I find HN's infatuation with SR-71 kind of amusing. I think the site should have a logo that's the SR-71 flying over a globe or something similar. If you think about it the Y logo kind of looks like an SR-71... :)
Well, for me personally, SR-71 is one of those childhood geek objects of idolation that grows in stature inverse to the rest of the things one finds interesting when they are in their pre-teens and how they look like 25 years later. Most of the things one finds fun and insipirational then end up looking quite silly now.
Unlike the Blackbird. The more one understands about how engineering projects go, how work is organized and how hard it's to do anything novel ones appreciation of the plane and the organization that built it and operated it grows enormously.
It's not just the SR-71 as it is almost any example of exceptional and unusual engineering. You'll also see semi-frequent posts about Concorde, gigantic cargo ships, space launch rockets, iconic high-end cars, etc.
And I don't know why it would be remotely remarkable that a group of nerds finds that stuff interesting.
The SR-71 was an impressive engineering feat because it successfully brought together a bunch of really crazy tech and got it to work. All of this with a relatively small team and stone-age (by modern standards) computational ability.
The A-10 was an impressive engineering feat because it perfectly executed a very boring and conservative design. It did one thing, did it very well, and was so reliable it arguably put its producer out of business.
If I had to draw a comparison to software, I'd compare the SR71 with Erlang, and the A-10 with Postgres.
They were both such impressive pieces of engineering execution that they completely changed their respective games. They may be old now, but they are engineering success stories worth admiring.
