What causes the SR71s engines to stall?
The SR71’s engines can stall or unstart during supersonic flight rather easily. These are caused by shockwaves coming from off the plane entering into the engine. This shockwave will stop the engine cold. Most of the time the engine restarts quickly, but a good portion of the accidents the Blackbird was involved in are due to engine unstarts. The SR71 does has airspikes in the engines that automatically move in and out to stop the shockwaves from entering the engine. This fixes the problem most of the time. In fact without these spikes (designed by Ben Rich of Skunk Works) the Habu couldn’t fly at all. A few Shockwaves still can get through, but it doesn’t cause too much of a problem. Back to the top!
