Five Finds: American Plane Made of Soviet Metal

SR-71 was built with Soviet titanium, modern cars look the same and beavers are cool.

Drowning under work tasks, so forgive me for not adding much of a prelude here! Enjoy!

SR-71 Blackbird Was Built With Russian Titanium—And They Never Knew

During the A‑12/SR‑71 program, the CIA used front companies and third‑country intermediaries to obtain Soviet titanium because the USSR dominated the world's supply. Ben Rich of Lockheed’s Skunk Works described how dummy firms quietly purchased the “base metal” from the Soviets without them realizing it would build the aircraft spying on them. ​

The SR-71 is a fascinating airplane that we'll never see again. On February 5, 1970, the Pentagon ordered all SR‑71 production tooling destroyed—forms, jigs, and 40,000 parts—to avoid storage costs and ensure the Blackbird would never be rebuilt.

The SR‑71 evaded interception by combining extreme altitude (over 25 km) with Mach 3+ speed (about 3,500 km/h). Its unique engines switched modes mid‑flight by using supersonic shock waves for thrust.

Those same shock waves heated the airframe so much that pilots were forbidden to touch the cockpit glass — it would melt their gloves. And this is why they needed the titanium.

The Blackbird was basically a flying fuel tank — over 38 tons of fuel in five unprotected tanks heating to 175°C in flight. Shell developed a special fuel that wouldn’t ignite even if lit with a match. But the seals leaked on the ground. The tanks sealed as the airframe heated and stretched by centimeters in flight.

It was the only plane capable of flying New York–London in 1h 55m (40% faster than Concorde). Crews often launched from the U.S., refueled multiple times, and flew directly to the Soviet Union and back, sometimes seeing three sunrises in one day.

I highly recommend Ben Rich’s memoir on Skunk Works, which is easily the best book I have read this year.

Why do new cars look like this?

There was a period when premium car brands like Mercedes switched to matte paint. But more recently they started using the so-called wet-putty, which looks matte and glossy at the same time.

So now, most modern cars have the same uncanny CGI-like look. Personally, I really like it, but few share this opinion!

This car paint with glossy yet low-flake, gray-dulled hues was popularized by luxury brands like Porsche and Audi’s Nardo Grey and has finally spread into mass-market.

Mind for the bicycle

"Humans aren’t very efficient movers—until you put us on a bicycle, when we become some of the most energy-efficient land travelers in the animal kingdom."

Beaver-engineered dam in the Czech Republic

The Czech government planned to spend $1.2 million and a few years to build a series of dams in the Brdy Protected Landscape Area.

In a span of one week, a family of beavers constructed the dams for free, in the exact locations that humans picked, accomplishing the very goals set by the Czech government.

Go beavers!

Curated Supply

The name speaks for itself — this is a great catalog of well-designed, carefully curated products good and devices for multiple categories. Love these things, want to buy everything already!