To manufacture new SR-71 parts today, modern aerospace facilities utilize cutting-edge metallurgy that bypasses the rigid, subtractive machining limits of the 1960s.
Modern Titanium Fabrication Techniques
•Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing): Techniques like Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) and Electron Beam Melting (EBM) build complex titanium components layer-by-layer directly from CAD models. This eliminates the massive waste of traditional machining (where up to 90% of a titanium block was cut away) and allows for internal cooling channels that were impossible to engineer during the Cold War.
•Direct Energy Deposition (DED): For large-scale components like the SR-71's structural spars or fuselage ribs, Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) or Laser-Metal Deposition melts titanium wire or powder via a robotic arm to rapidly build large, near-net-shape structures that only require minimal final machining.
•Superplastic Forming and Diffusion Bonding (SPF/DB): Titanium becomes highly ductile at elevated temperatures. Modern presses blow argon gas into sheets of titanium inside a heated die to stretch it into complex aerodynamic skin panels (Superplastic Forming). Simultaneously, atomic bonds can fuse separate sheets together without weld lines (Diffusion Bonding), ensuring structural integrity at Mach 3+ thermal thresholds.
•High-Efficiency Machining (HEM): For parts that still require milling, modern multi-axis CNC machines use advanced trochoidal toolpaths and liquid nitrogen (cryogenic) cooling. This keeps the titanium and the solid-carbide tools cool, entirely preventing the work-hardening and chemical embrittlement issues that plagued original Lockheed machinists.
it’s much easier today to manufacture titanium parts than it was in the early 1960s
Linda Sheffield
Boeing Wins F/A-XX Next Generation Navy Stealth Fighter Contract
F/A-XX has been a very highly anticipated contract award, especially after the Pentagon previously tried to freeze the program.
https://t.co/eI8EKj1CJ9
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NO WAY.
> OpenAI just announced Dots.
> SpaceXAI bought https://t.co/WdFqpl07IQ
it redirects straight to the Grok Bot download page. based lmao.
Two things I know about the paper smearing Jordan Bardella over words he allegedly wrote, at age 17.
Its founder, Edwy Plenel, still ran that paper until 2024.
He stood with the men who murdered eleven Israeli athletes in Munich.
He wrote: “No revolutionary can dissociate himself from Black September. We must unconditionally defend the militants of this organization against repression.”
That paper then passed to Carine Fouteau. She called October 7 an “unjustifiable attack.” As if the Hamas massacre were a typo in a cheesecake recipe.
She calls Israel a colonial state and wants sanctions for genocide. If Jews are colonists in Judea, on which piece of earth are Jews natives?
Set that against Jordan Bardella:
*He is one of the clearest voices in Europe against Hamas.
*He visited the Nova site and the communities of the Gaza envelope. He met survivors.
*He spoke in Jerusalem against antisemitism.
*He was already in Washington when Steve Bannon made a gesture that looked like a Nazi salute. Bardella cancelled his speech on the spot.
Like the leftists in Israel, the leftists in France are experts at character assassination.
We have zero trust in people who spend their adult lives fighting the right of the small Jewish state to exist. And we are done taking the word of anyone whose heart once filled with admiration for the men who murdered our athletes on German soil.