Inspired by Captain Jack
I very much enjoyed Scott Fisher’s article “Knight Flier,” which appeared in the November 2006 issue. Jack Knight was a boyhood hero of mine, and he had a great influence on my life. I was pleased to learn more about him in the pages of Aviation History Magazine.

I first learned about Knight’s amazing career in 1955 from the book Pilot Jack Knight, the cover of which appeared on P. 37 of Fisher’s article. Just seeing that cover again brought back many memories. I must have read that book 10 times during the next three years. I also read everything else I could find in the school library about aviation, but there wasn’t much available. At the same time I began building and flying model planes.

At 18 I started taking flying lessons, and I received my private ticket a year later. Immediately after college, I earned my commercial license and an instrument
and multiengine rating. I applied to nearly every airline after that, and United was the first to offer me a job. I flew for United for the next 37 years, beginning with the Douglas DC-6 and ending my career flying Boeing 777s to Beijing. The inspiration I found in one book about one American hero led to all of this.

Life has been good to me, and I have tried to give a little back over the years by taking many children for rides in my small plane. At last count, the number was over 300.

Captain Monty Mendenhall (ret.)
Thomasville, N.C.

When I saw the portrait of Jack Knight that appeared on P. 39 of Scott Fisher’s excellent article, it rang a bell. I started plowing through my old toys, knowing I had seen it before. Enclosed is a photo of the box cover of a rare Built-Rite toy airplane hangar, the “United Airlines Hangar,” approved by Captain Jack Knight himself.
The Warren Paper Company of Lafay­ette, Ind., marketed a variety of sturdy card-stock toy buildings such as this one, including dollhouses, farm sets, commercial buildings, etc. These toys were primarily produced during the 1930s and ’40s under the Built-Rite trademark. The United Airlines hangar originally sold for $2 or less. Depending on condition, it is now worth from $85 to $200.

Luther E. Franklin
Issaquah, Wash.

Blackbirds’ Last Flights
Allow me to clarify a few points raised in the “Legacy of Flight” department of the November 2006 issue about the Lockheed SR-71. That piece mentioned that the Blackbird was permanently retired in 2001.

Coy Cross, historian for the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., points out that the final Air Force flight of an SR-71 occurred on October 10, 1997, when Major Burt Gar­rison and Captain Domingo Ocho­to­rena flew a sortie out of Edwards Air Force Base in SR-71 Serial No. 61-7967. NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards continued to fly SR-71A (Serial No. 61-7980) and the SR-71B trainer version (Serial No. 7956) for another year or two. The SR-71B last flew in late 1998, and the final flight of NASA’s 71A took place on October 9, 1999. That plane had actually been slated to perform during an Edwards airshow and open house the following weekend, but it developed a hydraulic leak, so the demonstration had to be canceled.

Mike Relja, who provided technical and logistical support for the SR-71 fleet at both Beale and NASA Dryden, filled in a few more details on the Blackbirds’ retirement. After the Air Force stopped flying its two remaining SR-71s, they were turned over to NASA Dryden through the General Services Administration in 1999. That meant Dryden was responsible for the last four flyable SR-71s, three A models and one B model.

Dryden had hoped to retain access to the SR-71’s high-speed capability for at least five years after its last project on the aircraft concluded in 1999. But because there were no further projects involving the SR-71 on the horizon—and also because the aircraft were very expensive to maintain in flying condition—the decision was made in 2002 to retire both the two SR-71s at NASA Dryden and the other two SR-71As that were still in flyable storage at Edwards. The two military SR-71As and SR-71B at Dryden were transferred back to the Air Force, which then transferred them to the National Museum of the Air Force. They were later loaned to other aerospace mu­seums. NASA retained ownership of 61-7980, which is now on display at NASA Dryden, less than 150 feet from my office.

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