Hey, I just returned from a visit to an airplane museum that featured fighter jets. After a few minutes of checking out an SR-71, something caught my eye: two nailhead Buicks mounted on a portable vehicle that are used to start the engines on the plane. There was a plaque next to it that idendified them as "427 cubic inch Buick V8s." Anybody know if Buick ever made 427s? Or, perhaps it was a mistake by someone working for the museum.
I had heard that they used a pair of 500HP nailhead 425 engines to start the SR--71 Blackbird. Must of been a typo.
This SR-71 display is at the Museum of Flight in South Seattle at Boeing Field. Both those engines are 455s. When nobody was looking I snuck over the rope and checked the codes. Both are 70 blocks. It makes for an assume looking starter cart! John
A budy of mine at work says the one at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base museum has two 425 nailheads. :bglasses: I haven't been up to check it out yet. Mike
It must have been a typo. I've never heard of a Buick 427 either. Just for kicks, I did a search on Yahoo! and found this web page http://www.standard1320.com/Ivo/Buicks/SingleBuick/SingleBuick.html It might be a typo too, but it's a cool feature anyhow. Incidentally, the SR-71 I saw was at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. I did a little research on it too and discovered it was the only SR-71C ever built. The back half of it is actually from another plane that had crashed! Kinda interesting.
