SR-71

The day before we visited the Cosmosphere we visited the Strategic Air & Space Museum, which has in its lobby an SR-71 Blackbird, suspended on pillars, flying right toward the ticket desk. When we walked into the lobby, I said to my wife, "It isn't every day that you come nose to nose with an SR-71."

When we arrived at the Cosmosphere the next day, we found that they also have an SR-71 displayed in a nearly-identical fashion in their lobby. I said to my wife, "I guess it is every day that you come nose to nose with an SR-71." (However, then-CEO Chris Orwoll assured me that the Cosmosphere had their Blackbird first.)

The Cosmosphere's lobby was literally built around the SR-71, with barely enough room to walk around the nose of it, much less get photographs of the entire aircraft, so I have only a limited number of photos (plus, the Cosmosphere has so much 1960s Space Race stuff that I didn't spend the time trying to figure out how to get good pictures of their SR-71).

Although I didn't get a shot of it, the plane's tail number is 61-7961 (aka 17961).