joy magnetism: It's a bird! It's a plane!




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Wednesday, July 30, 2008

It's a bird! It's a plane!

Magnet #159 - SR-71 Blackbird

So I remember when I first heard of Stealth bombers. There was some news report back in the late 80s. And I remember thinking, Hey, cool. We have invisible planes.

Ummm, yeah. Somehow I convinced myself that we had Romulan cloaking technology, or Wonder Woman's invisible jet.

Shut. Up. I know.

I've since learned that we don't. They're not really invisible. Imagine that.

Now imagine me a few years ago, walking around the little shop at the National Air and Space Museum out at Dulles, and picking out this SR-71 Blackbird magnet, as a pokey little reminder that Stealths are not really invisible.

Now imagine me starting to write this post and saying, Huh. Apparently, SR-71 Blackbirds (unveiled in 1964) are NOT the same as the F-117 Stealth Nighthawks that they unveiled in 1989.

Sigh. Yep. You learn something new every day, I guess.

Still. It's a pretty sweet magnet.


eta:
Ok, ok. My only consolation is that the SR-71 is actually a precursor to the F-117. Which makes me feel a tiny bit better. Heh.
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8 comments:

The Geek said...

Pretty cool magnet indeed, since (if I'm looking at the picture right) it's also a bottle opener.

Gotta love inanimate objects that can multitask.

joy said...

Thanks. It's true, it *is* a bottle opener. I've got a couple of them that do that, including one that my friend brought me back from Korea. So funny, cuz that one had to be pointed out to me. Heh.

Anonymous said...

My magnet of the sr-71 broke. Would you be willing to sell me this one you have there?

joy said...

No, I'm sorry - I haven't gotten into the buying/selling aspect of magnet collecting. But thanks for the interest!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the speedy response! That magnet is surprisingly very special to me. Are there any special markings on the back on it to narrow down my search of an exact one. The one I had bought was from the Air and Space Museum in Washington,DC in 2007. When I googled 'SR-71' and 'magnet' I found you. It's the identical one. Can't find it elsewhere.

joy said...

To be honest, if it means that much to you - I'm perfectly willing to give it to you, but not sell it. Please contact me at joy_abella [at] gmail.com and we can work it out.

Won't lie, though, I just pulled her off my magnet board and the magnet itself just came off. I can gluegun it back on, though.

Anonymous said...

I tried to email you. the first one didnt pass because i used the underscore. i tried to email w/o it, not sure if it went through. Maybe it's in your spam box on accident?

joy said...

OMG, so sorry. I'm an idiot - it's because I gave you 2 halves of 2 email addresses. Oiy.

Use Ljoyabella@gmail.com. That should do it. :-)