NASA has pulled their former research SR-71A from display with the intent of reactivating the aircraft.
While I am sure that something interesting is happening here, I expect to be inundated by endless social media posts and videos from uninformed aviation geeks.
Mike Relja, a retiree in his late 70s, received an unexpected job offer from NASA about a month ago.
The assignment: Help put a former NASA-operated Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird back in the air after a nearly 27-year hiatus.
Relja, an ex-U.S. Air Force and NASA test engineer for the SR-71A, could not believe his ears. David Ash, a former U.S. Navy and Joby test pilot who was hired in June as a special projects director for NASA, asked Relja to provide his expertise for a secret effort to return a long-retired and neglected Blackbird to flight.
“I told the guy, ‘You know, I’m too old to be doing this,’” Relja recalls to Aviation Week. “‘I wish you well. I’d like to see you make it. It would be interesting. But I just don’t think you can get there from here.’”
It appears NASA is going to try.
At some point early this year—certainly before May 17 and perhaps even before April, according to commercial satellite imagery acquired by Aviation Week—agency employees removed the SR-71A with Tail No. 844 from a display pole near the corners of Lilly and Walker Avenues at the Armstrong Flight Research Center on Edwards AFB, California.
I appreciate that NASA might have a need for the aircraft, my guess is launching of scramjet test vehicles, why couldn't they have they kept it a secret?
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