When the Blackbird made its last flight in 1990, I called Nancy and asked her if she thought we could take Kelly out to the plant for the flyby we had scheduled. We both agreed that we didn’t want any of his old friends to see him in his condition, but rather to remember him the way he was when they last saw him. So we put him into a limo that had dark windows, making the passengers invisible from the outside, and drove him to the Skunk Works. Kelly was not alert that day, and I really was not sure he understood what that ride from the hospital was about.
All the employees from the Skunk Works were standing outside waiting for the overflight. Kelly sat in the car. We had put out the word that he was not feeling well and would not be able to greet anybody. Everyone respected that and they cheered the car’s arrival. Around the time the SR-71 came roaring in over the rooftops and cracked out two massive sonic booms in salute, Nancy had stirred him awake and partially lowered the car window. The booms were as loud as thunderclaps. Kelly looked up, startled. “Kelly, do you know what that was?” I asked. “The pilot was saluting you. We all are saluting you.” He didn’t reply to my question and seemed to be nodding off. But when I looked at Kelly again he had tears in his eyes.
- from Skunk Works, by Ben Rich
Controls
- Custom camera 1: cockpit view
- All flight controls are normal
- AG1: Afterburner
- AG2: Enable VTOL system
- AG2 + VTOL up: ascend
- AG2 + VTOL up: descend
AG2 should be enabled only for vertical takeoffs and landings, and kept off during flight.
Specifications
General Characteristics
- Created On Windows
- Wingspan 89.4ft (27.3m)
- Length 164.0ft (50.0m)
- Height 24.8ft (7.6m)
- Empty Weight N/A
- Loaded Weight 100,525lbs (45,597kg)
Performance
- Power/Weight Ratio 5.164
- Wing Loading 10.3lbs/ft2 (50.4kg/m2)
- Wing Area 9,730.6ft2 (904.0m2)
- Drag Points 40451
Parts
- Number of Parts 740
- Control Surfaces 2
- Performance Cost 2,728
Win 10 PC only. Requires all new builds, due to the Jundroo interpretation of "hi-physics" that performs my builds nicely on OSX 10.14, but the Jundroo SP game shreds them in-flight on my Alienware platform. Also desire to establish an SR2 account, Windows only allowed, and mashing SR2 beta testing with my Stingray account did not work out so well, the first time. @SledDriver
@Stingray Thanks, I came across that story in Skunk Works and thought it was worth sharing. Why a new account, though?
Forgot to upvote this fine build! Works well on mobiles and Mac and PC. A tribute to Kelly Johnson.
You’re welcome, @Smoothray is the PC newbie test account for Stingray, btw. @SledDriver
@Smoothray Thank you :)
Beautiful handling with afterburners on a PC!
Thanks, @Clawsome, I'm glad you like the handling as well. I've always thought it a shame to post a build that looks good but doesn't fly well.
Absolutely beautiful! Whatever you end up using this script of yours for, I’m excited so see it. It not only looks pretty it flies pretty too!
Thanks, @Ariathe. I'm quite pleased with how this version turned out.
So sleek!
@SledDriver thx
@Rawhide Hi, it's over here, though it's not exactly active.
Hey SledDriver, what is your youtube channel called? I remember you having one.
@SledDriver Haha, yeah. Most likely.
@Looney Careful, someone's going to accuse you of being an alt account of mine... :)
@SledDriver I 100% agree.. It's sad honestly. Such amazing innovation being cast aside for the old manual labor, all because it's "too easy", instead of the outcome it produces.
@Looney I couldn't agree more. But in this community, the only kind of effort that counts is the mindless, repetitive, manual labour of sticking parts together one by one, adjusting the sizes, offsets, and angles for each one by hand, uploading your work as an unlisted build to get the orthographic views, comparing the orthographic view against blueprints, making adjustments, then repeating the process until you've got a crude replica. I kid you not -- doing this will get you oohs and aahs and an absolute avalanche of upvotes. The longer you can claim it took you to build, the more admiration and upvotes you'll get. Claiming that you were sick while building it will probably propel your build to land among the highest-rated builds of all time. Presumably, if you built it while sitting on a bed of nails with a wolf gnawing on your leg, it would be even more admirable.
However, if you dare to use your brain to invent a better way of building... be prepared to be cast out and chained to a rock like Prometheus.
@SledDriver That's stupid. It's harder to make your own program than to slap parts together.
@Looney That's exactly what I'm doing. However, if you stick around long enough, you'll find that the majority of this community considers using scripts (or your brain, in any other way, for that matter) "cheating".
@SledDriver That sucks. This could be used as a new way to 3d model easier and better.
@Looney Thanks, but I've decided it's much too valuable to release for free. I'd like to leverage it in a game of my own, or license it to a game developer.
@SledDriver That's awesome. Am I able to use this script? I'm very interested.
@Looney I write scripts to help me generate the shapes.
@SledDriver How did you somehow make it this smooth?
@WarHawk95 I did, it was up for nearly four months. Nobody used it. See my last comment on that post, it'll explain a few things.