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Arn on 26.7.2007 5:24:01
Fast-paced situations

P-O Eldh remembers how the SR-71 pilots often flew very close to Swedish air space on their way back to Mildenhall in the UK. In the beginning, they usually flew at Mach 3 when they came from the east, south from Aland heading towards Stockholm. Later on they would slow down to Mach 2.54 to get a better turning radius, and then hit full throttle between Öland and Gotland.

He encountered the SR-71 five times during his career. One of those events occured January 9th, 1986. Together with two colleagues, they took off from Bravalla for a routine exercise. But before they even got the landing gear up they recieved new instructions and the group was assigned a course heading for Öland with the intent to carry through a so called high-energy intercept against the Blackbird.

We climbed to 8 000 meters, turned around and accelerated over the Gotska Sea towards the Stockholm area and made contact with the target. Everything happened so fast, youre met with a relative speed of Mach 5. The mission only took 9 minutes.

The whole thing went fine for two of the pilots, but the aircraft of the third pilot suffered a high-temperature stall because of the high altitude and was forced to take emergency measures in order to re-start it.

To fly the way you had to at an altitude of 16 000 meters involved very high risks.


Professionalism

General Lennart Petterson is today the chief of the Tactical Flight Centre but he was a fighter pilot back in those days. He clearly remembers how fast everything went which missions against the SR-71 involved and describes these events as the highlights of his career.

Each time was just as exciting and interesting. Intercepting the aircraft was tremendously difficult because of the high speeds and altitudes but it was one of the most extreme missions you could be a part of. When we succeeded, which we did most of the time, and afterwards could conclude that we actually would be able to shoot the SR-71 down if it were a live mission, it was quite pleasing since it was at the same time an evaluation of our professionalism.


http://img380.imageshack.us/img380/4470/saabja37viggen0es.jpg
JA 37 Viggen

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SR-71 Blackbird

For the full story from an article in the Swedish military official magazine Insats och Försvar nr 6/2005 (In Swedish only) read here:
http://www.mil.se/attachments/iof_nr6_05.pdf