Habu Rises (Maybe)

Totally titillating, with all sorts of intrigue: an SR-71 Blackbird has quietly vanished from its spot at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base, and word is NASA has been looking into whether it could fly again.

Let me explain why this matters to me. I'm obsessed with airplanes and helicopters, especially the military kind. As a kid in the 1980s, my bedroom ceiling was an over-engineered system of cords, designed by my indulgent parents so I could display every model I built. I'd wake up as the sun was rising and feel like I was watching Apocalypse Now or Battle of Britain play out above my bed.

When I saw Top Gun, I knew my future was set. I wasn't going to fly the fighter jets. I was going to design them. A career at Boeing seemed like the natural step. I could build beautiful models, so obviously next came an engineering degree from the University of Washington, a pocket protector, and some horn-rimmed glasses.

Turns out I suck at math. I failed physics on my first try in college, and the Boeing career that had defined generations of my family was not going to be my story.

Yes, I know the Blackbird is a Lockheed creation. It's still the pinnacle of American aeronautics. F-14 Tomcats and my best guess at what the stealth Nighthawk actually looked like all made it to my ceiling, but my favorite was always the Blackbird. Seeing that thing fly would be the culmination of every aspiration I had as a 1980s model builder.

I'll never forget going to the Museum of Flight at fifteen for a presentation by a pilot who had actually flown one. The Cold War had been over less than a year. Statues of Lenin had just come down across Eastern Europe, one of them still a couple years away from being resurrected in Fremont. The pilot was in full-blown, war-victor, peak-testosterone mode, and he kept calling his plane the Habu, after the snake on Okinawa where he launched from. It was the coolest thing I had ever heard.

So yeah, they might be bringing this thing back for some undisclosed reason. If they need someone to design upgrades, I'm available. Just don't ask me to do the math.