This is such a good lecture! It's the story of innovations (under incredible time pressure) at Locked Martin's skunkworks.
If you don't have time, tease yourself with a start at 26:29.
26:30 the extreme conditions of operation of the SR-71 plane
- at Mach 3 the plane world stretch 3" because of friction-heating
- regular electronics, fuel, and lubricants of the time wouldn't function at it's operating conditions.
-the fuel tanks get so hot that regular fuels would spontaneously combust, so they had to find a heavier fuel with a high flash point.*
29:19 at peak altitude, the cone in front of the engine provides about 70% of the thrust, the afterburners about 25%, and the actual turbine inside the engine, about 5%.
30:04 Some problems were not solved. There was no existing sealant for the fuel lines that would work across all operating temperatures, so they simply didn't completely seal the system, allowing it to just sit there and spill fuel on the ground when awaiting takeoff.
(and speaking of fuel)
32:07 the plane couldn't generate enough lift to get an adequate amount of fuel airborne, so it depended on mid-air fueling just to reach cruising altitude and complete a mission.
34:56 it was literally faster than the muzzle velocity of a speeding bullet
Since this YouTube is ultimately a lecture about team leadership, he explains his favorite over-arching skunkworks rules. (Kelly Johnson's rules)
47:00 Use a small number of people ("must be restricted in a vicious manner")
Good leaders hire good people and trust them to do good work. They can't be completely "hands-off" - give them context and the information they need to make the right decisions. (50:18 But not so much context that they turn off their brains and wait to be told what to do.)
Have a very simple drawing (and drawing release) system that allows great flexibility.
One objective - get a good airplane built on time. (They compromised on things that wouldn't get the plane delivered on time.)
Provide incredible freedom and trust in your team.
*"At the speeds at which the SR-71 operates, lighting the afterburner has been equated to "keeping a candle lit in a hurricane". The higher boiling point of JP-7 keeps it from vaporising readily, and the exhaust velocity is pretty high, making sustained combustion problematic. A reliable method had to be found to ignite the excess fuel dumped into the combustion chamber, TriEthylBorane ignites spontaneously in contact with oxygen generating very high temperatures thus ensuring that the engine 'catches' on the first strike." -Quora
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