Simon, I've stood next to that drone at the US Air Force Museum. If you are ever in the greater Dayton Ohio area, they have an awesome museum!

Simon: "I have a new KZfaq channel..." Me (checks watch): "Is it Thursday already...?"

"Due to a damaged nut" Always check your nuts, gentlemen.

I've seen both in person at the US Air Force Museum in Dayton OH. Pretty incredible. Stored in the same hanger as the XB-70 Valkyrie which is just INSANELY massive.

The museum of flight in Seattle has the only m21, with a d21 on top of it. In the Chinese Aviation Museum, they have the wreckage of the D21 which crashed in China. I might have a picture of myself standing next to it. I recommend both museums. The China Aviation Museum has lots of things you won’t see elsewhere. It’s in a retired Cold War Chinese Air Force base, so lots of the exhibits are in the tunnel under the hill. Just be prepared for Korean War MIGs with rows of stars representing combat kills.

Turns out that making a drone with 60s computer tech is hard.

I remember when the D-21 was brought into the public knowledge. The government didn’t release the photos,they were taken by an IPMS member (International Plastic Modelers Society)who was taking a tour of the Boneyard at Davis Monthan AFB when he saw a strange aircraft whose tarpolin cover had come loose and blown off. He shared the pictures with his fellow IPMS members and with a modeling magazine. The cat was out of the bag at that point. The rest is history.

Do a mega projects on Simon's house! 😎

Simon, Babbish, and Sean Evans gettin me through the pandemic. Thank you, gentlemen.

Simon's channels can be a megaproject.

How about a megaprojects about the German baureihe 52, the kriegslok or War locomotive

here in the UK we use a mash of absolutely all kinds of measurements from imperial and metric, we use pounds and kilos, cm and inches and so on but speed, distances and altitude are ALWAYS miles and feet and temperature is always Celsius

Simon with his 1 million sideprojects.

Everytime Simon promotes "Sideprojects" I genuinly think first he started yet another one

Remember when they stashed Naked Snake into one of these in Metal Gear Solid 3? Good times.

They sent a Destroyer to recover a fragile film cannister and were surprised when the cannister was destroyed. Well, what did they expect would happen? It's right in the name, destroyer. It's obviously going to destroy anything around it. Destroy destroy destroy. You ever hear a word so many times that it stops making sense all together? Yeah, me neither. I wonder if you can restroy something or unstroy? What the hell is this jibberish! My mind is broken now, Tom!

Do a Megaprojects video on the massive amount of effort that goes into the work and life of Simon Whistler.

The Boii with the Blaze was strong in this one. Almost sounded like you started to say Perchthemech

Love the subject diversity and quality of your channels, Simon. Thanks to you and your team for great viewing information and pleasure. Happy New Year!

When the Soviet’s find a crashed D-21 with photos of china’s nuclear test site “It’s free reconnaissance”

That one went on top of my G.I. JOE SR-71! A classic!

I remember the GI Joe toy it was a Cobra plane called the Night Raven and it basically was a SR-71 that had a drone piggyback.

The PIMA AIR & SPACE MUSEUM has a LOCKHEED D-21B along with their LOCKHEED SR-71A BLACKBIRD. I was a member there when I lived in Arizona. Remarkable museum. Literally across the street from Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Az (also the location of "The Bone Yard"). The Titan Missile Museum in Green Valley Arizona, about a half hour drive south of Tucson is also a very worthwhile museum to visit. There were many Titan Silos there once. This is the only one that still exists, as a museum. The missile that is in the silo came from Sheppard AFB as a training missile. I was stationed at Sheppard in 1972. It has been used in several movies and has a large square cut-out of the warhead so that the "Soviets" could see it in the silo from space to verify U.S. compliance with a treaty. There's nothing else like it. Thanks for posting this excellent and educational video.

Thanks for another great project, Simon!

Now this is a megaproject.

KZfaq: "How many channels do you have?" Simon: "Yes"

Once again thank you for your mega projects channel, and thank you for doing such a good job with it, not many channels impress me at all !!!

Simon: ...disappeared just as quickly as it appeared... Me: it broke a Blackbird

Thank you for this D-21 Drone Video!

I once spoke with an older man, who worked on this drone. It was in the Tucson Pima Air & Space Museum Really amazing!

Simon thanks for another super video bud.

Great as usual. Thanks

I've been waiting for this one!! But also, you should do the Seawolf submarine class. Lots and lots of interesting unclassified history!

Best presentation of 2021 ... yet! ;-)

Love the content of these videos.

Wonderful video. The Surviving M-21 / D-21 set is on display at the Boeing Museum Of Flight right out side of Downtown Seattle. The original Boeing headquarters is also a part of the MoF - the Red Barn. I have been to the Boeing MoF more times then I can remember ; seeing the M-21 / D-21 pair is always awe inspiring. Also there is a recovered cockpit from a SR-71 that crashed - you can sit in that cockpit.

The Museum of Flight in Seattle has one, mated with a M-21 "mother ship". I was fortunate to be able to see this last March.

How about a video on the Douglas DC-3? The plane helped win a war, kickstarted an entire industry, is one of the most beautiful ever designed and is the only aircraft ever to have no expiration date.

Random factinos: The Soviet reverse-engineered version was the Tupolev Voron (ворон, Russian for 'Raven'). It never got beyond the prototyping stage, the Soviets deciding to concentrate on satellite recon instead. The wreckage of the D-21 recovered by China is on display at the Chinese Aviation Museum in Beijing. There's an M-21/D-21 pair on display at the Seattle Museum of Aviation.

Imagine living in the Soviet Union or China and having one of those crash in your backyard. I’d prolly think it was a UFO at first

Nice. I've wondered about this as the static display SR-71 at March AFB's museum which I visited about 5 years ago, had one of these exhibited with it without much to say about it.

We all know Simon almost said "Purch the merch" at 0:31. Don't worry, Simon, we are all Business Blaze fans.

Keep 'em comin' 🤜🤛

The one pictured at 6:42 is at the Boeing Air and Space Museum in Seattle. They also have an SR-71 cockpit section that you can sit in and a start cart (2 Buick Wildcat V8 engines) used to start the engines.

As always great job and looking forward to SkunkWorks video!

You should do a video on SLAM aka "the flying crowbar" the most terrifying weapon, thankfully, never built

Always a good video.

Another excellent video, thanks Simon. If you're keen to do another video on an amazing aircraft, have a look at the Miles M.52. If you haven't heard about it, it was a late WW2 British secret project to build the first supersonic manned aircraft. It differed from the Bell X-1 in that it was powered by a Whittle jet engine with a huge afterburner system that was the precursor to the SR-71's bypass afterburner system, and it would have taken-off from the ground under its own power as well. Eric Brown was earmarked to fly it as he was a short chap and could fit into the small cockpit. In 1946 with the change of government, the project was cancelled with no official reason given.

Never knew about this drone and looking forward to the skunk works!

Brilliant as ever Simon, thank you. A video on the US Air Force 'Quail' decoy drone might be interesting for either of your 'project' channels.

When you mentioned picking up the D-21 mid-air with a C-130, it brought back to mind a similar mission of the C-130 you might want to do. They had a mission to pluck people from off the ground while flying. It involved a small balloon released by the person on the ground waiting to be picked up. The balloon carried a wire attached to a harness on the person. A hook would snag the person and pull them off the ground and they would then crank the cable in and retrieve the person. I believe it was for CIA and other similar people like Special Forces that needed extraction from hostile territory.

Your channels totally seem like mass produced WatchMojo clickbaity stuff, but you really know your stuff. These videos are incredibly entertaining and the facts are almost always spot on. Definitely getting some merch to support your endeavors.

My grandfather worked in the Skunk works program for quite sometime in a joint project with Pratt & Whitney & others. Only thing he ever talked about was his involvement with the F-14 Afterburner project to launch from carriers. He was involved in much more from what my dad has said and hope that one day he will tell me.

Derpface D-21 is something I didn't know I needed

Recently saw one of these at the Castle Air Museum. It was at the restoration hanger where they're restoring an F-117. I kinda knew it was a drone of some sort when I first saw it since it had the same shapes and color as the blackbird (they have one btw). Never knew they existed till that day.

One of ma favourite drones 👍🏽

If you ever played Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater you've recognize this. It's how Naked Snake infiltrated Russia. PS: it's also the inspiration for a GI JOE Cobra vehicle called the Night Raven.👍😉

Growing up in the 80s its interesting how many SR-71 toys had this drone affixed to them. Matter of fact, im not sure i ever saw a die cast toy or model of the Blackbird that DIDN'T have the drone attached back then

Simon: skunks works. I haven’t read it but it’s coming up. Super cool 😂😂😂

My dad would tell me about the blackbird and this drone and how cool it was when I was a kid. I figured it was just more cool aviation stuff he knew since he was in the Air Force during Vietnam and worked at McDonnell Douglas for years. Then about 5 years ago he tells me that he worked on this crazy plane. Well it all made sense then as most of what he knew wasn’t stuff from a book at that time and he had the forward silhouette of an sr-71 painted on his crate from when he was in the service when no one knew it even existed. The reason he told me about this was because he was excited that he had run into a guy he worked with on the plane at the grocery store wearing a bomber jacket with the haku patch from his unit. My dad was already pretty cool before he told me. Now his coolness cruises around 80,000 ft at Mach 3.

Exceptional! 👍😀👍

some craft i dint had any knowleage about, thats good, i dont need to know more , thank you.

Thank you

The Black Bird had many versions, including a prototype super high altitude bomber capable of carrying even the largest nuclear weapons.

Fun fact, there is one housed in the Mcminville Aircraft Museum... when it was open in Oregon. The thing is HUGE.

Love that design. Will live on in the SR-72.

I want to see Simon's mansion he paid for with all these KZfaq videos

Knowledge before work, well played.

Bro are there enough hours in the day for all your channels? You have to be the busiest dude on KZfaq. Respect!

Luv u Simon

Awesome machine👍

Almost plugged the Business Blaze merch store at the beginning there. I like it.

Love the content and other channels

Didn't even know this variant existed, cool!

This isa megaproject. Excellent

Not that you'd need any help researching, but the book Skunk Works by Ben Rich (former director of said organisation) is a really good read and incredibly interesting if you haven't already read it. And thanks for another great video!

As a kid I’d obsess over this Revell model SR-71, and on the box cover picture it showed a small, cockpitless miniature version next to the Black Bird, and I never knew what the hell it was. External weapon? Scaled down test version? With no internet back then, it just bothered me the whole time. 20 years later, I find out it’s this! Thanks, internet.

well done

We have a D-21 Drone at the "Southern Museum of Flight" in Birmingham, Alabama....along with an A-12 Blackbird (Oxcart), the Faster, Yes FASTER, single seat model !

I love the dichotomy between No Fudging Around Simon on Megaprojects and WTFBBQ Simon on Business Blaze

Cool saw one at Blackbird park out by the Skunkworks few years back

So glad you did this and that you are going to be doing skunk works...

We have one here on display at the Boeing Museum of Flight here in Seattle if anybody cares to see one in person. They even have it perched on top of an A12

I believe there is one at the Air Park in Palmdale CA (on Ave. P). There is also an SR 71 along many other aircraft.

Soviets had couple of similar devices. Some were photographing England on regular basis. Tu-123 Jastreb for example. And of course the well known Tu-143 Reys with shorter range.

Good video 👍

Never heard of this one. It's crazy to think that they attempted such a high speed drone so many decades ago.

The D-21 has a menacing look that wouldn't be out of place in a sci-fi film.

13:30 omfg i just cant.

I haven’t seen it yet if it’s been done, but I’d love to see a video on the A-10 Thunderbolt. My favorite plane ever.

The craziest jet they made at skunkworks is the SR-71 because it's late 50s tech. 50s tech 🤯

My dad was a Skunk Works employee 1964 - 1980. I know he was on the A-12 / SR-71 contract, and a couple of follow - on / support deals afterwards. Wonder if he did any of the machine or fab work on the D-21.

11:56 Well, that caught me off guard but I love it! 13:30 And again!

I'd like an in-depth video of the inspiration for R2-D2! The astro-computer which kind of worked as an auto pilot for the SR-71!

You can find what appears like a couple of these drones on satellite pictures (Google Earth) of Edwards Airforce Base between 2002 and 2006, seemingly "lying around" near the MDD (Spaceshuttle loading/mating rig (now demolished)) in the most northern area of the main base, if you're interested...

Can you please update you playlist with all your videos. I love to put it on and listen to it through out the day.

Excellent as always, possible future mega project the thorny Croft antar tank transporter

Please do one on the Newport News ship building

There's a Bomarc missile site in Bangor Maine right near where I live. Old silos down in the ground. Cool bit of history

12:01 imagine being the captain of the ship who just sailed over and destroyed the camera.