Overview
- Recent retrospective coverage reaffirms that roughly 85 percent of the SR‑71’s structure was titanium and that skin areas near the engines reached extreme temperatures that required new titanium alloys and production techniques.
- Lockheed engineers traced early, unexplained cracking to chlorine in municipal rinse water used after acid cleaning and solved it by switching to distilled water and removing cadmium‑plated tools to stop galvanic corrosion.
- Journalists and historians restate that the CIA and program contractors used shell companies and third‑country intermediaries to buy Soviet titanium, with the colorful ‘‘pizza‑oven’’ cover story remaining an oft‑repeated but unverified veteran anecdote.
- Coverage also revisits an operational danger: a 1968 mission in which both J58 engines flamed out at altitude and the crew safely restarted them after a steep descent, illustrating how Mach‑3 flight regimes created unique in‑flight risks.
- The reporting emphasizes the program’s legacy: solving titanium chemistry and tooling problems created manufacturing practices that enabled future titanium‑heavy aerospace projects and preserved the Blackbird’s record‑setting service.