CIA Shows Off (Formerly) Super-Secret Spy Goodies 100
Velcroman1 writes "Last week, [the CIA] launched a revamped website with links to YouTube and Flickr containing Agency historical videos and picture galleries. 'The idea behind these improvements is to make more information about the agency available to more people, more easily,' Director Panetta said in a statement. 'The CIA wants the American people and the world to understand its mission and its vital role in keeping our country safe.' In terms of pure coolness the Flickr stream takes the cake — including never-before-seen gallery of special agent supergadgets."
Re:Whaaaaaat? (Score:2, Interesting)
Are they crazy? Leaking this information could put lives at risk!
And we can't have any national secrets reveled either! Considering how I've seen everything on the list (they've all been mentioned before - most are WWII era and some not even our own! Enigma CIA?!?!), I find this pathetic. Old news - very old news.
How about releasing the SR-71's real top speed? Why is that still classified?
The best guess I've seen from aerospace guys is that they think it could hit Mach 4.
SR-71 top speed (Score:5, Interesting)
The flight manual is online at sr-71.org, and has a chart showing what speed at what external air temperature stays within the design limit for compressor inlet temperature. (At least that's where I think I saw the chart). To keep the CIT below 427 Celsius, you'd better have a really cold day in the stratosphere to go much over Mach 3.2. The manual doesn't permit going over 3.3.
If the air going into the compressor is over 427 C, by the time you burn fuel in it you're hitting the design limits of the turbine blades.
It's possible that nobody ever found out what the top speed was. After McNamara ordered the tooling destroyed, the planes were irreplaceable.