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A review by mburnamfink
The Untouchables - Mission Accomplished - Twentieth Anniversary Commemorative Signed Edition by Brian Shul, Walter Watson
5.0
Any aviation fan knows that the SR-71 Blackbird is the ultimate plane: The fastest (2,242.48 miles per hour), highest (85,069 feet), most incredible aircraft every built. Designed by the genius Kelly Johnson at Lockheed's Skunkworks, the SR-71 flew from 1966 to 1990, providing rapid reconnaissance to American presidents on locations around the globe. The Untouchables is a celebration of the SR-71 by pilot Brian "Speed Check" Shul, a gorgeous coffee table book full of photos and stories about the plane, co-authored with his backseater Colonel Walt Watson.
The core of this book is three days over Libya in support of Operation Eldorado Canyon, providing intelligence and bomb damage assessments of the F-111 strike. Shul describes the difficulties of mid-air refueling at higher than normal altitudes to avoid civilian traffic over the Mediterranean, the joy of coaxing absolute performance from a plane that seemed like a living thing, and the fear and exhilaration of outrunning missiles fired by the Libyans below. Watson's perspective is equally valuable. While pilots get all the glory, flying wouldn't matter without the mission, and Watson had a complicated job managing the navigation, camera, and electronic warfare systems. In a rare moment of visible impact for the crew, they watched a news interview with Qaddafi where the dictator flinched as sonic booms from their plane reached the ground.
But the SR-71 was more than a plane, it was a program, and Shul interviews many of the civilian technical experts who kept the Blackbird flying. The absolute love of the aircraft and professionalism of the whole team shines again and again. For an aircraft designed with slide rules and analog electronics which pushed the limits of possibility, it was a surprisingly tough machine that could give you as much speed as you needed, limited only by skin heating. The Air Force shut down the program as part of the Cold War peace dividend, distributing the planes to museums across the US, where they are glorious and tragic relics.
I did not know this, but we owe many of the iconic images of the Blackbird and its crew to Shul. He was an amateur photographer (now a professional wildlife photographer with a gallery in the Bay Area), and was bold and persuasive enough to take photos of the super secret program. Aviation history would be much poorer without him.
The only knock against this book is that it costs an arm and a leg and a kidney, but it is truly gorgeous and fascinating.
The core of this book is three days over Libya in support of Operation Eldorado Canyon, providing intelligence and bomb damage assessments of the F-111 strike. Shul describes the difficulties of mid-air refueling at higher than normal altitudes to avoid civilian traffic over the Mediterranean, the joy of coaxing absolute performance from a plane that seemed like a living thing, and the fear and exhilaration of outrunning missiles fired by the Libyans below. Watson's perspective is equally valuable. While pilots get all the glory, flying wouldn't matter without the mission, and Watson had a complicated job managing the navigation, camera, and electronic warfare systems. In a rare moment of visible impact for the crew, they watched a news interview with Qaddafi where the dictator flinched as sonic booms from their plane reached the ground.
But the SR-71 was more than a plane, it was a program, and Shul interviews many of the civilian technical experts who kept the Blackbird flying. The absolute love of the aircraft and professionalism of the whole team shines again and again. For an aircraft designed with slide rules and analog electronics which pushed the limits of possibility, it was a surprisingly tough machine that could give you as much speed as you needed, limited only by skin heating. The Air Force shut down the program as part of the Cold War peace dividend, distributing the planes to museums across the US, where they are glorious and tragic relics.
I did not know this, but we owe many of the iconic images of the Blackbird and its crew to Shul. He was an amateur photographer (now a professional wildlife photographer with a gallery in the Bay Area), and was bold and persuasive enough to take photos of the super secret program. Aviation history would be much poorer without him.
The only knock against this book is that it costs an arm and a leg and a kidney, but it is truly gorgeous and fascinating.