thought I'd never get to see this again. I've told my wife about it, but words can't describe it. This video says it all. Pure JP7 guzzling power!
@@derekwall200 Normal jet fuel used to be JP-4. JP-7 was designed to have a higher flashpoint, hence the need for the TEB (tri-ethyl borane), which it the green flash you see early in the video, which gets the engine running.
I came across this while watching Ferrari videos. It's stunning how this 1960's amazing piece of amazing engineering that can push another vehicle to more than three times the speed of sound can make the most modern Ferraris look and feel like fucking garbage. The mere fact that this engine's materials can glow like that from heat without melting is mind blowing. Truly amazing!
We had a test cell at Palmdale , had a mobile buisness office on the flightline, when these fired off the whole trailer shook and you could not hear the guy next to you, nice light show out the back , pencil points and doughnut rings, whole valley was shaking. The SR's are now gone but Phase maintenance on the U2's and flight test continue
This was a hybrid, part turbojet, part ramjet...and it was marvelous. I wonder how cool would be an engine designed from scratch today, with the technology and materials we have today...but incorporating a similar concept to this.
Well, in fairness titanium is still the dogs bollocks. Not sure they can get faster fan blades, composites would just burn up but the ram jet part probably has improved. To be fair, nowadays what strategic use is there in a mach 4+ plane. not sure what it's real top speed is, its speed is probably limited by fuel capacity for all we know. Made to outrun missiles. But the sky is littered with satellites so they are kind of a redundant method of reconnaissance. An unmanned craft would do way crazier stuff at a smaller size and cost using the same technology, I saw a single engine unmanned version. I think if anything, the next step would be to mess with the physics by emitting all kinds of high energy fields. Extending leading and trailing edges with energy to cut the air better. Something like that.
@@georgekurgansky5986 With satellites nowadays covering the sky, indeed not so much strategic value. But if these high energy fields made to cut the air better, coupled with advances in aerodynamic design, could also reduce sonic boom...then perhaps there could be market for an airliner capable of reaching such speeds. Also, considering how technology advances, maybe even adding a cleaner fuel to reduce emissions...and if such airliner could carry a good number of people, if it could end up cheaper or just a little more expensive than the intercontinental tickets today...but arriving in your destiny in 1/5 of the time or so...I'd say it's game. But...these are all what-if's now, and probably will be for a long time yet.
we probably have something alot better ... like Zero Point Gravity, which has been know in very high prestige colleges, and usually the physics teachers who talked about it, had mysterious disappearences. I think the nazi's were working on it
It truly is amazing what this engine is capable of… and build in the 1960s. I cannot imagine what these companies or govt have in black projects now. This engine was built before the aid of computers. From what I understand, they had to invent tools to work the body portion of the aircraft as they had nothing to work the titanium required to withstand the heat generated when this baby went Mach 3
@@Mark-uh4zd They even had to create the drill bits! I have a few floppy disks with some interesting stories that came out many years ago, on the BBS before the Internet...
Justin Ruiz engine design (turbofan/turbojet) hasen’t changed a whole lot regarding power output, but performance wise (fuel burn, reliability, etc) has certainly improved. Better research in ramjet style engines has been conducted, but still hasn’t been used this broadly since the J58.
In the 1950's turbojets needed overhaul after a few hundred hours. The J79 ran for about 300 hours as I recall. I read that recent commercial high-bypass turbofans (where all the money goes) have remained under the wing for 30,000 hours. Of course that would be millions of hours if they were still using tally stcks and drawing in the sand. People got so lazy after Napier. Yes F-35 costs more than a 787 but how many 787s and A350's will be delivered. The commercial jets weren't project management disasters because they weren't designed by Congress.
@@joesmith389 there are better propulsion systems developed that surpass the jet engine, but they are all locked away in SAP's. And more then likely not to be implemented In to the public sector
@@scottiebones My personal opinion is that regardless of how classified things are, there are some fundamental physical barriers that we have not crossed yet that are limiting some of the crazier engine concepts, but I would assume that they have something like a scramjet engine. The issue is that such engines produce a lot of noise and make it somewhat easy to detect. Though they probably have someway of circumventing that sort of like the blackbird did.
On Okinawa we called the SR-71, "Habu" after a quick deadly native snake to Okinawa. I was in the USMC stationed at Camp Foster (Aug74-Sep75) just south of Kadena AFB. Semper Fi
I live in Okinawa too, and I had lived in Virginia, close to D.C. before moving here. I remember seeing an SR-71 at the Udvar Hazy air and space museum and being in awe of its sleekness. When I got here I heard about how they used to fly out of Kadena here and "boom" over communist diplomatic meetings in Korea and Vietnam. Thing could fly the length of the whole island in 90-120 seconds. Incredible!
@@robertw6894 what a jet and great memories. I'd love to go back to Okinawa. Did you say you LIVED on Okinawa now or back in the day? I think you lived on Okinawa, what years? Were you in the military if so,what branch of the service and where were you stationed?
@@usmc-veteran73-77 I'm currently stationed in Okinawa, and I'm not in the military. I'm 15 and military dependent, but I want to be a pilot in the Airforce when I become of age.
@@robertw6894you will make a fine Air man someday. Study hard and get ready for college. I was stationed at Camp Foster (Aug74-Sep75) Im sure you know where that is. I finished high school at Kubasaki High by taking night classes. So Im technically a 1975 Graduate and an alumni of Kubasaki High School Dragons.
Back then ,when engines were engines,when men were men,Big salute to everyone involved with the building maintenance and flying those wonderfull flying marvels💪💪👏👏👏
34 thousand pounds of thrust in full burner in the test cell. (Less installed, due to parasitic loss to accessories and airflow restrictions/and bypass.) What a beast! And from technology older than most people viewing the video.
@@toomanybears_ Get that GE-90 to operate at 90,000 feet or 3.43 and get back to me. No doubt that the GE-90 is impressive for the aggregate technology and current engineering, but in context of time and scope of 60 years and the time of inception to operation production of each engine cannot be compared. The J58 design with known technology, materials (and computer vs analog modeling and testing) and time to "operation use" vs the same known technology, materials etc. of the GE-90 cannot be equated. One can simply marvel at the history, and not need to "one up" the former for the mere pleasure of thinking it has been equaled with a comparison that is no where near true equal.
@@toomanybears_ The Ge-90 is a very good engine but it IS a much Larger engine when measured by mass flow rate. If the J-58 was sized to match the mass flow rate of the Ge-90 the the J-58 would produce 327857 pounds of thrust. 😯 Also note the Ge engine is roughly ten times bigger.
I spent some time in the early 80's working at Lockheed-Martin's (think they were still just Lockheed then) Air Force Plant 42 on the U-2 program. Both the U-2 and SR-71 flew out of our site. Several miles down the road was an outdoor SR-71 engine test stand. One day I was sitting in our trailer with our site lead when there was a tremendous roar and the entire trailer and ground started to shake. I was terrified it was an earthquake. Panicked, I asked our test lead what was happening. He had his feet up on his desk reading the newspaper. He never flinched and calmly told me it was the SR-71 engine test stand up the road. I asked how far away it was cuz it sounded like it was right outside which I knew it wasn't. Without putting his paper down he said "Oh, about 5 miles."
I imagine 80% of the total planning for this test was on how to hold the engine, or its surroundings in place; and only the other 20% was on how exactly to run the engine during the test.
Better engines with more thrust. There was nothing special about the normal jet parts of this engine. The only thing that made it different was at high Mach numbers it pretty much turned into a ramjet by bypassing most of the intake air right into he burner. The engines we have now weigh half as much and produce more thrust while burning less fuel but they aren’t required to fly at Mach 3 so they don’t have that bypass system.
Very interesting. I know just how difficult it is to get video from where the camera was, so no complaints at all about the sound or image quality. Thanks!
I was a Maintainer with the 9th for a number of years. Got to see J58 engines on the test strand, launches and in flight refueling. Took her TDY more days than I spent in the states. Was my second favorite PCS while in the USAF.
It wasn’t that responsive. Even a modern engine like a GE F404 takes about four seconds to go from idle to max afterburner. This would have been a lot slower than that and the pilot would need to be more judicious with throttle movements.
You can't see it here but there are 17 shockwave rings in the afterburner. I got to count them up close and personal. To give that some reference, the F-14 Tomcat engines (massive) had 5.
Only 25,500 lb force at full thrust (while afterburning). From an engineering perspective, it's nothing too stressfull for a properly designed frame. Having said that, it would definitely take off in a hurry if the restraints somehow all failed at the same time. 😂
now that is the bravest man i have ever seen, mate turn of the lights so we can see just how good these engines are, thats what the engine management team member said to the fire fighting team member at the 2:06 mark, lol :)
This reminds me of the time I visited an Air Force Base where they were fixing an SR-71. Just to see how it felt, I stuck my head directly into the back of the engine when it was at full after burn. Man that was hot and loud, I was not able to keep my head in there for more than a minute or two.
You stuck your head in the back of the jet engine just after afterburner took place? How! That engine is at least 1000 degrees. Doesn’t matter what version of temperature you put that number next to. You would incinerate immediately.
@@1014p Heat, like anything else, is something that you can build up a tolerance to. You have to do it slowly over a period of time. I'm not saying it was easy, like I said I wasn't able to keep my head in there longer than 1 or 2 minutes. And it mussed up my hair pretty badly.
@@georgewright1093 so it wasn’t 1000 degrees then. Tops 400 maybe if you really did sit there that long. Tolerance only goes so far. Severe skin burns quickly starting at 400 degrees and anything higher id be surprised any hair was left. It couldn’t have been immediately after engine went full bore but some time passed. That or this engine has incredible heat cooling capacity that is officially reported. Even if you factor in fuel used as a coolant thats not at the back end of the engine. Either way a very dangerous thing to do. I wouldn’t be surprised if your hair doesn’t grow back well.
What’s mind boggling is that is nominal power +or- 10%. Jet engines large and small are designed to run at 100% constantly. The afterburner section is actually not a part of the internal combustion and compression system. From what I have been told is as long as you can keep the tailpipe from melting and you have fuel it can run like that it’s entire life. I may be wrong but that’s what they told me at Los Alamos National Lab.
Wow I was only in 4th and 5th grade in South Dade County Miami Florida! Right next to the dirigible base, just north of Homestead Air Force Base! Now I feel Vindicated I knew I saw an SR-71 do a full burn at altitude and then went into full afterburners! It was the most incredible thing I ever saw at that age my father told me I saw something else he was an ex Navy Chief aviation mechanic during the Korean conflict if you will! So I grew up around old warbirds and was fascinated with a new stuff that was publicized! I have never forgotten it and when you showed the close-up of the pulse playing in the first 20 ft behind the nozzle I knew I saw what I saw! And that thing had to be at 30,000 ft minimum and those pulse nozzle shapes in the exhaust we're probably close to a hundred but long at that altitude it was amazing thing to watch thank you for the video
Kelly stated the engine produce only 20% of the actual thrust at Mach 3.2...80% came from compressor bleed (essentially ramjet thrust). Each engine was rated at 25,500 lbs thrust sea level. Meaning the effective thrust was approximately 127,500 lbs per engine at cruise. This is insane for 1950’s technology. Kelly was a genius!!!
@@gregtaylor6146 Kelly and Ben Rich didn’t design the engines but they _did_ design the inlets. Without that input, the engines would not have been able to function at all. Did you know, for example, that a jet engine cannot process supersonic airflow? That is why inlet design is so important. The inlets have to slow down the flow of air to a speed of about M0.8 at the compressor face and they do this through a series of bleed ducts and shockwave generators. What the SR-71 inlet did was to divert a lot of bleed air directly to the afterburner.
Old retired A&P mech here. many hours with hands on P&W powerplants like the old jt3d3b dc8 707 etc works good last a long time . had the prbc r&r down to about 90 min good times hats off P&W !
0:55. . . The "Green Flash" each time the engine fires up. . . It's Triethylborane (TEB), a chemical method for igniting the fuel. TEB was developed to match the low volatility of the fuel that was fed to the Pratt & Whitney J58 engines. TEB spontaneously ignites in contact with air above −5 °C and produces a characteristic "Green Flash" as it ignites.
My favorite part about these videos is the comment section filled with all the older people (no offense) who actually got to work on this thing during its inception and I love reading them all.
No it’s a simple energy density matter. The same reason you can’t take a pill for a meal like in the Jetsons- you can’t pack that many calories in a few cubic cm. However we’re not using solar panels or wind energy for rocket ships or spy planes so wtf is your point. Say we go to Texas , because it’s Texas and we hate green- and we buy one of these second hand and we’re gonna generate power and sell it. You’d go bankrupt in seconds - sorry bud. These high power engines with high powered fuel are super expensive. What was is $1,000,000 an hr to operate the SR 71. We’ll we can say screw green, but personally I hope you try and build a generator with a jet engine and see where you get. Engineers tend to be smart and solve the problems with appropriate resources. You are clearly not an engineer. While we’re at it let’s build that Mexico wall out of Gold! That’ll keep ‘em out
@@altimmons My point is that so many green and eco people have an irrational hatred toward fossil fuels, as in all use of it has to be eliminated. Oil sitting in the ground isn't doing anyone any good and can sure do a lot of good when burned. Ask Californians as they can't use AC, recharge their electrical vehicles and shamelessly buy energy from neighboring states....who probably use more fossil fuel powered generators.
Evidently at Beale AFB in California these runs had a huge audience ear protection was mandatory . I doubt whether there is a working engine today . This was a formidable engine pushing a formidable aircraft the SR-71. Evidently they threw some TEB in when they turned on the afterburner. Going to hook up my subwoofer to listen to this.
The afterburner won't ignite without a TEB shot. You can dump raw JP7 into the exhaust all day long and won't get a pound of additional thrust, cause it won't burn. Gotta light it with TEB.
@@stinkyfungusActually the flameholders had catalytic ignitors in them but I would not want to depend on them after a flameout or compressor stall. As I recall the TEB tank was only good for about sixteen shots.
@@williamshort5410 That is correct. There was a mechanical counter on each throttle, set to 16 before the flight, that counted back 1 unit every time the throttle was advanced from CUTOFF to IDLE (engine start/relight) and from MAX DRY into AFTERBURNER. Each of those transitions took one TEB injection into the combustion chamber OR the afterburner. When the counter reached zero, you had no possibility to relight the engine or kick the A/B.
Lockheed manufactured one heck of an aircraft, but Pratt and Whitney outdone themselves when they developed and manufactured this engine. It gets better fuel economy the faster it flies is something I don't think I will ever fully understand. Put the two together and you have the BLACKBIRD the most amazing aircraft ever to exist. It's performance over shadows it's avionics and it's radar jamming system and don't forget the Phoenix missile and it's fire control system was initially designed for the SR71. It's going to take something quite impressive to out shine the Blackbird.
This was at Beale AFB. The mural on the right side of the block house, pilot riding the SR-71 like a bucking bronco, I painted it. I was worked at test cell 1985 - 1989. This was one of the night runs we did as show and tell.
They had it. But they didn’t want us to see the aliens standing around the test stand that night pointing at different things and giving advice to the technicians.
@@thethirdman225 wrong the CIA gave the project to skunkworks, even through the engine was supposed to be made by lockheed martin ,but sure the so called engine manufacture components were outsourced to pratt and whitney, but as a secret cia programme ,theres no way on this earth that any of the SR71 information would be made public till the planes official information is released by the US government and DOD and the pentagon ,think of the U2 plane, that was in development just after ww2 and started flying officially in the mid 1950's and also the planning for the SR71 started in the early 1960's?
I like how ppl think we are so much further today then back in the 50's. Railways are using circuit and switch design perfected in the 1950's. The big change today is we use cheaper parts and that is supposed to mean more advanced. Respect goes to who has eqmnt that lasts the longest. Stuff designed today will be out of service in 10 years. Maybe 15...
Most hardcore piece of pornography ever produced by the folks at Pratt & Whitney. Used to love watching them do their thing at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa Japan.
Holy crap......looks like a max dry run for a few minutes then going full reheat. Full power engine test........awesome. And I thought twin RB199's were loud!!!! Had my one and only experience of a full power run on 199's, it was fething awesome
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I used to work at P&W Florida where this engine was tested. My desk was about a hundred yard away from the test cell. When this engine ran during my shift, I went home feeling like I was beaten with a stick from the low frequency vibrations. This video doesn’t begin to show the beautiful shock rings when the engine ran at full AB. I will always be proud that I was a part of the instrumentation team.
I’d have had a constant boner at my desk as that thing was spooling up
You absolutely should be very proud. God bless you sir!
Glad you could see it!! Got to see it fly in Mildenhall as a kid in ‘83. I’ve also seen the U-2 takeoff from NAS Jax twice in the late 90’s. First time under thick overcast, and it was LOUD! As a born lover of all things that create noise from JP, thanks for the sounds & smells!!
I was Field Maintenence at Beale. I feel your pride!
I was at vmat 203 and I will never forget my first trip down to high power lol. Anchoring the aircraft down with a huge chain then running it at 100% or more. Absolute sensory overload!!
The rotation of the earth sped up during this test!
Merlin 480 I think it was actually responsible for the 23.5 degree tilt of our axis
no, I think that was Superman, not the J58
Superman might've came close, but i doubt he kept up for long
F1 engine would have done that
LMAO
I was a jet engine mechanic on the SR-71. We built that test cell in 1965 before we got the first bird in January 1966. It was in the middle of nowhere.
I actually was able to calibrate that test cell 30 years ago before they retired the SR. Still stands today on Grumman Ave...
Did you get the sense that you were working on something groundbreaking like that?
Obviously before hush houses / baffles which looks cool in the open air. Can only imaging the SPL.
@@jackwertz8301 Read elsewhere you posted you cal'd test cell at Beale AFB. I calibrated 5 different test cells twice annually at 3 different bases in CA as Active Duty USAF 30 plus years ago. We used the standard big green heavy test cell calibration trailer full of test equipment. Anything special needed for the J58? I cal'd multiple types from an old T6A to T20As & T21As including both size hush houses (had to assist the acceptance of the large one with a golden engine from Tinker AFB when it was new). Even had to cal one between runways which was wild. Almost always a blast including testing then new system called ETTAS. Visited Edwards AFB for work on then new T20B & T21B digital test cells after telling the man better to do there than between 2 runways on another base. Thought the J79 looked cool with lights out in a hush house on AB, but this blows that away between the TEB start and diamonds out the back. Man must use a lot of fuel for that test! Enjoyed as brought back old memories. Thanks!
Will add got to watch a J58 engine run day before our air show while installed in a SR-71 that actually flew at our air show as my former base provided worldwide logistics for the SR-71. It made like 3 passes before going over the mountains back to Palmdale or Edwards AFB (don't remember which). Not sure what the issue with the engine was for the run. Just remember the huge start cart and then got an up close look at the SR-71 once they put it back in the hanger including with all the drip pans and a B stand to go up and look at the top of the fuselage and see the astro-inertial guidance sensor on top. Very cool!
If only we had 4K back then.
look up the story about the cameras that the aircraft carries
We actualy had.... but inside those stealth jets...
projectdelta50 yeah they could take pictures as wide as 72mi
@@rigel8755 Nah, standard film is comparable to 4k in resolution, the problem here is that it is filmed on tape.
@@thomson765 yep
And this is just the Alpha Stage of the overall propulsion system. Once it gets above Mach 1.5, the cycle shifts from Alpha to Beta, the ramjet cycle, where the inlet and ejector is now creating over 75-85% of the overall thrust. Imagine how big and long that cone of flame would be at that point. This was the Saturn V of jet aircraft.
Pretty sure they begin to function as ramjets at Mach 2.2 and above
@@Cynsham They become more efficient as they go faster, with only engineering being the limiter.
@@Nighthawke70 and melting points
@@douglasprobst5677 or simply material properties
It's funny how all of you talk about this like you have any experience whatsoever. This was a thing before y'all were in your daddy's sack. Just shut up lol
This is by far the most wicked engine test I've ever seen , the raw power of that j-58 is truly remarkable in full afterburner .
its not in full after burner, due to how dense the air is, only when the aircraft or the engines front cones would advance rearwards would the mach 1 to mach 2.5 would be achieved its impossible to get it to run at full throttle simple because of this fact?
What a historic event captured on video!
That green flash at 0:54 is the chemical ignition using TED triethylborane.
I witnessed the last J58 overhaul tested at P&W Florida. There was a handful (out of 3000 people at that facility) that made a point of driving down to the test area to see Zone 5 afterbune since that was the loudest test of all current engines. I didn't get to see the back end get transparent, but you can look through it. I got as close as I could bear it and got an mild acoustic concussion from the SPL (!) At such close distance, one step could be +5 to +10db.
I think they use that stuff to start some rocket engines.
Nofer Trunions I remember trying to stand close too. I felt the reverberation against my chest. It also cleared my sinuses. At this test, the MX, Ops and some of the pilot and RSOs were there. They couldn’t believe the show. My dad (John Wiltison) was in the booth running the test. In AB you could see the bugs fall to the ground as they couldn’t fly due to the shock waves. Great place to grow up.
@@jdmiller70 i could use a manly sinus clearing like that.
Nofer Trunions Wildfire
.... 9 months since my 1st reply. Man, those were the Good Ole Days. I should have transferred to the test area from engineering when I worked at Pratt & Whitney in FL....
If you look real close, you can see the face of Kelly Johnson in the exhaust.
I'm a huge Lockheed fan, especially the OG Skunk Works guys with their slide rules, pocket protectors and THICC glasses....but I don't think KJ had much or anything to do with the J58 other than telling P&W what was required out of them and ordering a stack of em. If anyone's face would be in the exhaust it would be the R&D engineers from Pratt & Whitney, whatever their names may be....maybe a Bill, a Frank or a John perhaps? Lol
Kelly didnt made the engine. It was by pratt and whitney
@@rickfeith6372 The base Pratt & Whitney J-58 engine in the Blackbird family existed before Project Oxcart, but it had nowhere near the required performance levels for the Blackbirds until Skunkworks got their hands on it. Skunkworks designed the conical inlet (designed by Skunkwork's Ben Rich), much of the bypass features, auxiliary intakes/vents, and exhaust ejector. At cruising speed and altitude, these systems accounted for over 80% of the plane's thrust. So yes, the engine core (compressor, combustor, and turbine), which is what largely matters for this ground test, was manufactured and mostly designed by PW, but during normal operation, overall powerplant performance was over 80% Skunkworks.
Eric I believe it!😊
Just realize, while watching this, that the SR-71 had TWO of those...
😦
🤯
R C it did
Keep in mind that these engined develop vastly more thrust at high speed due to their hybrid design that is partialy turbojet and partialy ramjet...
@@diesistkeinname795 engineering at its finest in my opinion
I witnessed a fly over at the Toronto Air show around 1996 by the SR 71- a few fly by passes for the crowd, then they pitched the nose up and cracked those 2 SOB's full AB- I have never heard anything like that and likely won't again! The entire ground shook for about 45 seconds as they disappeared vertically out of sight-back home. Got goosebumps again watching this video. Cheers to engineers and crews who worked on this project!
Wow...so lucky!
Had the privilege to work in Dept 960 overhaul and repair on the J-58 engines till the day the ending the program. We had 25 spare J- 58 engines!
Very cool!
I don't know where this took place, but it reminded me immediately of my Dad walking with me up the mountain that overlooked the Santa Susanna facility when I was a kid. I never did find out how he always knew when there was going to be an engine test, but we saw a lot of them, nighttime and daytime. He took me to a lot of cool places. I miss him.
awww that sucks, i didnt really have anyone like that
@@red_d849 forget about what you didn't have and take your kids to places that you've never been. You'll learn a lot. They'll miss you when you're gone. Good luck to you on your journey sir!
Palm Springs, FL
Proud to be a P&W veteran, these engines were on the assembly floor in West Palm when I worked there temporarily in the late 1960's, a marvel of engineering at the time and still today!
might be the pre-cursor design to an actual warp drive. the SR 71 is the platform that built Nasa.
@@andrewtoombs3867 I disagree. The X-15 program was already underway before the Blackbird was even on the drawing board, and they achieved the record for fastest human flight by going Mach 6.7 just a year after the SR came out. Shepard and Glenn made it to space several years before the Blackbird came out with Project Mercury, and Project Gemini was doing EVAs when the SR was just getting introduced.
Probably the greatest achievement of NASA with the Apollo program had very very little to do with the SR which was still very very very secret at the time. They also used actual computers while the SR did not, used rockets while the SR did not, and used very different principles of flight since they were doing two very different things.
Before SR came out, NASA already conceived of Skylab. It wasn't the Blackbird that achieved all this, it was Congress' willingness to throw insane amounts of money at NASA to compare sizes with the Soviets.
NASA didn't have their hands on a Blackbird until 1991.
Calibrated that very Test Cell when I was stationed at Beale 30 years ago. J-58 is a beast!
9 AMS/PMEL
I was at beale afb 87-89 9th oms 9th amb
@@emperorpawpateen.9992 Me too! 9th Fms. J-58 jet shop.
@@jpjp3873 oddly I liked the smell of JP 7 lol
@@emperorpawpateen.9992 I liked the smell of TEB.
@@jpjp3873 thats right. Lol I forgot thats probably what I smelled. Forgive me, its been 30+ yrs
The J58 was designed in a time by men with a pencil in one hand, a slide rule in the other while puffing on cigarette, whilst wearing a crisp white shirt and black tie. Different world back then but what a time to be in aviation where america ruled the world. I'm saying this as an Englishman.
Carry on.
American fighters are still the best in the world
Don't forget the "flat top" haircut!
@@jackforsythe6480 And the buck teeth. Lol
I remember hearing those tests from P&W Palm Beach County at night while I lived 30 NM away in Port St. Lucie. Thank you, Great Memories!
I always wondered why the earth spins
Good one. Yes quite a sight to behold.
Actually, it's coffee being poured in cups in the morning, time zone after time zone, that makes the earth rotate. The decaf explains why the rate is slowing! LoL
😂 good one
Yes. What an amazing piece of machinery.
In thrust we trust, power to spare
“In thrust we trust”
Thats a dope phrase!
You play Kerbal Space Programm i see
During this test, the test fecility moved 3 miles closer to town.
and time traveled 4 minutes forward.
Flip the shed around for the next one boys, headin back to base lol
Those shock diamonds are bloody exotics.
Cheers from Indonesia
That's an astonishing display of power. I'm surprised that guy was able to even go inside the test cell to switch off the lights!
Yes what was that all about! Couldn't a light switch be installed next to the controls? Lol
Nobody should be anywhere near that much thrust when it’s running.
Double hearing protection my ass lol that man has super tinnitus!
Yea that was nuts, I was like shouldn’t it still be like 1000 degrees right there
🤣👍
Gotta love that TEB start flame.
green flash
Wasn’t there enough TEB on board for like 16 starts or restarts?
@@glitch1182 A shot of TEB was used to A) start the engine and B) to engage the afterburner. So for a standard mission, you start the engine(t TEB shot) and taxi to the runway Begin our roll go to Military power, then engage afterburner( another TEB shot), gear up by 300 knots, climb to 25,000 feet, pull back the throttles and take fuel. At about the 17 minute mark you are almost full and you cant keep up to the tanker anymore with both engines at Military, so you sneak one engine into min a/b (another TEB hit-for one engine) After about 20 minutes you're full and you back away possibly pulling both engines from Military power. After you're clear of the tank you go to ful a/b on the engines(another TEB hit) and you cruise climb to your operational altitude. After about 1-1-1/2 hours you begin your slowing/descent to find your next tanker at 25-35,000 feet and rinse and repeat. On that one engine you've used 4 TEB hits leaving you with 12 left. A TEB shot is used whenever you start the engine AND whenever you engage the afterburners. Another mission limiter aside from TEB was teh amount of liquid nitrogen the jet carried. As the J58's burned JP-7 that fuel volume was replaced with teh inert gas, nitrogen. Eventually with muliple refuelings/burndowns you'd run out of nitrogen to keep youir fuel tanks safe.
Gotta love those shock diamonds
Awesome, thank you! I used to have a very similar video on VHS that has disappeared, i thought I'd never get to see this again. I've told my wife about it, but words can't describe it. This video says it all. Pure JP7 guzzling power!
Cokonut Tree My Dad (MSgt Wiltison) wants to know if you worked the test cell too?
@@jdmiller70 isn't JP-7 fuel an exotic blend since it's different from JP-8 which is normal jet fuel?
@@derekwall200 Normal jet fuel used to be JP-4. JP-7 was designed to have a higher flashpoint, hence the need for the TEB (tri-ethyl borane), which it the green flash you see early in the video, which gets the engine running.
@@derekwall200 For awhile they added Cesium to the fuel. Another additive was PW538(?) and it was a PFOS/PFAS... Carcinogen AND mutagen.
I renember towing the Sr to the trim pad and falling asleep to these massive engines while Jet shop worked on them.
Mind-boggling that this was designed as-is in the 1950s
Back in the day when institutes of higher learning actually taught you the trade now they just spew leftest idalology pinko commie swill !
@@tammybrinegar2098 Yeah! Modern Engineering grads can only do stuff like finite element analysis of an entire aircraft before design close.
@@tammybrinegar2098 It's called studying Engineering and not gender studies...
@@tammybrinegar2098 Can't tell if sarcasm or actually that stupid.
With Slide Rules, Protractors & Pencils!!
I came across this while watching Ferrari videos. It's stunning how this 1960's amazing piece of amazing engineering that can push another vehicle to more than three times the speed of sound can make the most modern Ferraris look and feel like fucking garbage. The mere fact that this engine's materials can glow like that from heat without melting is mind blowing. Truly amazing!
i think modern ferraris make modern ferraris look and feel like garbage
That is some serious hardware to hold that J-58 to the ground. Those afterburners are gorgeous.
And this is an example of what those "nerdy calculations" amount to.
Was lucky to see a SR 71on the trim pad at night in AB while driving by 2 different times at Kadena AFB in 72
We had a test cell at Palmdale , had a mobile buisness office on the flightline, when these fired off the whole trailer shook and you could not hear the guy next to you, nice light show out the back , pencil points and doughnut rings, whole valley was shaking. The SR's are now gone but Phase maintenance on the U2's and flight test continue
Yep, we heard them In Rosamond, they would shake my wharehouse..
This was a hybrid, part turbojet, part ramjet...and it was marvelous. I wonder how cool would be an engine designed from scratch today, with the technology and materials we have today...but incorporating a similar concept to this.
Well, in fairness titanium is still the dogs bollocks. Not sure they can get faster fan blades, composites would just burn up but the ram jet part probably has improved. To be fair, nowadays what strategic use is there in a mach 4+ plane. not sure what it's real top speed is, its speed is probably limited by fuel capacity for all we know. Made to outrun missiles. But the sky is littered with satellites so they are kind of a redundant method of reconnaissance. An unmanned craft would do way crazier stuff at a smaller size and cost using the same technology, I saw a single engine unmanned version. I think if anything, the next step would be to mess with the physics by emitting all kinds of high energy fields. Extending leading and trailing edges with energy to cut the air better. Something like that.
@@georgekurgansky5986 With satellites nowadays covering the sky, indeed not so much strategic value. But if these high energy fields made to cut the air better, coupled with advances in aerodynamic design, could also reduce sonic boom...then perhaps there could be market for an airliner capable of reaching such speeds.
Also, considering how technology advances, maybe even adding a cleaner fuel to reduce emissions...and if such airliner could carry a good number of people, if it could end up cheaper or just a little more expensive than the intercontinental tickets today...but arriving in your destiny in 1/5 of the time or so...I'd say it's game.
But...these are all what-if's now, and probably will be for a long time yet.
@@Roddy_Zeh they are in fact dusting these engines off to produce a modern variant as we speak. Likely for a recon drone.
we probably have something alot better ... like Zero Point Gravity, which has been know in very high prestige colleges, and usually the physics teachers who talked about it, had mysterious disappearences. I think the nazi's were working on it
@@EnglertRacing96 Do you have a reference for this?
Roughly 250 miles worth of thrust. Thats nuts to think about. Almost across the state of PA in less than 8 minutes.
What really amazes me is the fact that the stand the engine is bolted to withstands that testing. Incredible power
One of the most incredible machines created by the mind of man.
"We marvel after those who sought
New wonders in the world they wrought."
It truly is amazing what this engine is capable of… and build in the 1960s. I cannot imagine what these companies or govt have in black projects now. This engine was built before the aid of computers. From what I understand, they had to invent tools to work the body portion of the aircraft as they had nothing to work the titanium required to withstand the heat generated when this baby went Mach 3
@@Mark-uh4zd They even had to create the drill bits! I have a few floppy disks with some interesting stories that came out many years ago, on the BBS before the Internet...
Anthem....RUSH!
The absolute pinnacle of engineering ...
Imagine the technology they have now that is still classified.
Justin Ruiz engine design (turbofan/turbojet) hasen’t changed a whole lot regarding power output, but performance wise (fuel burn, reliability, etc) has certainly improved. Better research in ramjet style engines has been conducted, but still hasn’t been used this broadly since the J58.
In the 1950's turbojets needed overhaul after a few hundred hours. The J79 ran for about 300 hours as I recall. I read that recent commercial high-bypass turbofans (where all the money goes) have remained under the wing for 30,000 hours. Of course that would be millions of hours if they were still using tally stcks and drawing in the sand. People got so lazy after Napier. Yes F-35 costs more than a 787 but how many 787s and A350's will be delivered. The commercial jets weren't project management disasters because they weren't designed by Congress.
Indeed, .. gravity defying.
@@joesmith389 there are better propulsion systems developed that surpass the jet engine, but they are all locked away in SAP's. And more then likely not to be implemented In to the public sector
@@scottiebones My personal opinion is that regardless of how classified things are, there are some fundamental physical barriers that we have not crossed yet that are limiting some of the crazier engine concepts, but I would assume that they have something like a scramjet engine. The issue is that such engines produce a lot of noise and make it somewhat easy to detect. Though they probably have someway of circumventing that sort of like the blackbird did.
On Okinawa we called the SR-71,
"Habu" after a quick deadly native snake to Okinawa. I was in the USMC stationed at Camp Foster (Aug74-Sep75) just south of Kadena AFB. Semper Fi
I live in Okinawa too, and I had lived in Virginia, close to D.C. before moving here. I remember seeing an SR-71 at the Udvar Hazy air and space museum and being in awe of its sleekness. When I got here I heard about how they used to fly out of Kadena here and "boom" over communist diplomatic meetings in Korea and Vietnam. Thing could fly the length of the whole island in 90-120 seconds. Incredible!
@@robertw6894 what a jet and great memories. I'd love to go back to Okinawa. Did you say you LIVED on Okinawa now or back in the day?
I think you lived on Okinawa, what years? Were you in the military if so,what branch of the service and where were you stationed?
@@usmc-veteran73-77 I'm currently stationed in Okinawa, and I'm not in the military. I'm 15 and military dependent, but I want to be a pilot in the Airforce when I become of age.
@@robertw6894you will make a fine Air man someday. Study hard and get ready for college. I was stationed at Camp Foster (Aug74-Sep75) Im sure you know where that is. I finished high school at Kubasaki High by taking night classes. So Im technically a 1975 Graduate and an alumni of Kubasaki High School Dragons.
@@usmc-veteran73-77 Wow, I'm going to Kubasaki as well! I'm the class of 2023.
Back then ,when engines were engines,when men were men,Big salute to everyone involved with the building maintenance and flying those wonderfull flying marvels💪💪👏👏👏
34 thousand pounds of thrust in full burner in the test cell. (Less installed, due to parasitic loss to accessories and airflow restrictions/and bypass.) What a beast! And from technology older than most people viewing the video.
And a GE-90 on a 777 has three times the thrust of that thing on full AB.
@@toomanybears_ Get that GE-90 to operate at 90,000 feet or 3.43 and get back to me.
No doubt that the GE-90 is impressive for the aggregate technology and current engineering, but in context of time and scope of 60 years and the time of inception to operation production of each engine cannot be compared.
The J58 design with known technology, materials (and computer vs analog modeling and testing) and time to "operation use" vs the same known technology, materials etc. of the GE-90 cannot be equated.
One can simply marvel at the history, and not need to "one up" the former for the mere pleasure of thinking it has been equaled with a comparison that is no where near true equal.
@@toomanybears_
The Ge-90 is a very good engine but it IS a much Larger engine when measured by mass flow rate. If the J-58 was sized to match the mass flow rate of the Ge-90 the the J-58 would produce 327857 pounds of thrust. 😯
Also note the Ge engine is roughly ten times bigger.
Fantastic clip of an engineering marvel. I get a rush every time I watch it.
How does this not have millions of views
what an insane engine. Im envious of the people that get to see such incredible technology so close!
I spent some time in the early 80's working at Lockheed-Martin's (think they were still just Lockheed then) Air Force Plant 42 on the U-2 program. Both the U-2 and SR-71 flew out of our site. Several miles down the road was an outdoor SR-71 engine test stand. One day I was sitting in our trailer with our site lead when there was a tremendous roar and the entire trailer and ground started to shake. I was terrified it was an earthquake. Panicked, I asked our test lead what was happening. He had his feet up on his desk reading the newspaper. He never flinched and calmly told me it was the SR-71 engine test stand up the road. I asked how far away it was cuz it sounded like it was right outside which I knew it wasn't. Without putting his paper down he said "Oh, about 5 miles."
We could hear it from base housing, several miles as well.
I believe it...
I was part of Dick Tracys crew (data link) at 42 in 1983, U2 flight test and cal.
I imagine 80% of the total planning for this test was on how to hold the engine, or its surroundings in place; and only the other 20% was on how exactly to run the engine during the test.
Shock diamonds. A thing of beauty ❤
My question is what do they have now if this was designed in the 50s and 60s.
F-35 raptors
P&W F-135
Better engines with more thrust. There was nothing special about the normal jet parts of this engine. The only thing that made it different was at high Mach numbers it pretty much turned into a ramjet by bypassing most of the intake air right into he burner.
The engines we have now weigh half as much and produce more thrust while burning less fuel but they aren’t required to fly at Mach 3 so they don’t have that bypass system.
Nothing half as good, modern generations are thick!
EM drives....
Very interesting. I know just how difficult it is to get video from where the camera was, so no complaints at all about the sound or image quality. Thanks!
Thank you. I was using one of those big VHS cameras on my shoulder. I wish I had my IPhone in 4K back then.
Loveeee that green flash of TEB on engine start! Awesome video!
I'll always remember that smell!
The engines looks, to me, that it is properly functioning!
What a treasure to have on TH-cam, thank you for posting
thank you MSgt John Wiltison
I was a Maintainer with the 9th for a number of years. Got to see J58 engines on the test strand, launches and in flight refueling. Took her TDY more days than I spent in the states. Was my second favorite PCS while in the USAF.
3:25 is when the power goes from 0 to shit & get in seconds flat! The J58 is a MONSTER
It wasn’t that responsive. Even a modern engine like a GE F404 takes about four seconds to go from idle to max afterburner. This would have been a lot slower than that and the pilot would need to be more judicious with throttle movements.
A stationary j58 at ground was just like any other turbojet engine... The real magic used to start at mach 2.0
Great name Shiekh🥳
the engine roaring is so relaxing to listen to
Calms my soul.
Props to the camera man for getting the guts to stand behind that rocket engine
The engine of FREEDOM!
Wow!😲 Seriously, the flames that are flung from the business end of this beast are phenomenal!🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Back then when PW made some great engines that were powerful and reliable
You can't see it here but there are 17 shockwave rings in the afterburner. I got to count them up close and personal.
To give that some reference, the F-14 Tomcat engines (massive) had 5.
4:28 a little bit
the P&W version you're talking about....
I can't imagine how they were able to secure that engine during the test. Freaking amazing!!!
If you zoom in real close.......closer........RIGHT THERE! You can see the chain they tied around an old stump 😆
@@flipfloptanlines926 the man himself must have planted that seed.
Only 25,500 lb force at full thrust (while afterburning). From an engineering perspective, it's nothing too stressfull for a properly designed frame. Having said that, it would definitely take off in a hurry if the restraints somehow all failed at the same time. 😂
Probably the same way that they attached the bloody things to the airframe of the SR...!!
My hand legit has a tingling sensation from watching this on my phone!! P&W you guys are insane!!!
now that is the bravest man i have ever seen, mate turn of the lights so we can see just how good these engines are, thats what the engine management team member said to the fire fighting team member at the 2:06 mark, lol :)
This reminds me of the time I visited an Air Force Base where they were fixing an SR-71. Just to see how it felt, I stuck my head directly into the back of the engine when it was at full after burn. Man that was hot and loud, I was not able to keep my head in there for more than a minute or two.
You stuck your head in the back of the jet engine just after afterburner took place? How! That engine is at least 1000 degrees. Doesn’t matter what version of temperature you put that number next to. You would incinerate immediately.
@@1014p Heat, like anything else, is something that you can build up a tolerance to. You have to do it slowly over a period of time. I'm not saying it was easy, like I said I wasn't able to keep my head in there longer than 1 or 2 minutes. And it mussed up my hair pretty badly.
@@georgewright1093 so it wasn’t 1000 degrees then. Tops 400 maybe if you really did sit there that long. Tolerance only goes so far. Severe skin burns quickly starting at 400 degrees and anything higher id be surprised any hair was left.
It couldn’t have been immediately after engine went full bore but some time passed. That or this engine has incredible heat cooling capacity that is officially reported. Even if you factor in fuel used as a coolant thats not at the back end of the engine. Either way a very dangerous thing to do. I wouldn’t be surprised if your hair doesn’t grow back well.
What’s mind boggling is that is nominal power +or- 10%. Jet engines large and small are designed to run at 100% constantly. The afterburner section is actually not a part of the internal combustion and compression system. From what I have been told is as long as you can keep the tailpipe from melting and you have fuel it can run like that it’s entire life. I may be wrong but that’s what they told me at Los Alamos National Lab.
Those shock diamonds always get me going
Is that MSG Wiltison turning off the lights at 2:07. Brave man, probably says 'huh, what?" a lot in conversations.
My dad (John Wiltison) was in the booth. That must have been another jet mechanic turning out the lights. But my dad does say “huh, what?” a lot:-)
I understand, lol.
Wow I was only in 4th and 5th grade in South Dade County Miami Florida! Right next to the dirigible base, just north of Homestead Air Force Base! Now I feel Vindicated I knew I saw an SR-71 do a full burn at altitude and then went into full afterburners! It was the most incredible thing I ever saw at that age my father told me I saw something else he was an ex Navy Chief aviation mechanic during the Korean conflict if you will! So I grew up around old warbirds and was fascinated with a new stuff that was publicized! I have never forgotten it and when you showed the close-up of the pulse playing in the first 20 ft behind the nozzle I knew I saw what I saw! And that thing had to be at 30,000 ft minimum and those pulse nozzle shapes in the exhaust we're probably close to a hundred but long at that altitude it was amazing thing to watch thank you for the video
Kelly stated the engine produce only 20% of the actual thrust at Mach 3.2...80% came from compressor bleed (essentially ramjet thrust). Each engine was rated at 25,500 lbs thrust sea level. Meaning the effective thrust was approximately 127,500 lbs per engine at cruise. This is insane for 1950’s technology. Kelly was a genius!!!
........... only Kelly didn't design the engines.
@@gregtaylor6146 Exactly…and most of the info on the engine was classified for decades.
@@gregtaylor6146 Kelly and Ben Rich didn’t design the engines but they _did_ design the inlets. Without that input, the engines would not have been able to function at all. Did you know, for example, that a jet engine cannot process supersonic airflow? That is why inlet design is so important. The inlets have to slow down the flow of air to a speed of about M0.8 at the compressor face and they do this through a series of bleed ducts and shockwave generators. What the SR-71 inlet did was to divert a lot of bleed air directly to the afterburner.
@@thethirdman225 - Question: Why exactly are you telling me stuff I already know?
For the benefit of others.
Old retired A&P mech here. many hours with hands on P&W powerplants like the old jt3d3b dc8 707 etc works good last a long time . had the prbc r&r down to about 90 min good times hats off P&W !
0:55. . . The "Green Flash" each time the engine fires up. . .
It's Triethylborane (TEB), a chemical method for igniting the fuel. TEB was developed to match the low volatility of the fuel that was fed to the Pratt & Whitney J58 engines.
TEB spontaneously ignites in contact with air above −5 °C and produces a characteristic "Green Flash" as it ignites.
And it has a distinct smell.
My favorite part about these videos is the comment section filled with all the older people (no offense) who actually got to work on this thing during its inception and I love reading them all.
Amazing footage. Bravo for posting.
A thing of beauty!
Can't do that with "green" energy.
No it’s a simple energy density matter. The same reason you can’t take a pill for a meal like in the Jetsons- you can’t pack that many calories in a few cubic cm.
However we’re not using solar panels or wind energy for rocket ships or spy planes so wtf is your point.
Say we go to Texas , because it’s Texas and we hate green- and we buy one of these second hand and we’re gonna generate power and sell it. You’d go bankrupt in seconds - sorry bud. These high power engines with high powered fuel are super expensive. What was is $1,000,000 an hr to operate the SR 71.
We’ll we can say screw green, but personally I hope you try and build a generator with a jet engine and see where you get. Engineers tend to be smart and solve the problems with appropriate resources. You are clearly not an engineer.
While we’re at it let’s build that Mexico wall out of Gold! That’ll keep ‘em out
@@altimmons My point is that so many green and eco people have an irrational hatred toward fossil fuels, as in all use of it has to be eliminated. Oil sitting in the ground isn't doing anyone any good and can sure do a lot of good when burned. Ask Californians as they can't use AC, recharge their electrical vehicles and shamelessly buy energy from neighboring states....who probably use more fossil fuel powered generators.
I’d love to see this from a high-speed film camera...
Fantastic. Kudos to everyone in whatever capacity that had a hand in the SR 71.
Everyone's gangsta until the j58 begins to roar.
Lmao
Evidently at Beale AFB in California these runs had a huge audience ear protection was mandatory . I doubt whether there is a working engine today . This was a formidable engine pushing a formidable aircraft the SR-71. Evidently they threw some TEB in when they turned on the afterburner. Going to hook up my subwoofer to listen to this.
The afterburner won't ignite without a TEB shot. You can dump raw JP7 into the exhaust all day long and won't get a pound of additional thrust, cause it won't burn.
Gotta light it with TEB.
@@stinkyfungusActually the flameholders had catalytic ignitors in them but I would not want to depend on them after a flameout or compressor stall. As I recall the TEB tank was only good for about sixteen shots.
@@williamshort5410 That is correct. There was a mechanical counter on each throttle, set to 16 before the flight, that counted back 1 unit every time the throttle was advanced from CUTOFF to IDLE (engine start/relight) and from MAX DRY into AFTERBURNER. Each of those transitions took one TEB injection into the combustion chamber OR the afterburner. When the counter reached zero, you had no possibility to relight the engine or kick the A/B.
and this is just the turbojet, at altitude and speed the ramjet is driving the bus.
Not entirely. At max cruise, the core is still providing 18% of the thrust.
And it will stay at that power for a long LONG LONG LONG time!
Lockheed manufactured one heck of an aircraft, but Pratt and Whitney outdone themselves when they developed and manufactured this engine. It gets better fuel economy the faster it flies is something I don't think I will ever fully understand. Put the two together and you have the BLACKBIRD the most amazing aircraft ever to exist. It's performance over shadows it's avionics and it's radar jamming system and don't forget the Phoenix missile and it's fire control system was initially designed for the SR71. It's going to take something quite impressive to out shine the Blackbird.
Incredible design even by today's standards. Hard to believe this was build almost 60 years ago!
70*
Will it fit in my Honda
Nelson Bento it might fit on your Honda
are you in a hurry
Turbo yoda would not approve
EG or EK?
1000000000000 psi boost lol. Imagine how low the compression would have to be lmfo
This was at Beale AFB. The mural on the right side of the block house, pilot riding the SR-71 like a bucking bronco, I painted it. I was worked at test cell 1985 - 1989. This was one of the night runs we did as show and tell.
They had it. But they didn’t want us to see the aliens standing around the test stand that night pointing at different things and giving advice to the technicians.
Great clip, thanks for sharing!
You’re welcome…thanks for watching!
Used to hear them test j58s at beale afb back in the 80s. 9th oms 9th amb
i remember reading somewhere that at Beale they how they got rid of the last of the fuel for the SR burn it up in the test cell till it was all gone
Hey boss here's that new j58 you wanted,what do we do now ?
Stick 2 of them in a really slick airframe and hop in
I assume it’s the bleed air to the afterburner that is cooling the outside of the engine down when the afterburner is lit up? Spectacular!
Well done to all the team member's at skunkworks. :)
This was a Pratt & Whitney project, not Skunkworks.
@@thethirdman225 wrong the CIA gave the project to skunkworks, even through the engine was supposed to be made by lockheed martin ,but sure the so called engine manufacture components were outsourced to pratt and whitney, but as a secret cia programme ,theres no way on this earth that any of the SR71 information would be made public till the planes official information is released by the US government and DOD and the pentagon ,think of the U2 plane, that was in development just after ww2 and started flying officially in the mid 1950's and also the planning for the SR71 started in the early 1960's?
That Reheat Tail is just AWESOME . Wow . Around the same time the Russians were developing a Similar engine .
The Tumansky . Used for the Foxbat .
So sad that nobody will be able to run one again
Good lord I can't imagine being the person brave enough to be that right next to this to turn out the lights while it's going full bore like that.
I like how ppl think we are so much further today then back in the 50's. Railways are using circuit and switch design perfected in the 1950's. The big change today is we use cheaper parts and that is supposed to mean more advanced. Respect goes to who has eqmnt that lasts the longest. Stuff designed today will be out of service in 10 years. Maybe 15...
Exactly my thoughts.... it was a craft.
Most hardcore piece of pornography ever produced by the folks at Pratt & Whitney. Used to love watching them do their thing at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa Japan.
3:22 afterburner engaged!
duh.
Holy crap......looks like a max dry run for a few minutes then going full reheat. Full power engine test........awesome.
And I thought twin RB199's were loud!!!! Had my one and only experience of a full power run on 199's, it was fething awesome
Loud? Let me remind you (and other readers) that an Olympus 593 produced a lot more thrust.
You should hear a B1-B taking off.
Loving this!! Ear buds in @ High Volume!! MERICA!!🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
The people that built that called America America
That green flash of TEB shot looks downright alien