Blackbird

At least two subspecies, T. The common blackbird is omnivorous , eating a wide range of insects , earthworms , seeds and berries. It feeds mainly on the ground, running and hopping with a start-stop-start progress. It pulls earthworms from the soil, usually finding them by sight, but sometimes by hearing, and roots through leaf litter for other invertebrates. Small amphibians and lizards are occasionally hunted. This species will also perch in bushes to take berries and collect caterpillars and other active insects.

The nature of the fruit taken depends on what is locally available, and frequently includes exotics in gardens. Near human habitation the main predator of the common blackbird is the domestic cat, with newly fledged young especially vulnerable. Foxes and predatory birds, such as the sparrowhawk and other accipiters , also take this species when the opportunity arises.

This species is occasionally a host of parasitic cuckoos , such as the common cuckoo Cuculus canorus , but this is minimal because the common blackbird recognizes the adult of the parasitic species and its non-mimetic eggs. As with other passerine birds, parasites are common. Common blackbirds spend much of their time looking for food on the ground where they can become infested with ticks, which are external parasites that most commonly attach to the head of a blackbird.

The common blackbird is one of a number of species which has unihemispheric slow-wave sleep. One hemisphere of the brain is effectively asleep, while a low-voltage EEG , characteristic of wakefulness, is present in the other. The benefit of this is that the bird can rest in areas of high predation or during long migratory flights, but still retain a degree of alertness. The common blackbird was introduced to Australia by a bird dealer visiting Melbourne in early , [47] and its range has expanded from its initial foothold in Melbourne and Adelaide to include all of south-eastern Australia, including Tasmania and the Bass Strait islands.

The introduced common blackbird is, together with the native silvereye Zosterops lateralis , the most widely distributed avian seed disperser in New Zealand. These communities provide fruit more suited to non-endemic native birds and naturalised birds, than to endemic birds. The common blackbird was seen as a sacred though destructive bird in Classical Greek folklore, and was said to die if it consumed pomegranate. Sing a song of sixpence , A pocket full of rye; Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie! When the pie was opened the birds began to sing,. Oh wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king?

The common blackbird's melodious, distinctive song is mentioned in the poem Adlestrop by Edward Thomas ;. Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. In the English Christmas carol The Twelve Days of Christmas , the line commonly sung today as "four calling birds" is believed to have originally been written in the 18th century as "four colly birds", an archaism meaning "black as coal" that was a popular English nickname for the common blackbird. The common blackbird, unlike many black creatures, is not normally seen as a symbol of bad luck, [53] but R.

Thomas wrote that there is "a suggestion of dark Places about it", [57] and it symbolised resignation in the 17th century tragic play The Duchess of Malfi ; [58] an alternate connotation is vigilance, the bird's clear cry warning of danger. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. A thrush native to Europe, Asia and North Africa. Retrieved 13 January Complete Birds of North America. Introduced Birds of the World. Agricultural Protection Board of Western Australia. Systema naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis.

Editio decima, reformata in Latin. Thrushes Helm Identification Guides. Christopher Helm Publishers Ltd. Oxford Book of British Bird Names. Birds of Africa south of the Sahara. Struik Publishers, Cape Town. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Retrieved 18 February The Birds of the Western Palearctic concise edition 2 volumes. Common Blackbird Turdus merula. Tibetan Blackbird Turdus maximus. The Birds of the High Andes. Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen. Retrieved 29 September A Study of Blackbirds. British Museum Natural History. The Observer's Book of Birds' Eggs.

Check-list of North American Birds". Check-list of North American Birds Seventh ed. Archived from the original on December 11, Retrieved 14 December Archived from the original on 29 October Retrieved 9 April British Trust for Ornithology. Retrieved 30 December Game and Wildfowl Conservation Trust.

Archived from the original on Retrieved 7 April Retrieved 15 December Retrieved 4 January Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Retrieved 19 December Archived from the original PDF on 5 October Retrieved 11 December Journal of Animal Ecology. Journal of Avian Biology. Archived from the original PDF on Eurasian Blackbirds Turdus merula and their gastrointestinal parasites: A role for parasites in life-history decisions?

Canadian Journal of Zoology. International Journal of Medical Microbiology. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. The Blackbird's tires, manufactured by B. Goodrich , contained aluminum and were filled with nitrogen. Titanium was in short supply in the United States, so the Skunk Works team was forced to look elsewhere for the metal. Much of the needed material came from the Soviet Union. Colonel Rich Graham, SR pilot, described the acquisition process:.

Back when they were building the airplane the United States didn't have the ore supplies — an ore called rutile ore. It's a very sandy soil and it's only found in very few parts of the world.

Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird

The major supplier of the ore was the USSR. Working through Third World countries and bogus operations, they were able to get the rutile ore shipped to the United States to build the SR The first operational aircraft [ citation needed ] designed around a stealth aircraft shape and materials, the SR had several features designed to reduce its radar signature. Special radar-absorbing materials were incorporated into sawtooth-shaped sections of the aircraft's skin.

Cesium -based fuel additives were used to somewhat reduce exhaust plumes visibility to radar, although exhaust streams remained quite apparent. Kelly Johnson later conceded that Soviet radar technology advanced faster than the stealth technology employed against it. The SR featured chines, a pair of sharp edges leading aft from either side of the nose along the fuselage. These were not a feature on the early A-3 design; Frank Rodgers, a doctor at the Scientific Engineering Institute, a CIA front organization , discovered that a cross-section of a sphere had a greatly reduced radar reflection, and adapted a cylindrical-shaped fuselage by stretching out the sides of the fuselage.

Aerodynamicists discovered that the chines generated powerful vortices and created additional lift , leading to unexpected aerodynamic performance improvements. Landing speeds were also reduced, as the chines' vortices created turbulent flow over the wings at high angles of attack , making it harder to stall. The addition of chines also allowed the removal of the planned canard foreplanes.

During one mission, SR pilot Brian Shul flew faster than usual to avoid multiple interception attempts; afterwards, it was discovered that this had reduced fuel consumption. At the front of each inlet, a pointed, movable cone called a "spike" inlet cone was locked in its full forward position on the ground and during subsonic flight. Moving the spike tip drew the shock wave riding on it closer to the inlet cowling until it touched just slightly inside the cowling lip. This position reflected the spike shock wave repeatedly between the spike center body and the inlet inner cowl sides, and minimized airflow spillage which is the cause of spillage drag.

The air slowed supersonically with a final plane shock wave at entry to the subsonic diffuser. Downstream of this normal shock , the air is subsonic. It decelerates further in the divergent duct to give the required speed at entry to the compressor. Capture of the plane's shock wave within the inlet is called "starting the inlet".

Bleed tubes and bypass doors were designed into the inlet and engine nacelles to handle some of this pressure and to position the final shock to allow the inlet to remain "started". In the early years of operation, the analog computers would not always keep up with rapidly changing flight environmental inputs.

If internal pressures became too great and the spike was incorrectly positioned, the shock wave would suddenly blow out the front of the inlet, called an "inlet unstart ". During unstarts, afterburner extinctions were common. The remaining engine's asymmetrical thrust would cause the aircraft to yaw violently to one side.

SAS , autopilot, and manual control inputs would fight the yawing, but often the extreme off-angle would reduce airflow in the opposite engine and stimulate "sympathetic stalls". This generated a rapid counter-yawing, often coupled with loud "banging" noises, and a rough ride during which crews' helmets would sometimes strike their cockpit canopies. At lower speeds, the turbojet provided most of the compression. At higher speeds, the engine largely ceased to provide thrust, the afterburner taking its place. Air was initially compressed and heated by the inlet spike and subsequent converging duct between the center body and inlet cowl.

The shock waves generated slowed the air to subsonic speeds relative to the engine. The air then entered the engine compressor. Air passing through the turbojet was compressed further by the remaining five compressor stages and then fuel was added in the combustion chamber. After passing through the turbine, the exhaust, together with the compressor bleed air , entered the afterburner.

The rotating machinery had become a drag item [56] and the engine thrust at high speeds came from the afterburner temperature rise. Originally, the Blackbird's J58 engines were started with the assistance of two Buick Wildcat V8 internal combustion engines , externally mounted on a vehicle referred to as an AG "start cart". The start cart was positioned underneath the J58 and the two Buick engines powered a single, vertical drive shaft connecting to the J58 engine and spinning it to above 3, RPM, at which point the turbojet could self-sustain.

Once the first J58 engine was started, the cart was repositioned to start the aircraft's other J58 engine. Later start carts used Chevrolet big-block V8 engines. Eventually, a quieter, pneumatic start system was developed for use at main operating bases. The V8 start carts remained at diversion landing sites not equipped with the pneumatic system. Several exotic fuels were investigated for the Blackbird. Development began on a coal slurry power plant, but Johnson determined that the coal particles damaged important engine components.

To start the engines, triethylborane TEB , which ignites on contact with air , was injected to produce temperatures high enough to ignite the JP The TEB produced a characteristic green flame, which could often be seen during engine ignition. On a typical SR mission, the airplane took off with only a partial fuel load to reduce stress on the brakes and tires during takeoff and also ensure it could successfully take off should one engine fail.

As a result, the SRs were typically refueled immediately after takeoff. Supersonic flights generally lasted no more than 90 minutes before the pilot had to find a tanker. The KCQ had a modified high-speed boom, which would allow refueling of the Blackbird at nearly the tanker's maximum airspeed with minimum flutter.

This unusual instrument projected a barely visible artificial horizon line across the top of the entire instrument panel, which gave the pilot subliminal cues on aircraft attitude. Nortronics, Northrop Corporation 's electronics development division, had developed an astro-inertial guidance system ANS , which could correct inertial navigation system errors with celestial observations , for the SM Snark missile, and a separate system for the ill-fated AGM Skybolt missile, the latter of which was adapted for the SR Before takeoff, a primary alignment brought the ANS's inertial components to a high degree of accuracy.

In flight, the ANS, which sat behind the reconnaissance systems officer's RSO's , position, tracked stars through a circular quartz glass window on the upper fuselage. The system's digital computer ephemeris contained data on a list of stars used for celestial navigation: As the SR had a second cockpit behind the pilot for the RSO, it could not carry the A's principal sensor, a single large-focal-length optical camera that sat in the "Q-Bay" behind the A's single cockpit.

Wide-area imaging was provided by two of Itek 's Operational Objective Cameras , which provided stereo imagery across the width of the flight track, or an Itek Optical Bar Camera , which gave continuous horizon-to horizon coverage. Both the first SLAR and ASARS-1 were ground-mapping imaging systems, collecting data either in fixed swaths left or right of centerline or from a spot location for higher resolution. An air conditioner used a heat exchanger to dump heat from the cockpit into the fuel prior to combustion.

Eurasian blackbird

Blackbird pilots and RSOs were provided with food and drink for the long reconnaissance flights. Water bottles had long straws which crewmembers guided into an opening in the helmet by looking in a mirror. Food was contained in sealed containers similar to toothpaste tubes which delivered food to the crewmember's mouth through the helmet opening. Reconnaissance missions over North Vietnam were code named "Giant Scale". O'Malley and Major Edward D. The Air Force could fly each SR, on average, once per week, because of the extended turnaround required after mission recovery.

Very often an aircraft would return with rivets missing, delaminated panels or other broken parts such as inlets requiring repair or replacement. There were cases of the aircraft not being ready to fly again for a month due to the repairs needed. Rob Vermeland, Lockheed Martin 's manager of Advanced Development Program, said in an interview in that high-tempo operations were not realistic for the SR From the beginning of the Blackbird's reconnaissance missions over North Vietnam and Laos in , the SRs averaged approximately one sortie a week for nearly two years.

By , the SRs were averaging two sorties per week, and by , they were flying nearly one sortie every day. Two SRs were lost during these missions, one in and the second aircraft in , both due to mechanical malfunctions. While deployed at Okinawa, the SRs and their aircrew members gained the nickname Habu as did the As preceding them after a pit viper indigenous to Japan, which the Okinawans thought the plane resembled.

Only one crew member, Jim Zwayer, a Lockheed flight-test reconnaissance and navigation systems specialist, was killed in a flight accident. There were two routes: One along the Norwegian west coast and up the Kola Peninsula , which contained several large naval bases belonging to the Soviet Navy's Northern Fleet. Rescue parties were sent in to repair the planes before leaving. On one occasion, one complete wing with engine was replaced as the easiest way to get the plane airborne again.

Common blackbird - Wikipedia

Swedish Air Force fighter pilots have managed to lock their radar on an SR on multiple occasions within shooting range. Before approaching the target area, the crew noticed that one of the Fs was missing, it was shot down during the raid and crashed into the Mediterranean Sea. During the mission, it was fired on by Surface to Air Missiles.

In a effort to outrun them, the crew throttled up to full speed. This enabled it to avoid the missiles. It successfully landed back in RAF Mildenhall. The SR program was terminated due to Pentagon politics, and not because the aircraft had become obsolete or irrelevant, or suffered maintenance problems, or had unsustainable program costs, although these reasons are frequently cited as justifications for its downfall.

In order to be selected into the SR program in the first place, a pilot or navigator RSO had to be a top-quality Air Force officer, so continuing career progression for members of this elite group was not surprising. These generals were adept at communicating the value of the SR to an Air Force command staff and a Congress who often lacked a basic understanding of how the SR worked and what it did. However, by the mids, these SR generals all had retired, and a new generation of Air Force generals wanted to cut the program's budget and spend its funding on new strategic bomber programs instead, especially the very expensive B-2 Spirit.

The Air Force saw the SR as a bargaining chip which could be sacrificed to ensure the survival of other priorities. Also, the SR program's "product", which was operational and strategic intelligence, was not seen by these generals as being very valuable to the Air Force. A former 1st SRS commander believed that if the SR had been funded by an intelligence agency like the A was , instead of the Air Force, it would have easily survived.

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The SR, while much more capable than the Lockheed U-2 in terms of range, speed, and survivability, suffered the lack of a data link , which the U-2 had been upgraded to carry. This meant that much of the SR's imagery and radar data could not be used in real time, but had to wait until the aircraft returned to base.

This lack of immediate real-time capability was used as one of the justifications to close down the program. Attempts to add a datalink to the SR were stymied early on by the same factions in the Pentagon and Congress who were already set on the program's demise, even in the early s.

However, the USAF refused to spend the money. While the SR survived attempts to retire it in , partly due to the unmatched ability to provide high-quality coverage of the Kola Peninsula for the US Navy, [97] the decision to retire the SR from active duty came in , with the last missions flown in October that year. The SR program's main operational capabilities came to a close at the end of fiscal year October The 1st SRS kept its pilots and aircraft operational and active, and flew some operational reconnaissance missions through the end of and into , due to uncertainty over the timing of the final termination of funding for the program.

The squadron finally closed in mid, and the aircraft were distributed to static display locations, with a number kept in reserve storage. From the operator's perspective, what I need is something that will not give me just a spot in time but will give me a track of what is happening. When we are trying to find out if the Serbs are taking arms, moving tanks or artillery into Bosnia , we can get a picture of them stacked up on the Serbian side of the bridge. We do not know whether they then went on to move across that bridge. We need the [data] that a tactical, an SR, a U-2, or an unmanned vehicle of some sort, will give us, in addition to, not in replacement of, the ability of the satellites to go around and check not only that spot but a lot of other spots around the world for us.

It is the integration of strategic and tactical. Congress re-examined the SR beginning in Hall addressed the question of why the SR was retired, saying it was under "the belief that, given the time delay associated with mounting a mission, conducting a reconnaissance, retrieving the data, processing it, and getting it out to a field commander, that you had a problem in timelines that was not going to meet the tactical requirements on the modern battlefield. And the determination was that if one could take advantage of technology and develop a system that could get that data back real time Macke told the committee that they were "flying U-2s, RCs , [and] other strategic and tactical assets" to collect information in some areas.

They maintained that, in a time of constrained military budgets, designing, building, and testing an aircraft with the same capabilities as the SR would be impossible. Congress's disappointment with the lack of a suitable replacement for the Blackbird was cited concerning whether to continue funding imaging sensors on the U Congressional conferees stated the "experience with the SR serves as a reminder of the pitfalls of failing to keep existing systems up-to-date and capable in the hope of acquiring other capabilities.

Still-active Air Force pilots and Reconnaissance Systems Officers RSOs who had worked with the aircraft were asked to volunteer to fly the reactivated planes. Modifications were made to provide a data-link with "near real-time" transmission of the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar's imagery to sites on the ground. The reactivation met much resistance: Also, with the allocation requiring yearly reaffirmation by Congress, long-term planning for the SR was difficult.

In June , the U. Supreme Court ruled that the line-item veto was unconstitutional. All this left the SR's status uncertain until September , when the Air Force called for the funds to be redistributed; the Air Force permanently retired it in NASA operated the two last airworthy Blackbirds until The SR was the world's fastest and highest-flying operational manned aircraft throughout its career.

The SR also holds the "speed over a recognized course" record for flying from New York to London—distance 3, Air Force pilot James V. Sullivan and Noel F. Widdifield, reconnaissance systems officer RSO. For comparison, the best commercial Concorde flight time was 2 hours 52 minutes and the Boeing averages 6 hours 15 minutes. On 26 April , , flown by majors Thomas B.

Estes and Dewain C. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. On 6 March , Lt. President, the termination of the SR was a grave mistake and could place our nation at a serious disadvantage in the event of a future crisis.

Yesterday's historic transcontinental flight was a sad memorial to our short-sighted policy in strategic aerial reconnaissance. Speculation existed regarding a replacement for the SR, including a rumored aircraft codenamed Aurora. The limitations of reconnaissance satellites , which take up to 24 hours to arrive in the proper orbit to photograph a particular target, make them slower to respond to demand than reconnaissance planes.