Originally Posted by
ipdanno
....What a sight. What a sigh.
With little delay at the hold short, the jet turned to the active and powered up. Shortly, it was gone. Time to breath again, and time to come back down to the fabulous four fans of freedom, trueing out at 280, on a good day.
Blackbird was truly an amazing jet --- but for different missions they build different aircraft.
Ya still gotta love your Herc which could land on a 38ft wide road in Iraq...LAPES a 40,000 lb triple-married pallet from 5 ft off the deck...and land on an aircraft carrier w/out a trap wire (...although it was not done operationally).
First flown in 1954 (...and still in production!), the "Four Fans of Freedom" is out there on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan getting the not-so-glamorous, tactical airlift mission done every day.