How the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird Works

Special thanks to Air Zoo Aerospace & Science Museum (youtube.com/AirZoo), retired SR-71 Pilots Jerry Glasser and Buz Carpenter, and Arnie Gunderson (retired Pratt & Whitney J58 PM). It's an absolute honor to work with folks as legendary as the subjects I cover!

The fact that this is free is such a privilege. The quality of your videos is second to none. Amazing work.

Oh god we are in for a treat

“Just outrun the missiles” is the most badass flex in history

I'm an SR-71 nerd and for the longest time I couldn't help but watch anything Blackbird related. After a while, I hit my point of satiation. I've watched dozens of documentaries about this plane. I got it. So i stopped watching as much stuff about this plane, ignored this video in my feed a few times. But finally my inner nerd won and I'm 8 minutes in. I gotta say, holy crap dude, this is incredible. How everything is named, highlighted and shown in detail... Just incredible. It makes so much sense. It also demonstrates how dang smart the engineers were.

I've been a pilot for 30 years, I have never once been able to explain the SR 71 with such clarity. I've never heard anybody explain it well. This is one of the most complex airplanes to understand. And you made it so simple a child can understand it. Very skillfully done my friend.

As a mechanical engineer, I can't begin to express how much value your videos bring to young minds. With the internet filled with misinformative AI generated videos, your videos give me hope in the future of tomorow. On behalf of all of us.. thank you Jake and please never stop what you are doing. They will use your videos for hundreds of years to teach the future generations, well done my friend!

Bro how the hell did you even begin to put this together. My dad and Uncle worked on these many decades ago and love to tell me stories about it. Now I get to show them how it actually all worked through your video. Thank you. What a gift.

This video is damn near as impressive as the SR-71 itself. This is an absolutely superb production.

55 min on the most badass plane ever designed, engineered and produced. Instant like and watch

An hour long Animagraffs video? And on the SR71?! Yes! Another outstanding video Jake!

It will never cease to amaze me that the greatest, fastest, most strikingly beautiful aircraft ever made was created with slide rules and drafted by hand. They didn’t have the benefit of computational fluid dynamics, CAD, 3D printing, 5+ axis CNCs etc. Yet, despite all that, it’s still unmatched over half a century later. An incredible feat of genius engineers, visionaries and machinists.

If there was an award for the best made / best edited YouTube video. This would win it.

20min in , and I realized why I’m still watching, you talk slow, and have pauses in between sentences, it lets me to think and comprehend what I’ve just heard, thank so much for that, just that is gold, finally a narrator that gets it!!!!

The engineers did this without today's tech and modeling capabilities. Just incredible engineering and ingenuity.

As an aerospace engineer this is by far the best explanation of how this aircraft works. Loved every bit of the video 🔥💯

Wow.. the production values & work that went into this... dang.

As a former fuel system repair specialist that was attached to the 9th SRW, my friend you did an awesome job.

What fascinates me the most about the Blackbird is that they managed to create it mostly with hand-drawings/sketches/blueprints without a CAD software, cfd simulation software etc

"Every part of this masterpiece is designed for its mission goals" is probably the most eloquent and concise summary of this amazing engineering marvel.