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Comment by vlovich123 | Hacker News Reader

The dates in the story are confusing me.

> My first encounter with the SR-71 came when I was 10 years old in the form of molded black plastic in a Revell kit.

> Twenty-nine years later, I stood awe-struck in a Beale Air Force Base hangar, staring at the very real SR-71 before me.

> In 1962, the first Blackbird successfully flew, and in 1966, the same year I graduated from high school, the Air Force began flying operational SR-71 missions.

> I came to the program in 1983

So the author was born in 1944 if they were 39 (29+ 10) in 1983.

1966 then puts them graduating at 22 (was high school longer back then? I wouldn’t have thought so and he’s supposed to have a stellar record and 22 feels a little old for joining the military) and playing with the SR-71 model in 1952 before it was even conceived in 1960.

What am I missing?

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A bunch of this doesn't make much sense to me either, the SR-71 was revealed to the public in 1966. That would make him born in 1956. He would be 30 in 1986, which makes sense, but the the 29 years later part doesn't sound right.

I built an SR-71 kit as a kid. But I was born in 1977. I wish I still had it. I put a ton of work into it.

The model manufacturers did scoop the reveals at some points, but they were never that accurate. I had an "F-19 Stealth Fighter" kit I built as well. It had significant differences from the F-117 when that became public.

I built an SR-71 model rocket. It was Estes, not Revell, and looked like this [0]. It was very difficult to build compared to other models, because it had three cylinders with webbing for the fuselage and engines. I remember being disappointed that the two outer cylinders were not designed to take individual model rocket engines. There was only one in the center. I guess it would have been too hard to ignite them synchronously.

When I launched it (vertically of course), the plane seemed to hover forever on the launchpad before finally overcoming gravity and taking off. It did not achieve Mach 3.5 or anything significant for a rocket of its size. When it reached the ejection stage, it popped off the front cabin "nosecone", looking very ungainly as it fluttered to the ground on a parachute.

I still have that model somewhere downstairs.

[0] https://www.rocketreviews.com/estes-industries-sr-71-blackbi...

Thanks for posting this. I built that same kit back when it was new, but at the time it was just some estes rocket to me -- I just now realized it was an SR-71.

My thinking is high school graduation could be as early as 16 but more likely 17 or 18, so 1966 - 18 = 1948 (or 49 or 50). 1983 would be 35, though by the author's own math he'd be 39. I think its probably safe to discount "10 years old" memory for the Revell kit; I can't seem to find when the kit began production (because the Internet is about buying things) - but in order for high school graduation to be at age 18 then the kit would have to be produced and sold in 1958 which seems unlikely (or 1960 if graduating at age 16).

I’m not familiar with this space. Is a Revell kit for a top secret plane that hadn’t even been designed something that happened/happens commonly?

The author says the motivating incident was the U2 shoot down in 1960 which was the motivating incident for the engineer to start designing it. How would the author be playing with it then?

Misdirect about the kid part to enhance the story? Maybe they had the kit later in life and retrofitted it into a “destiny” theme?

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