SR-71 at Mildenhall Air Fete – the last time?

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=203710&stc=1&d=1330982389

Penultimate UK Blackbird bidding farewell to the ‘Hall – 18th January 1990

As regards Mr Hoefling I’d rather forget his commentaries (the number of times people next to me complained of his statistics was phenomenal), I felt they were more for the rivet counters – I much preferred John Blake who made his commentaries interesting.

Found another slide of a Blackbird at Mildenhall -1988.
This file is from an external disk and scanned years ago.

part of set : http://flic.kr/s/aHsjrrPJuH

Hopefully I’m able to scan my other slides soon.

Johan

Definitely 1988.

One in the static,I stroked the underside of it’s port wing and got a good
thumping from my mate because the great big bloke on guard with it
was giving me a very,very hard stare(he made his M-16 look like a toy gun).

The flyer snook out from behind Det 4’s hanger and gave us a right royal
display.

The first and last time I’ve ever seen one fly,very,very impressive.

And yes,the burgers were huge at the ‘Hall.
The other thing that stuck in the memory was the guys riding around in those big GMC pick-ups with a rubber sheet in the back full of ice,water and beers.
We got fairly piffed on Miller and Budweiser IIRC:D:D

Great days indeed.

[QUOTE=slicer;1858650]A series of memories of this awesome aircraft seen at Mildenhall Air Fetes…1987 was the last time I saw an SR71 at the Hall. It really was a fantastic experience, thanks to the crews and Det 4 for letting us share it.

Fantastic pics there! Cheers for putting them up, you can almost feel, hear & smell it!

Martin

Thanks chaps!

According to a letter from a NASA archivist in the latest issue of ‘Classic Aircraft’ they were all funded in 1961 so all have ’61’ prefixes eg 61-7950

Here’s two of the SR-71 on display on the 28th May 1989, anyone here know its serial?

From my photo DB (and subject to errors)
1988 Flying : 64-17971
1988 Static : 64-17980

1989 Static : 64-17976

I know there is a long discusion about Blackbirds and their serial numbers ,
But above serials were entered in the DB 20 years ago

Johan

Fantastic pictures above.

Here’s two of the SR-71 on display on the 28th May 1989, anyone here know its serial?

SR-71 Mildenhall 28 May 89 by jamtey71, on Flickr

SR-71 Mildenhall 28 May 89 by jamtey71, on Flickr

Good to see more SR71 photographs. The SR and TR-1 were always difficult to photograph, and not end up with a black silhouette, particularly at Mildenhall displays, aiming into the sun…I always envied the aviation press guys on the other side of the airfield, particularly John Dunnell’s picture of the excess fuel igniting and the chines streaming vapour as it pulled G.
And where IS Roger Hoefling, commentator par excellence? His clipped tones are much missed.

SR-71A Blackbird display 1988 Mildenhall

Found one photoprint and scanned it today.

Not the best one –sorry–

Can’t scan any slides on the moment.
There are a few more slides in the box ,but most of them all in silhouet (no details)

Johan

As far as I can recall 1988 was the last SR-71 flight display at Mildenhall.

This is my recollection as well, as it was the last time a Lightning appeared at the Hall aswell, with a T.5 and a F.6 in the static from the last few left at Binbrook just a few weeks before the last RAF flights. I remember them both departing from the static impressively, about a hour after the end of the flying display on the Sunday 😀

I remember at that time I thought it was probably the last time I’d see a Lightning and a SR-71 fly.
As it happened I was wrong on both counts, as I saw a Lightning fly on a few occasions after that, and I was lucky enough to see a SR-71 fly again some nearly 10 years later, when I saw one of the re-activated SR-71’s fly at the USAF 50th Anniversary Airshow at Nellis AFB in April 1997…….

Which is where this photo was taken, and this was the final time I saw one in the air.

Fantastic pictures slicer thanks for sharing.

Shame 2 years later that blackbird was lost the last blackbird to fall (crew were fine though).

curlyboy

A series of memories of this awesome aircraft seen at Mildenhall Air Fetes…1987 was the last time I saw an SR71 at the Hall. It really was a fantastic experience, thanks to the crews and Det 4 for letting us share it.

As far as I can recall 1988 was the last SR-71 flight display at Mildenhall.

At least I have some slides from 1988 with a SR-71 performing a flight display. These slides are not scanned sofar.
In 1989 there was only a SR-71 at the static

A few more from Mildenhall 1989 can be found in this set : http://flic.kr/s/aHsjrrPJuH
It is only a starter set for various scans to be processed & uploaded

A reference to Airshow lists can be found here: http://www.scramble.nl/showreports.htm
But these lists are not always specified to static or flying

For those intrested ,I have uploaded a set from Fairford 2004 departure day.
Ref thread : http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=115025

Regards
Johan

I wonder what happened to Roger Hofling , a very well known voice from Air Fete , is he still around ,would be interesting to find out ??

The last display I attended that included a Blackbird was in May 1987, but my last sighting of a Blackbird was 18 Jan 1990 when I took my nephew (not realising until much later that he was supposed to be at school) to watch the penultimate Blackbird leaving its Mildenhall base. It performed a few low passes before departing to the US, after which I took my nephew for his first visit to Duxford.

I cant remember the year, only that it was after 1984, as that was when we
were married. A neighbour of my parents at Watton was in the USAF at
Lakenheath, and got me into the VIP enclosure at the Mildenhall Air Fete.
Which is where I watched the SR-71 do it’s display, the only time I ever saw it
fly.

I also remember seeing a B-58 at an Early Air Fete, but didn’t see it fly.

You shouldn’t believe everything you read! I asked Colonel Richard Graham (ex SR-71 squadron commander) about Shul’s claim on that Libyan mission at a talk he did at Duxford and he told me he saw the tapes from that mission and he said if Shul had gone that fast he would’ve grounded him!

Here is a rather confessional account of a SR 71 flypast.

I think it might have been Clophill Fete (Beds) which I have heard was quite startling……. snippety snip

Walt just shook his head and said, “It was probably just a routine low approach; they’re pretty impressive in that plane.” Impressive indeed.”

Superb story thanks! I dare guess what sort of news that would have made in todays media! Claims etc etc, oh dear I shudder to think! Would be interesting to hear the experience from the kids point of view!

Martin

Unfortunately there was only one in the static park with non actually flying as there had been a crash or some technical problem which had grounded the entire fleet.

The other thing I do recall was the size of the beefburgers…. Man, was it huge!! The Americans never seem to do ‘small’ do they… Yum yum!!

Ah, wondered why there wasn’t an SR-71 flying at the show, agree about the burgers, they were the two reasons why I enjoyed the Air Fetes, 1991 was my last.