WICKED!

Observe a very similar one being constructed!

http://www.teamseacats.com/?s=blackbird

http://www.mmrca.org/lance/sledframe.html

This is most triumphant! That thing looks like it's about 10 feet long. It probably cost quite a bit and it's probably a homemade one-off.

Very nice! The guy flying this one is very good, however who dresses this guy, those pants. Must be German.

Jake, what does one of those -real- jet engines cost? I am always amazed at how good these guys are, flying from the ground with no airspeed indicator to watch while landing. You can see he does what we call a "double pump" in the flare, but he saved it, touching down just a little short of the pavement (and even real pilots do that once in a while, with airpseed indicators!)

That's a nice little runway/taxi way they have set up there too.

I like the bystander smoking next to the gal holding the fire extinguisher while fueling and starting. I'm sure that they are running a pretty high nitromethane blend for those engines.

Looks like a cool project but pretty boring to fly. Give me a CAP 21 or Extra 300s and let's make holes in the sky.

I haven't done much with the cost side of r/c planes in a while - but I know about 4 years ago those turbines would cost around $8,000 each. I think they've come down a lot with some smaller units available in the $4,000 range - not certain though. The technology has come a long way in the last 5 years though and they don't require external support for starting anymore.

The first ones had a three stage starting process. Stage 1 was to connect a scuba tank to inject compressed air on the fan blades to start the turbine spinning. The second stage was to open a valve to a manually connected propane cylinder. The third stage was to switch the turbine to the on board JP4 fuel and then you were ready to go.

Now the units come with an on board electronic control module that spins the electric starter gets the turbine spinning. It then switches to an on board propane cylinder (very small - like a CO2 cartridge for a pellet gun)...and then it finally automatically switches to the JP4 once the engine is at adequate RPM and temperature. All this is initiated with the flip of a switch on the transmitter - pretty cool. I even saw a turbine powered R/C helicopter last year.

They really are astonishing power plants. The amount of thrust is unbelievable (it's a great way to clear leaves from 40 yards of your driveway in one shot). Lately, they are coming out with smaller and smaller units.

At the Joe Nall event held here in S.C. this past year they had 3 or 4 turbine powered jet models auger into the dirt this year. This results in an impressive mushroom cloud that is also quite scale to what the real thing looks like.

Very Cool .. Reminded me of the real thing and that is not something many can say.
I use to watch the real Blackbird nicknamed “Habu” at Kadena, AB in Okinawa Japan during 1973. The first day there they took us outside to look for the Habu a poisonous pit viper, so everybody is looking down at the ground and one of these planes goes screaming off. Nice initiation ritual - of course the plane did not exist back in those days I don’t think they acknowledged it until 1975. Well you really didn’t watch it take off you felt it with your body and tasted it in the air- there would be a blur, then a double sonic boom. The only way to describe the sonic boom is if you are smoking a cigar and blowing smoke rings - think of blowing one smoke ring through the other and at that instant you would hear the loud sonic booms in relation to the size and speed of the smoke rings. It would knock an item off a bench from the shock and vibration. We always had to look out for falling wrenches if up under a truck working and learn not to jump so to bang our heads. I was in the Seabee’s and our SeaBee base was under the path of the runway and they use to take off and land right over our shop. The sound of these planes is something you will never forget. We also got a closer view we were making a perimeter road around the hanger that housed these magnificent birds.

We're you one of the Seabees that disassembled a SR71 hanger at Beale AFB and moved it to Okinawa? I worked with a guy who was a crew chief on them including development at Groom Lake. He said one day a group of Seabees showed up and took one of their hangers. They got deployed to Okinawa a few months later and there was the hanger, all set up and waiting for them.

He said the one part that was replaced quite a bit was the side **** glass. The plane always flew on the edge and occasionally one engine would stall. That resulted in the plane jerking sideways which smacked the pilot's helmeted head into the glass which cracked it.

Nope it was already there. We were cutting off the tops of the mountains and stuffing them in the valleys around the hanger to build a level protective perimeter road - it was a nice dirt oval we called it the race track.

Water version. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YIWRqWIc38&feature=related
If you look you'll find video of it on the water. Love that sound.

I heard if an engine fails, the plane will quickly spin out of control. My guess is that the side window damage might be from turbulence.

The same turbine RC boat showing some speed:

RC Miss Geico on the water

Interesting. A small group of us actually put a bid together to purchase a SR71.. but we were knocked back.. All went to museums in the states..

The original planes had a flame out problem when turning one of the pilots job was to feather the nozzles when turning. The other job was to take off get the skin warm then re-fuel. The planes leaked until the skin was warm and expanded. My dive partner for a short time was a pilot and I also worked at Pratt & Whitney for short time they still have the tooling for the engine. I use to have some access to the website for the SR-71 back in the day. The was plane designed in the 60’s built in the 60’s – 70’s makes you wonder what they have today.

http://www.tonyrogers.com/humor/new_fa_37_hoax.htm

A few days ago I got these photos, along with some others, purportedly to be an official Navy press release.

It must be the answer to Russia's MiG-31.

Was that the one that could read Clint Eastwood's thoughts, so long as he was thinking in Russian?

That would be it.