Skunk Works

Other Voices

Ed Yeilding

(Air Force pilot)

When Congress approved the decision to retire the SR-71, the Smithsonian Institution requested that a Blackbird be delivered for eventual display in the Air and Space Museum in Washington and that we set a new transcontinental speed record delivering it from California to Dulles. I had the honor of piloting that final flight on March 6, 1990, for its final 2,300-mile flight between L.A. and D.C. I took off with my backseat navigator, Lt. Col. Joe Vida, at 4:30 in the morning from Palmdale, just outside L.A., and despite the early hour, a huge crowd cheered us off. We hit a tanker over the Pacific then turned and dashed east, accelerating to 2.6 Mach and about sixty thousand feet. Below stretched hundreds of miles of California coastline in the early morning light. In the east and above, the hint of a red sunrise and the bright twinkling lights from Venus, Mars, and Saturn. A moment later we were directly over central California, with the Blackbird’s continual sonic boom serving as an early wake-up call to the millions sleeping below on this special day. I pushed out to Mach 3.3.

From Kansas City eastward we were high above a cirrus cloud undercast but savored this view from above 97 percent of the earth’s atmosphere—enjoyed witnessing for one final time the curvature of the earth, the bright blue glow just above the horizon, and the pitch-dark daytime sky directly overhead. High above the jet stream, the winds blew at only five mph, and we cruised smooth as silk.

We averaged 2,190 mph from St. Louis to Cincinnati, covering the distance in eight minutes, thirty-two seconds, a new city-to-city aviation record.

When we were abeam Washington at eighty-four thousand feet, I terminated the supersonic afterburner and began our descent. We had set two records: L.A. to D.C. in only sixty-four minutes and Kansas City to D.C. in twenty-six minutes. And we had set a new transcontinental speed record, covering 2,404 statute miles in only sixty-seven minutes, fifty-four seconds. It was also the first time that a sonic boom had traversed the entire length of our great country. Through the haze I saw the Dulles tower and flew above the waiting crowd at eight hundred feet, resisting the temptation to really go down on the deck for fear of blowing out the Dulles terminal windows with our powerful engine vibrations. I felt both tremendous elation and tremendous sadness. When we landed and climbed out, Ben Rich, head of the Skunk Works, was waiting below to shake my hand. I had met him once before, when I worked with him to plan a fly-by of this airplane directly over the Skunk Works on December 20, 1989, celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Blackbird.

I made three low passes over the complex of hangars and buildings that comprise the famous Skunk Works operation at Burbank, and Ben had trotted out every single worker to cheer and experience the thrill of seeing this incredible machine they had built sweeping in low over their heads. There were several thousand workers down below waving at us. On the last pass I performed a short, steep afterburner climb and rocked my wings in a salute. I heard later that men had cried.