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On January 25, 1966, test pilot Bill Weaver and his navigator were on a SR71 test flight when the plane disintegrated around them at Mach 3.18.“Flying is simply hours of boredom punctuated by moments of stark terror. After taking off, we reached our cruising altitude of 78,800ft, as we entered our 35 deg bank turn, the right engine malfunctioned and the control stick jammed. I attempted to stay with the plane but within a few seconds, I blacked out and the bird disappeared around us.My next recollection was a hazy thought that I was having a bad dream. Gradually regaining consciousness, I realized this was no dream. That also was disturbing, because I could not have survived what had just happened. Therefore, I must be dead. Since I didn’t feel bad–just a detached sense of euphoria–I decided being dead wasn’t so bad after all. AS FULL AWARENESS took hold, I realized I was not dead, but had somehow separated from the airplane. The sound of rushing air confirmed I was falling, but I couldn’t see anything. My pressure suit’s face plate had frozen over and I was staring at a layer of ice.Air density at high altitude is insufficient to resist a body’s tumbling motions, and centrifugal forces high enough to cause physical injury could develop quickly. For that reason, the SR-71’s parachute system was designed to automatically deploy a small-diameter stabilizing chute shortly after ejection and seat separation.The little chute must have deployed and was doing its job. Next concern: the main parachute, which was designed to open automatically at 15,000 ft. Again I had no assurance the automatic-opening function would work. There was no way to know how long I had been blacked-out or how far I had fallen. I felt for the manual-activation D-ring on my chute harness, but with the suit inflated and my hands numbed by cold, I couldn’t locate it. Then I felt the reassuring sudden deceleration of main-chute deployment. I raised the frozen face plate and saw I was descending through a clear, winter sky with unlimited visibility.My first-ever parachute landing was pretty smooth.When I did land, which felt like the middle of nowhere, a rancher found me. He loaded me onto his helicopter and flew to a nearby hospital. I have vivid memories of that helicopter flight, as well. I didn’t know much about rotorcraft, but I knew a lot about “red lines,” and he kept the airspeed above red line all the way. I couldn’t help but think how ironic it would be to have survived one disaster only to be done in by the helicopter that had come to my rescue.Two weeks later. I was back on a new SR71” #blackbirdwww.zerofoxtrot.com