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Rating: 
Summary: An excellent book about a remarkable aircraft
Review: A number of books have been written about this remarkble aircraft. Most good, a few not so. This book definitely falls into the good (no, excellent) category. It is not as technical as some of the other books (although some technical concepts are very clearly explained) as much as it is a book relating some of the tales of those who actually operated the aircraft. It gives a wonderful insight into what is probably the best reconaissance system the US ever had. Even today, we have no systems that are capable of doing all the things the SR could. For one thing it was the only atmospheric system that could safely penetrate defended airspace. For another, it remains the only system that can do wide spectrum multi-sensor reconaissance of a given target on the same mission. This book relates some of the missions that demonstrated this as well as what was involved "behind the scenes" in pulling off these successes. Although satellites are wonderful, there are things they simply can't do that the SR-71 could (For one thing, since the orbits of the satellites are known, the bad guys know when to hide the stuff they don't want seen. The SR could surprise its targets). The last part of the book is valuable in relating the real reasons this remarkable system was retired. It wasn't for cost and it wasn't for lack of capability. The hard numbers provided and the stories of the shenanigans pulled to "justify" a bad decision are almost worth the price of the book itself. Col. Graham has done it again and this is a worthy companion piece to his excellent "SR-71 Revealed" book
Rating:
Summary: Blackbird Memories
Review: Colonel Graham has put together unique memories of 19 former pilots and RSOs for the 3 Blackbirds, (A-12, YF-12 & SR-71) in cronological order from the first A-12 ejection through the retirement of the SR-71, (both times). Most of the chapters deal with the SR-71 at it's two deployment detachments, Det 1 at Kadena AB, Okinawa and Det 4 at RAF Mildenhall, United Kingdom.
These are fabulously interesting insights into the lives and times of the best men in the US Air Force who were chosen to fly the best plane in the US Air Force, the titanium wonder-bird, SR-71.
It doesn't provide much in the way of facts, figures, drawings and detailed photographs, but that was not the intent of this book. It is one of the most interesting books I have ever read.
All profits from the book go the J.T. Vida memorial fund to help maintain SR-71 # 17972 at the Smithsonian Musuem at the Dulles Air Port west of Washington, DC. Lt Col Vida spent 16 years as an RSO and amassed nearly 1400 hours in the SR-71, the most of any crew member. He was the RSO for 972 on it's record breaking flight from LA to DC in March of 1990.
Rating:
Summary: 5 STARS IS TOO LITTLE!!!!
Review: For those who are already familiar with the bird (and for those who aren't as well!!), this is one of the most entertaining books out there. Col. Graham managed to put together several stories told by several different people involved with the program, and each story makes you feel like reading all the book in one single shot! I can't wait for Volume II!
Rating: 
Summary: Don't bother
Review: This book [was bad]. How anyone could take such an interesting subject and make it boring is beyond me. I have read a lot of aviation books and this one tops my list of one to skip. There were a couple of good stories about engine failures at high altitude and mach numbers but mostly it was a celebration of the eliteism of the SR-71 crew members. The only thing greater than the performance figures of the airplane were the apparent egos of the crew. This book was obviously written for other SR-71 crew members. It constantly relives the things they had in common with each other but not with the rest of the Air Force
or us mere mortals. The special orange flight suits, the pressure suits, the drinking parties with the acceptible SR-71 jock drink 'The Basic Hook'(vodka tonic to us). Wasn't the simulator tough. Wasn't the physical thorough. Didn't you sweat the crew selection interview. [Wasn't it bad] that the Pentagon cancelled the program. Over and over and over, but from a different guy. And most of the stories were from the back seaters. Who wants to hear from those guys? I wanted to hear what it was like to fly the beast. How bad things could really get. What it felt like to land and take off an SR-71. Disappointed.
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