[DownloadADOBEsoftware]

How come one of the world's fastest planes can't keep up with a sluggardly tanker without afterburners?


I remember hearing that they had to keep SR-71s in heated hangars to reduce distortion as they cooled down after getting really hot in flight, and they still leaked fuel.

It's only meant to cruise at Mach 3.2 and do nothing else so the entire plane is optimised to to that and that alone.
Yes it can fly at low speeds but it's not very good at it. The tanker plane is going flat-out but it's still too slow for the Blackbird.

I haven't heard about the heated hanger thing but yes they used to leak fuel quite a lot as again they were built to operate only at highs-speed and so all those gaps closed-up when it got hot and they stopped leaking. Another reason why they'd often take off with low fuel.