M-21 tail number 940 with D-21 drone mounted, at Boeing Field Air Museum. Image by Will Campbell. Click on the picture for hires image.
Good morning everyone.
Just about everyone has to work for a living, but I’d wager that there aren’t a lot of us that can say that they love their jobs. A great many people, perhaps most of them, do what they have to in order to get by or to get ahead, and tolerate (and sometimes loathe) the necessity of having to do the work that they do. The lucky ones work at jobs that they truly enjoy and look with pride at the fruits of their labours.
Such is the case with the vast majority of people that were associated with the A-12 and SR-71 programs. Rarely, if ever do you hear of someone that worked on the aircraft or programs that complained about how nasty, hard, boring or dangerous their jobs were. Almost universally the people from those programs speak with pride and pleasure about the work they did with the aircraft, and wish that they could do it again.
A case in point is the aircraft pictured above, the last remaining M-21 built by Lockheed and currently on display at the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field. At various times during its time on display, people who worked on or with the aircraft have left messages on the forward landing gear door. Some are just signatures with a brief message, others are remembrances of people no longer in this world that flew or worked on the aircraft. All show a large degree of affection for the birds that they knew and loved.
M-21 forward landing gear bay. Click on this and the following pictures for the hires images.
There is a lot more to the story of the M-21, and I’ll be doing an article on it and its program in the near future.
All photographs are by Will Campbell. Thanks for sharing with us!
Been there. I was at that place. I saw that. With eyes. The eyes in my head. I took terrible pictures with a camera I got in a Happy Meal, I ran out of film almost instantly. I sat in a… something, can't remember. I had it mentally classified as 'fighter jet', it was white with red, single engine. Delta wing? I thought it was sort of ugly. It was sitting where the USAir fuselage is now, I think?
The only things you can sit in now is the cockpit of SR-71 977 and the cockpit of an F-18 Hornet. There are no red and white delta winged fighters there. In fact, the only red and white air craft there is the Concord and that is across the street.
Brian Shul writes about several people who worked at Beale who were actually Lockheed employees who worked with the Senior Crown program. He writes about a man named Paul Mellinger who essentially states that he was saddened by the way the program was terminated, how little people would ever know or understand about what it took to keep the program running so successfully for so long. Brian goes on to say that Paul spoke of others that others who had worked in the program felt a lot of frustration having to keep silent for all those years, and were now feeling forgotten. Paul Mellinger happened to be the senior Lockheed field representative and was referred to as "Mr Lockheed" . Brian goes on to state that as he interviewed more and more people from the program there was an overwhelming sense of love for the airplane, and it wasn't just the pilots, it was the ground crews, even the Lockheed secretary Margaret Martin. She was there from the beginning to the literal bitter end. She started there in 1965 . She had this to say
" Looking back, I feel the plane served with the highest distinction. Just consider all the different political situations in the world from 1966 until 1990, and realize that during many of them this plane played a key part in gathering information for our leaders. That's why it was so hard at the end, seeing the program terminated when it was so vital and so healthy.
You know, maybe you should never ride a program right to the end, because you have to see the destruction of all that you created and watch a new regime take over that has little respect or remembrance of all that went before it. It was the saddest day of my life when they terminated the program. We had been like a family there. One by one, my friends and fellow workers left or retired. There was no ceremony for them, no big farewell speeches. One day Paul (Mellinger) and Lew simply weren't there anymore, and it was sad, and it was never as good. I stayed to the bitter end. I was the last SR-71 Lockheed employee there. I turned out the lights and closed the door and have never been back.
That period was the fastest and most satisfying twenty years of my life. Sometime later, I saw the plane, retired, on display. To me, it was all wrong seeing it like a stuffed animal, quiet and motionless, with no feeling. It wasn't the jet I had known…there was no flashing heardbeat…"
It doesn't get more personal than that. If we could all be so lucky to be involved with a program that meant that much to so many people.
Another civilian employee from DET 6 had this to say
"I've been around aviation for over thirty years and this was by far the most awesome and most beautiful airplane ever built. They buried it while it was still alive."
Those two quotes come from Brian Shul's book "The Untouchables"
The signatures found in the front wheel bay of 940 represent people who were part of one of the most amazing programs ever. Take the time to read some of the notes and signatures written in there. This is a very special tribute to a very amazing program. I hope some of those people might happen to see the posts here and comment. It was a very special bond between crew members and aircraft. Something that might not ever be repeated.
Those things are incredible.
I've read a little about them, and seen a few on display – maybe the first time I saw one up close was at Wright Patterson AFB quite a few years ago.
When I was in Seattle WA on business a couple years ago, I just happened to arrive a bit early one day for a business meeting the next day and when I saw some temporary signage indicating "Air Show today" I made a bit of a detour.
Air Show, indeed.
Maybe the best airplane museum in the world. And an amazing collection of static displays. Got to see Fat Albert with JATO.
Best of all, I met an SR-71 pilot named Brian Schul. Got to attend his speech.
Wright Patterson has several Birds, they have 976 and they have the last remaining YF12.
Brian Shul is a very interesting guy. I stopped by his gallery a couple months ago but he was gone. I have met him at the Reno Air Races (my guess is that he'll have a booth set up there this year.) This is his website http://www.galleryonepublishing.com/ One of these days I'm going to head back over to Marysville and see if he is in. I'd love to spend some time talking with him about the program.
The Boeing field Museum of Flight has one other important piece of the Blackbird program, the simulator. Its not on display, but they do have it.
He is a gifted communicator on many levels. If he is still visiting air shows – if you ever get the chance to hear him speak, it's really worth it.
I saw him in an airport a couple months ago – if you've ever met him you will recognize him.
I thought of going over to him and saying something but I didn't know what to say. Now there's a great American.
Thanks for sharing these up-close pix of one of the most advanced, fascinating airplanes ever made by man.
And if you ever see a sign that says Brian Schul is speaking today – go. You will thank me later. That is all.
I found another quote in "The Untouchables" It was from Sam Kelder, a structural design engineer on the Blackbirds
"For me, it was the highlight of my career to be part of something so special. In later years I was one of the chief engineers with the Stealth Fighter and to be honest, the program was a major step down from what we had seen with the SR-71. Military and budgetary red tape had finally caught up with us and it just wasn't the same type of job satisfaction
I'm glad I got to be part of the Blackbird program. It was something we we will not see the likes of again. Most unforgettable"
Mr Kelders name can be found in the signatures on 940.
940 is a tribute to all the people who made an unbelievable feat of engineering happen. The signatures that can be found on there are a who's who of quite possibly the most closely knit groups in aviation history. This group is so closely knit that every two years there is a Blackbird reunion in Reno that is only open to those people who were part of the program. Outsiders are not allowed (there might be one or two exceptions, but I couldn't say who they were.) Sooner or later there will be only the names on these landing gear doors to remember them by.
http://terencegallacher.wordpress.com/2010/10/12/…
Anybody have connections in Australia to locate this short film on the U-2 operating out of R.A.A.F. East Sale, Vicotria, Australia? It supposedly going to be located in Melbourne…
Terry Gallacher – Writer/Director/Cameraman
"One has to realise the situation at that time. The U2 was a secret surveillance aircraft only acknowledged with the downing of Gary Powers. A U2 aircraft was on display in the States and we, in Australia, had been given permission to shoot what we liked. There were no restrictions. It seems to me, therefore, that the aircraft, itself, was no longer a subject of secrecy. In England, my boss thought that the aircraft was highly secret and he was a news editor with access to incoming news over a wide area. Perhaps what secrecy there was, and remains to this day, concerns what they were doing up there."
The U2 program is still highly classified since its still going. In fact, the Tier 2+ and Tier 3- programs (Global hawk and Dark Star) have finally been canceled putting the TR1s and U2Rs back in the spotlight. They still can't overfly any hot spots because the will get shot down, but they are back to being the backbone of US airborne intelligence gathering. (Hey look we are back to having the same giant hole that the SR-71 was built to fill back in the '60s. Maybe we might want to fill that with say…, I don't know… a revived Senior Crown program? It would cost less than developing a new program by a long shot. Sure its been 13 years since 980 last flew, and all the spares were thrown out/shipped off to museums but that doesn't mean it would be impossible to restart it. Heck, I'd bet some of the people who are still alive who's signatures can be found on 940 would be thrilled to act as consultants.)
The U2 is still an incredible aircraft. This is proven by the fact that more than 50 years later its still in use.
I've got a picture of my son sitting in the F-18 cockpit at that museum. It's really a nice place.
As far as Blackbirds go, I've seen probably a half-dozen airframes around the country. Udvar-Hazy, Seattle, one in Florida, the one at the VA Aviation Museum outside RIC, and I think there's one or two more seen in passing that I can't place. In 7th grade, I even did a class presentation on the SR-71 with drawings and a scale model. I wonder if there ever was or ever will be another single aircraft type that captures people's imagination like the BB does.
The Apollo Command/Service Module and Apollo Lunar Module?