Warbird Information Exchange

Blackbird 69: Center, Blackbird 69 requesting FL600.

LA Center: Blackbird 69, if you can get there you can have it.

Blackbird 69: Roger, Decending


I had never heard this one before.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

I can't remember that last time I was at FL600.

I do remember the time I was at FL 510, and little higher to grow on..................

Funny story but I doubt it occurred. I live in central California and have heard many SR and TR flights over the years. In fact a SoCal wing member flies TRs out of Palmdale. Usually their call sign is “Pinion” and it is routine to hear them at FL700. With Beale AFB, Vandenberg AFB, Edwards, Magu, China Lake and Lemoore NAS in the area the controllers are very aware of what some of our most sophisticated planes can do. Something you hear around here a lot these days is unmanned Predator flights. Hope this doesn’t make me sound like a know it all!

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it does, but since you DO it's esasy to forgive

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

Well first off "Pinion" is a call sign for U2's based out of BAB, no where else. Other bases have different squadron call signs. SR-71's used a different call sign when they were operating out of BAB. It was ASPEN.
2nd off, We( Air traffic controllers) NEVER used a numerical altitude above FL600. They were all coded. The airplanes (all U2's and SR71 type aircraft) also NEVER used VHF comm. I won't tell you what we used, I can't. I doubt you had the special equipment to listen to them. Maybe on rare occasion they would use a VHF freq but it would be very rare and never above FL600.
And finally, the military approach controls you mentioned never worked the AC above their approach airspace(even EDW only owns below FL600), the ARTCC's worked them.
I know this because I worked at Oakland ARTCC for over 20 years and delt extensivley with military aircraft.

Hey! I’m not the only know it all! First the only Blackbirds I know of flying are NASA. Secondly there is a detachment of U2s flying out of Palmdale or my buddy the Colonel is lying to me. Thirdly you are absolutely right about the frequencies. They use UNIFORM and so do I. They have the occasion to contact Beale METRO on occasion with ETAs and such and I have heard them mention some very high altitudes. I guess you never worked Joshua Approach or Torch Control. I have also heard them on Oakland Center on UNIFORM. I’d give you the Freq. But I’d have to kill you.

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I am an ATC, but never controlled anything any where near that high, I just hought it was funny.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

I thought you worked for an air ambulance company. I didn’t know you were an air traffic controller? Gee I guess we just never know whom we are talking to. You work tower ARTCC what?

Dan

_________________
Check out our new website.
CAF SoCal Wing http://www.cafsocal.com/

The SR-71s used UHF to communicate with ATC when they talked to them and the codes are no longer classified. When I was at the SR-71 sim unveiling at the Frontiers of Flight museum, they were very forthcoming about comm procedures and the codes used. The callsign the SR-71s used was Pinon (P-y-non), not Pinion. The book Sled Driver also has most of this information as well. Also, there are no SR-71s still flying. They're all at DM or museums. The SR-71 simulator (the only one in the world) is now at Frontiers of Flight in Dallas and was the final piece of equipment used by NASA and the Air Force relating to the SR-71. When SR-71 operations stopped, they mothballed the sim and only this last year released for a museum to get on loan. Frontiers of Flight managed to get it and it looks awesome and will be even more-so when they get it running again (which is the plan).

I was flying on Ted, United's discount line. They pass out headphones and one of the channels allows you to hear the cockpit chatter. I believe it was an F-18 or F-16 was coming through and the chatter went like this:

F-18: (some very fast speed -- maybe 700 knots IIRC?)
Other airplane: All this money and I can't go that fast

The SR-71's out of BAB were ASPEN31, ASPEN32, ASPEN33 etc. The SR-71's that flew out of EDW were either DUTCH61 etc (Airforce) or NASA###. Those were the only call signs used in the west coast bases and they used the same call signs when doing global trips. I talked to them for years up till the airplanes retirement. The U2's out of BAB still to this day still use the PINON call signs. I still see them on radar flying around daily. They were never mixed. ASPEN retired with the SR-71's. I have flown T-38's out of BAB and still have numerous friends who fly the U-2's. And yes I have even sat in the simulators at BAB, NOT mock ups but the real things. Even got to power up the U-2 simulator.

I do work for an air ambulance company. I am a pilot and ATC as well. I worked in KPIT for ramp control from just prior to 9/11 until 2004. At that time I was going to be either relocated or laid off, so I looked for other employment. I started here in 2004 with the helicopters and am now in charge of Flight Operations. So it is nice to have the schooling in both fields.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

Talking with a RSO (Gundmundson?) of an SR71 one time, he told me of them descending through FL600 with Denver control. DEN told them to standby, the SR said no and continued. The RSO said they have a small window to descend or they will over shoot their profile by a long shot and don't have enough fuel to mess around. Another friend was a controller working ABQ center, and they would get SRs all the time and would have to keep resetting the radar blip on their screen because the computer would say "no airplane can fly that fast" and remove the blip from their screen.

Yes they did descend via a pre programmed profile. They had several recoveries for going below FL600. Once they started they went right to FL310 then slowed. There was no turning them or interm altitude. We used to have to turn airplanes 90 deg to miss the profiles. After the "Recovery" to FL310 we would step them down based on traffic to get them to the high penatration for landing. You could never vector them.
The enroute HOST computer never said "No airplane can go this fast" Sometimes the airplane would turn and loose the datablock(the datablock would go into coast tract) but you would have to understand why. It rarley happened. The flight plan speed was either entered in knots at 999 or a Mach#. Either way the host was programed to just track the descrete code, like any other plane except with out "noses" so it couldn't predict conflict alert with another plane and wasn't always sure what radar sort box it would be in next(which is why it didn't know where to look next).
We used to watch the SR-71's and the U2's go right thru each other and even thought we used 10 miles and 5000ft above FL600 for separation, the Pinions(thats how it was pronounced) were usually IFR/OTP above 600 and they all knew where each other were based on preprogramed flights so they always missed each other.
I have a lot of stories thru the years working them, like the one that almost ditched in the Nevada desert due to an engine failure.

It's not a "detachment" per se, they just come in & out of here all the time for upgrades etc. I see them almost every day. I just happen to know some stuff

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