I think NASA was flying a couple of 'em. I do know there is a dead one on display at the Air and Space museum in San Diego. Might require a late night, clandestine operation and a truckload of cordless drills and carbide bits. (just kidddddiiiiiiiiig mr. government eavesdropper, sir <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />)

According to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-71

80% of the titanium skin was rejected due to metallurgical flaws. There's our canoe!! Where'd they stash that stuff??? <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Goes on to say:

"The Air Force quickly disposed of their SR-71s, leaving NASA with the two last flyable Blackbirds until 1999.[23] All other Blackbirds have been moved to museums except for the two SR-71s and a few D-21 drones retained by the NASA Dryden Research Center.[22]"


Me again....SR71's were crazy expensive to fly. The "Aurora" project was to replace it....and I'm not sure it made it to production. Turns out that all the unmanned drones (predator, global hawk, et al) than can loiter over spots of days provide much better coverage, and much lower operational cost.