The Pratt & Whitney J58 was a jet engine that powered a long-range, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft operated by who?
Pratt &amp; Whitney J58 The Pratt & Whitney J58 (company designation JT11D-20) was a jet engine that powered the Lockheed A-12, and subsequently the YF-12 and the SR-71 aircraft. The J58 was a single-spool turbojet with an afterburner. It had a unique bleed from the compressor to the afterburner which gave increased thrust at high speeds. This feature caused it to be referred to as a turboramjet in some writings. It delivered 25,000 pound-force (110 kN) of thrust without afterburner (dry) and 34,000 (150 kN) with afterburner (wet).
George J. Mead George Jackson Mead (December 27, 1891 Everett, Massachusetts – January 20, 1949 Hartford, Connecticut) was an American aircraft engineer. He is best known as one of the chief founding team members, together with Frederick Rentschler, of Pratt & Whitney Aircraft. Mead and Rentschler left Wright Aeronautical with the plan to start their own aviation-related business; they founded Pratt & Whitney Aircraft in July 1925. Their first project was to build a new, large, air-cooled, radial aircraft engine of Mead's design, which soon came to be named the Wasp. The first Wasp model was the R-1340, and a large series of Wasp models and Hornet models followed. Mead, as Vice President of Engineering, was the head of engineering for Pratt & Whitney from 1925 to 1935. He later left Pratt & Whitney and its parent United Aircraft. He served as the president of the U.S. National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and he served as head of the aeronautical section of the National Defense Advisory Commission during World War II, as a manager in the U.S. government's war materiel production effort.