A look back: SR-71 Blackbird

If you've been enjoy looking at old manuals to get a feeling for how much (or how little) has changed about technical writing over the years, here's one that will really give you some things to think about. It's the declassified flight manual for the SR-71. A Usable Help reader observes that the fastest aircraft ever built has, at best, a Stone Age manual. But at just over 1,000 pages it's shorter than the manual for, say, Final Cut Studio.

I also enjoyed the SR-71 Quick Reference Card (aka Functional Check Flight Manual) with its minimalist approach to troubleshooting and organization. Thanks for the link, Jack DeLand.

Posted: July 8, 2006 link to this item, Tweet this item, respond to this item