{"id":468096,"date":"2026-07-02T10:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T00:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simpleflying.com\/sr-71-blackbird-pilot-preflight-routine\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T10:00:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T00:00:19","slug":"what-sr-71-blackbird-pilots-had-to-do-before-missions-that-most-other-pilots-in-history-have-never-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=468096","title":{"rendered":"What SR-71 Blackbird Pilots Had To Do Before Missions That Most Other Pilots In History Have Never Done"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird was not a normal aircraft<\/a><\/span>. It was the fastest air-breathing aircraft ever made and was designed to fly at such a height (over 80,000 feet or around 24,300 meters) and speed (over Mach 3) that it could outpace enemy air defense and missiles. There are confirmed reports that it successfully outflew around 4,000 missiles fired at it over the course of its career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The SR-71 was one of the most extreme airplanes ever built and forced pilots to often train and prepare more like astronauts than typical pilots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,408,412,1626,423,1328],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-468096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aircraft","category-history","category-military","category-sr-71","category-united-states","category-united-states-air-force"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t