I still remember as though it was yesterday the moment I drove past these two Blackbirds almost 20 years ago at this very spot. I was 19 years old and had just arrived in this arid desert called the Antelope Valley. I was fresh out of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University with my Airframe and Powerplant license from the FAA and was on my way to work on the B-2 Stealth Bomber. I was still in high school back in Chicago when I read about the cancellation of the SR-71 Blackbird program. I figured back then that I would just never get the chance to actually see one for real. Well, just a few years later I was now working at the airfield where these two birds retired. A short time after that I actually got the chance to see one take off from the runway just a few hundred feet from where I worked… A few years after that I got a private tour of one of the last operational birds –and even got to site in the cockpit and look around! For airplane nerds like me, this is my Graceland!
To the right you can see a U-2 on display. Every morning one of these amazing birds takes off from the runway just a few short miles from where I live very early in the morning. I can hear it in the distance when I head out to work. When we used to live in Rosamond, sonic booms were a constant reminder of the fact that Edwards AFB was just a short drive away. Military aviation history is everywhere in this town!