SR-71 Blackbird Pilot recalls When He Buzzed the Tower of Sacramento Airport with the Afterburners Lit

‘“Beautiful, beautiful, come back and do another one,” the tower controller said,’ Maury Rosenberg, SR-71 Blackbird pilot.

The SR-71, unofficially known as the “Blackbird,” is a long-range, advanced, strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed from the Lockheed A-12 and YF-12A aircraft.

No reconnaissance aircraft in history has operated in more hostile airspace or with such complete impunity than the SR-71 Blackbird. It is the fastest aircraft propelled by air-breathing engines. The Blackbird’s performance and operational achievements placed it at the pinnacle of aviation technology developments during the Cold War.

The Blackbird was designed to cruise at “Mach 3+,” just over three times the speed of sound or more than 2,200 miles per hour and at altitudes up to 85,000 feet.

Recorded at Western Museum of Flight in 2018, the following tape features SR-71 Pilot Maury Rosenberg talking about the one time he decided to request a “fly-by” over the Sacramento airport on his way returning to Beale Air Force Base (AFB) – where he was going to land.

The request was eagerly approved by air tower crew, and wanted him to fly the SR-71 “down the ramp” (much closer to the tower and other buildings).

Rosenberg recalls:

‘I think it was the 1982 or 83 Toronto airshow. I was a participant, we took an SR-71 and three crews went. One crew flew it in. One crew flew the second day airshow. And the third crew which was myself flew just a couple of flybys the third day of the airshow and then actually flew the aircraft back to Beale Air Force Base. So when I came back into the Sacramento area and I was descending down to land at Beale, we had a lot of fuel. We had to work on the holiday and I asked the backseater You want to make an approach at Sac Metro? And he said Can we do that? And I said Why not?

‘So, when we got over to approach control I asked if Sac Metro was available for an approach and they said they’d switch this over to Sac Metro and they cleared us for an approach. So, as we were coming down final and we had configured the airplane with the gear down and we’re about two miles out on final, they switched us over to tower.

‘I asked the tower Would you like a flyby down the runway or down the ramp? The guy said Down the ramp! When I said okay, I sucked the gear up, pushed the power up. We started heading towards the ramp, towards the tower. As we were approaching it, I rolled the plane up away from the tower and lit the afterburners. We went around and made a pass. The tower controller said “Beautiful, beautiful, come back and do another one”. I said I better not, I’m gonna go to Beale. So, we went back to Beale and we landed.

‘As I mentioned it was a holiday weekend and Colonel Lonnie met us when we pulled in the hangar after we landed which was the normal procedure. I thought well that’s nice that he came out. As I came down the ladder from the aircraft, he looked at me and he said Maury, do we have any regulations that say we can’t make approaches at Sacramento Airport? I said No sir.
I want one on my desk at seven o’clock tomorrow morning.

‘Now there’s a continuation to this story. I retired in 87 and flew with United Airlines. I was a Boeing 767 co-pilot and in 87, I think it was either the fall of 87 or the winter of 88 right after the New year, I was flying a 767 from Washington DC to San Francisco and an air traffic controller wanted to know if they could ride in the cockpit. The captain of the plane signed it off. So, this young lady was the air traffic controller. I was flying, it was my leg from DC to San Francisco.

‘We’re flying and he’s just talking to her halfway across the country and at some point, he asked her how long she’d worked at San Francisco Airport. She hadn’t been there that long, she said she used to work at Sac Metro. I looked over my shoulder at this young lady and I said Were you working Sac Metro in 1982? She looked at me and she said yeah, I was, why do you ask? I said Were you working tower when the SR-71 buzzed it? Oh yeah, I was how did you know that and I told her it was me and she started laughing. She said you scared the hell out of people, there were people in the terminal that dived to the ground. They thought the airplane was going to hit the turf.’

Be sure to check out Linda Sheffield Miller (Col Richard (Butch) Sheffield’s daughter, Col. Sheffield was an SR-71 Reconnaissance Systems Officer) Facebook Pages Habubrats SR-71 and Born into the Wilde Blue Yonder for awesome Blackbird’s photos and stories.

Photo credit: Unknown