From Archangel to Senior Crown: Design and Development of the Blackbird (Library of Flight)

This book is an excellent reference on the design and development of the blackbirds. The included disk has a good amount of quality photos and pdfs of relevant documents. My disk reader had an issue reading some of the photos, but most of them worked. This is likely an issue with the disk reader, and i will update after trying another reader. The quality of the images is not super high res, but high enough to be suitable as desktop wall paper.The book itself it amazing, and the disk makes it all the sweeter. There is more detail than the average person would want, but it is still approachable. The information on the first 11 designs before the A-12 is something you do not typically see in blackbird books as it is usually glossed over. That said that section could have used more detail on how the designers choose the design parameters they did. i.e Why was a bi-delta used?, or why choose a particular propulsion setup. The book mentions some of the reasons at a vehicle trade off level, but less at a design feature level. As this is not the AIAA education series this is not really expected, but it would have been a useful aside to include.

This is a great little great book on the Blackbird - SR-71 or YF-12. This is not a pretty picture book on the Blackbird, like so many already out in print. Instead this book details the background on the aircraft's design, its development from a few drawings from Kelly Johnson, to the building and flying of the Blackbird. It even details the history of the D-21 Mach 3 drone, something unknown until it showed up in the bone yard in the desert. There are many line drawings detailing the design and technology in the Blackbird. But for me, an old aeronautical engineer, the most interesting section was the ten pages of discussion and drawings of the prolusion system. Here you can see some detail of how the J58 operated as a turbojet at takeoff all the way to transforming itself into a turbo-ramjet at mach 3+. But what was totally unexpected was the disk inserted into the back of the book. This CD had manuals, reports, images and several short videos of the SR-71. To go through the flight manuals of the SR-71, the YF-12and theA-12 was amazing. Granted it is more detail that most would want to know, but still extremely interesting. It is probably the most detailed technical collection of information on this unique aircraft that I have ever seen, at least all unclassified. The line drawings are interesting, with a wealth of detail, only an engineer could truly love. While this book reads like a detailed technical history, it will still interest every SR-71 enthusiast. But this book has the engineering detail for those interested in a deeper technical understanding. The manuals are just amazing with their wealth of technical details and mind-numbing at the same time, with numerous graphs, operational discussions and schematics. I would say that this is the last word on Blackbird details.

I bought this book to use as a reference for a paper I was writing, and it also sounded interesting.This book has a great overview of the whole program, from the initial ideas for a supersonic plane, through the competition, and finally through production and use. It had many great details. The information about the design process was interesting, seeing how the design progressed and the requirements changed. Coverage of the manufacturing and testing, and also the service and NASA test programs was also really interesting.The book also came with a DVD that has some really cool photos and videos, as well as bunch of the manuals and documents pertaining to the different programs.If you are really interested in the SR-71 and its family of designs, this is a great book. The coverage from beginning to end and the details in between are great. I would have liked more detail in some parts, and the end seemed a little rushed, but you can't include everything. It was a great book and you can spend more hours going through the DVD content, really cool stuff.

A very thorough description of the program that produced the SR-71, as well as of the plane itself. It got a bit too technical for me since it has many aeronautical terms I'm not familiar with, but it's clearly and well written, has lots of B&W photographs and schematics, statistics, and tid-bits. A must for any SR-71 enthusiast.

Suitably impressed and pleasantly surprised at the content and detail contained in this book of the blackbird. Its is easy to read and has information for all facets for those wishing to know more about blackbirds, for the novice to the really serious.It is one book I feel, anyone must have on the design and development, from a technical side, of these wonderful aircraft. The nuts and bolts of how this aircraft was developed and the specifications of how fast it climbed and flew are all held within the pages. Not a picture essay, a literary detailing of the how they did it with photos for clarity. And the DVD supporting materials - yahoooooooooooooooo - The flight and instruction manuals for all aircraft types in the Blackbird livery in PDF - Photographs, specifications, Movies - all on 3.7 gig of data on DVD. Highly recommended and a must for the library of all SR-71 fans.

Really informative book about history and development of one of the strangest and most remarkable airplanes in human history. The Blackbird spyplane was invented from scratch, not only in the sense that there had never been an airplane with those characteristics, but there were not even the materials to fabricate it and the systems to design it. Built mainly from Titanium alloys (some invented for the occasion) and exotic composites, the Blackbird was a jewel from the famous Skunk Works of Lockheed. Kept rigorously secret for years, now retired, it is a milestone in aerospace ingenuity.A book for the real advanced aviation enthusiast.

Well written with a wealth of detail, more detail on the J58 would be appreciated. I received the CD but it is, on the MAC blank and on the IBM box just fine - good images.Worthwhile addition to the story of those and and that machine

構造や写真以外に、SR71の非常に狭いフライトエンベロープが興味を強く引きました。英語ですが、結構面白い本です。

NASAのDFRCの方が書いた本のようです。A-1からの流れはよくまとめられており面白いのですが、写真が少ない感じが否めません。読み物として買う分にはお勧めですがモデラーが写真を見るには不十分といったところでしょうか。

Excellent e très récent livre, à la fois historique et technique, sur la famille du Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird surtout que l'ouvrage est accompagné d'un DVD, contenant aussi bien des photos que des vidéos sur cet aéronef remarquable mais aussi des documents techniques comme les manuels de vol..Il est remarquable de toujours découvrir des faits sur cet appareil dont la conception remonte à plus de 50 ans !!!