Lockheed SR-71
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The Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird" is a long-range, high-altitude, Mach 3+
strategic Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the "art ...
reconnaissance aircraft A reconnaissance aircraft (colloquially, a spy plane) is a military aircraft designed or adapted to perform aerial reconnaissance with roles including collection of imagery intelligence (including using photography), signals intelligence, as ...
developed and manufactured by the American aerospace company
Lockheed Corporation The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace manufacturer. Lockheed was founded in 1926 and later merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin in 1995. Its founder, Allan Lockheed, had earlier founded the similarly named but ot ...
. It was operated by the
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Si ...
(USAF) and
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...
. The SR-71 was developed as a black project from the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft during the 1960s by Lockheed's
Skunk Works Skunk Works is an official pseudonym for Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs (ADP), formerly called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects. It is responsible for a number of aircraft designs, beginning with the P-38 Lightning in ...
division. American aerospace engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson was responsible for many of the aircraft's innovative concepts. The shape of the SR-71 was based on that of the A-12, which was one of the first aircraft to be designed with a reduced
radar cross-section Radar cross-section (RCS), also called radar signature, is a measure of how detectable an object is by radar. A larger RCS indicates that an object is more easily detected. An object reflects a limited amount of radar energy back to the source. ...
. Initially, a
bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an air ...
variant of the A-12 was requested by Curtis LeMay, before the program was focused solely on reconnaissance. Mission equipment for the reconnaissance role included
signals intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of '' signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ...
sensors,
side looking airborne radar Side-looking airborne radar (SLAR) is an aircraft- or satellite-mounted imaging radar pointing perpendicular to the direction of flight (hence ''side-looking''). A squinted (nonperpendicular) mode is possible also. SLAR can be fitted with a st ...
, and a camera; the SR-71 was both longer and heavier than the A-12, allowing it to hold more fuel as well as a two-seat cockpit. The SR-71 entered service in January 1966. During
aerial reconnaissance Aerial reconnaissance is reconnaissance for a military or strategic purpose that is conducted using reconnaissance aircraft. The role of reconnaissance can fulfil a variety of requirements including artillery spotting, the collection of im ...
missions, the SR-71 operated at high speeds and altitudes (Mach 3.2 and ), allowing it to outrace or entirely avoid threats. If a
surface-to-air missile A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-aircraft syst ...
launch was detected, the standard evasive action was simply to accelerate and outpace the missile."SR-71 Blackbird." PBS documentary, Aired: 15 November 2006. On average, each SR-71 could fly once per week due to the extended turnaround required after mission recovery. A total of 32 aircraft were built; 12 were lost in accidents with none lost to enemy action.Landis and Jenkins 2005, pp. 98, 100–101. In 1989, the USAF retired the SR-71 largely for political reasons; several were briefly reactivated during the 1990s before their second retirement in 1998. NASA was the final operator of the Blackbird, who used it as a research platform, and was retired in 1999. Since its retirement, the SR-71's role has been taken up by a combination of
reconnaissance satellite A reconnaissance satellite or intelligence satellite (commonly, although unofficially, referred to as a spy satellite) is an Earth observation satellite or communications satellite deployed for military or intelligence applications. Th ...
s and
unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controll ...
s (UAVs); a proposed UAV successor, the SR-72, is under development by Lockheed Martin, and scheduled to fly in 2025. The SR-71 has several nicknames, including " Blackbird" and "
Habu is a Ryukyuan and Japanese name referring to certain venomous snakes: * The following species are found in the Ryukyu Islands of Japan: ** '' Protobothrops elegans'', a.k.a. the Sakishima habu, found in the southern Ryukyu Islands ** ''Protoboth ...
". the SR-71 holds the world record it set in 1976 as the fastest air-breathing manned aircraft, previously held by the related Lockheed YF-12.Landis and Jenkins 2005, p. 78.Pace 2004, p. 159.


Development


Background

Lockheed's previous reconnaissance aircraft was the relatively slow U-2, designed for the
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
(CIA). In late 1957, the CIA approached the defense contractor Lockheed to build an undetectable spy plane. The project, named Archangel, was led by Kelly Johnson, head of Lockheed's Skunk Works unit in Burbank, California. The work on project Archangel began in the second quarter of 1958, with aim of flying higher and faster than the U-2. Of 11 successive designs drafted in a span of 10 months, "A-10" was the front-runner. Despite this, however, its shape made it vulnerable to radar detection. After a meeting with the CIA in March 1959, the design was modified to have a 90% reduction in radar cross-section. The CIA approved a US$96 million contract for Skunk Works to build a dozen spy planes, named " A-12", on 11 February 1960. The 1960 downing of
Francis Gary Powers Francis Gary Powers (August 17, 1929 – August 1, 1977) was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Lockheed U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission in Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 in ...
's U-2 underscored the aircraft's vulnerability and the need for faster reconnaissance aircraft such as the A-12. The A-12 first flew at Groom Lake (
Area 51 Area 51 is the common name of a highly classified United States Air Force (USAF) facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range. A remote detachment administered by Edwards Air Force Base, the facility is officially called Homey Airport ...
), Nevada, on 25 April 1962. Thirteen were built; two variants were also developed, including three of the YF-12 interceptor prototype, and two of the M-21 drone carrier. The aircraft was meant to be powered by the Pratt & Whitney J58 engine, but development ran over schedule, and it was equipped instead with the less powerful Pratt & Whitney J75 initially. The J58s were retrofitted as they became available, and became the standard engine for all subsequent aircraft in the series (A-12, YF-12, M-21), as well as the SR-71. The A-12 flew missions over Vietnam and North Korea before its retirement in 1968. The program's cancellation was announced on 28 December 1966, due both to budget concerns and because of the forthcoming SR-71, a derivative of the A-12.


Designation as SR-71

The SR-71 designation is a continuation of the pre-1962 bomber series; the last aircraft built using the series was the XB-70 Valkyrie. However, a bomber variant of the Blackbird was briefly given the B-71 designator, which was retained when the type was changed to SR-71. During the later stages of its testing, the B-70 was proposed for a reconnaissance/strike role, with an "RS-70" designation. When the A-12's performance potential was clearly found to be much greater, the USAF ordered a variant of the A-12 in December 1962,Landis and Jenkins 2005, pp. 56–57. which was originally named R-12 by Lockheed. This USAF version was longer and heavier than the original A-12 because it had a longer fuselage to hold more fuel. The R-12 also had a larger two-seat cockpit, and reshaped fuselage
chines A chine () is a steep-sided coastal gorge where a river flows to the sea through, typically, soft eroding cliffs of sandstone or clays. The word is still in use in central Southern England—notably in East Devon, Dorset, Hampshire and the Isl ...
. Reconnaissance equipment included
signals intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of '' signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ...
sensors, a side-looking airborne radar, and a photo camera. The CIA's A-12 was a better photo-reconnaissance platform than the USAF's R-12, since the A-12 flew somewhat higher and faster, and with only one pilot, it had room to carry a superior camera and more instruments. During the 1964 campaign, Republican presidential nominee
Barry Goldwater Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was an American politician and United States Air Force officer who was a five-term U.S. Senator from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–1987) and the Republican Party nominee for president ...
repeatedly criticized President Lyndon B. Johnson and his administration for falling behind the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
in developing new weapons. Johnson decided to counter this criticism by revealing the existence of the YF-12A USAF interceptor, which also served as cover for the still-secret A-12McIninch 1996, pp. 14–15. and the USAF reconnaissance model since July 1964. USAF Chief of Staff General Curtis LeMay preferred the SR (Strategic Reconnaissance) designation and wanted the RS-71 to be named SR-71. Before the July speech, LeMay lobbied to modify Johnson's speech to read "SR-71" instead of "RS-71". The media transcript given to the press at the time still had the earlier RS-71 designation in places, creating the story that the president had misread the aircraft's designation.Merlin 2005, pp. 4–5. To conceal the A-12's existence, Johnson referred only to the A-11, while revealing the existence of a high speed, high altitude reconnaissance aircraft. In 1968, Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara Robert Strange McNamara (; June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American business executive and the eighth United States Secretary of Defense, serving from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He remains the ...
canceled the F-12 interceptor program. The specialized tooling used to manufacture both the YF-12 and the SR-71 was also ordered destroyed.Landis and Jenkins 2005, p. 47. Production of the SR-71 totaled 32 aircraft with 29 SR-71As, two SR-71Bs, and the single SR-71C.Merlin 2005, p. 6.


Design


Overview

The SR-71 was designed for flight at over Mach 3 with a flight crew of two in tandem cockpits, with the pilot in the forward cockpit and the reconnaissance systems officer operating the surveillance systems and equipment from the rear cockpit, and directing navigation on the mission flight path."Senior Crown SR-71."
''
Federation of American Scientists The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is an American nonprofit global policy think tank with the stated intent of using science and scientific analysis to attempt to make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1946 by scientists who w ...
,'' 7 September 2010. Retrieved: 17 October 2012
Archived
on 17 April 2015.
The SR-71 was designed to minimize its radar cross-section, an early attempt at stealth design.Crickmore 2009, pp. 30–31. Finished aircraft were painted a dark blue, almost black, to increase the emission of internal heat and to act as
camouflage Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the b ...
against the night sky. The dark color led to the aircraft's nickname "Blackbird". While the SR-71 carried
radar countermeasure Radar jamming and deception is a form of electronic countermeasures that intentionally sends out radio frequency signals to interfere with the operation of radar by saturating its receiver with noise or false information. Concepts that blanket ...
s to evade interception efforts, its greatest protection was its combination of high altitude and very high speed, which made it almost invulnerable. Along with its low radar cross-section, these qualities gave a very short time for an enemy
surface-to-air missile A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-aircraft syst ...
(SAM) site to acquire and track the aircraft on radar. By the time the SAM site could track the SR-71, it was often too late to launch a SAM, and the SR-71 would be out of range before the SAM could catch up to it. If the SAM site could track the SR-71 and fire a SAM in time, the SAM would expend nearly all of the
delta-v Delta-''v'' (more known as " change in velocity"), symbolized as ∆''v'' and pronounced ''delta-vee'', as used in spacecraft flight dynamics, is a measure of the impulse per unit of spacecraft mass that is needed to perform a maneuver such a ...
of its boost and sustainer phases just reaching the SR-71's altitude; at this point, out of thrust, it could do little more than follow its ballistic arc. Merely accelerating would typically be enough for an SR-71 to evade a SAM; changes by the pilots in the SR-71's speed, altitude, and heading were also often enough to spoil any radar lock on the plane by SAM sites or enemy fighters. At sustained speeds of more than Mach 3.2, the plane was faster than the Soviet Union's fastest interceptor, the
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 (russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-25; NATO reporting name: Foxbat) is a supersonic interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft that is among the fastest military aircraft to enter service. Designed by th ...
, which also could not reach the SR-71's altitude. During its service life, no SR-71 was ever shot down.


Airframe, canopy, and landing gear

On most aircraft, the use of
titanium Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion i ...
was limited by the costs involved; it was generally used only in components exposed to the highest temperatures, such as exhaust fairings and the leading edges of wings. On the SR-71, titanium was used for 85% of the structure, with much of the rest
polymer A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + '' -mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...
composite material A composite material (also called a composition material or shortened to composite, which is the common name) is a material which is produced from two or more constituent materials. These constituent materials have notably dissimilar chemical or ...
s. To control costs, Lockheed used a more easily worked titanium alloy which softened at a lower temperature. The challenges posed led Lockheed to develop new fabrication methods, which have since been used in the manufacture of other aircraft. Lockheed found that washing welded titanium requires
distilled water Distilled water is water that has been boiled into vapor and condensed back into liquid in a separate container. Impurities in the original water that do not boil below or near the boiling point of water remain in the original container. Thus, di ...
, as the chlorine present in tap water is corrosive;
cadmium Cadmium is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, silvery-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12 element, group 12, zinc and mercury (element), mercury. Li ...
-plated tools could not be used, as they also caused corrosion. Metallurgical contamination was another problem; at one point, 80% of the delivered titanium for manufacture was rejected on these grounds. The high temperatures generated in flight required special design and operating techniques. Major sections of the skin of the inboard wings were corrugated, not smooth. Aerodynamicists initially opposed the concept, disparagingly referring to the aircraft as a Mach 3 variant of the 1920s-era
Ford Trimotor The Ford Trimotor (also called the "Tri-Motor", and nicknamed the "Tin Goose") is an American three-engined transport aircraft. Production started in 1925 by the companies of Henry Ford and ended on June 7, 1933, after 199 had been made. It ...
, which was known for its corrugated aluminum skin. The heat would have caused a smooth skin to split or curl, whereas the corrugated skin could expand vertically and horizontally and had increased longitudinal strength. Fuselage panels were manufactured to fit only loosely with the aircraft on the ground. Proper alignment was achieved as the airframe heated up and expanded several inches. Because of this, and the lack of a fuel-sealing system that could handle the airframe's expansion at extreme temperatures, the aircraft leaked
JP-7 Turbine Fuel Low Volatility JP-7, commonly known as JP-7 (referred to as Jet Propellant 7 prior to MIL-DTL-38219) is a specialized type of jet fuel developed in 1955 for the United States Air Force (USAF) for use in its supersonic military aircr ...
fuel on the ground prior to takeoff.Graham, 1996, p. 160. The outer windscreen of the cockpit was made of
quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical f ...
and was fused ultrasonically to the titanium frame. The temperature of the exterior of the windscreen reached during a mission. Cooling was carried out by cycling fuel behind the titanium surfaces in the chines. On landing, the canopy temperature was over . Some SR-71s featured red stripes to prevent maintenance workers from damaging the thin, fragile skin located near the center of the fuselage. This portion of the skin was only supported by widely spaced structural ribs. The Blackbird's tires, manufactured by B.F. Goodrich, contained aluminum and were filled with nitrogen. They cost $2,300 and would generally require replacing within 20 missions. The Blackbird landed at over and deployed a drag parachute to stop; the chute also acted to reduce stress on the tires.


Acquisition of titanium

Titanium was in short supply in the United States, so the Skunk Works team was forced to look elsewhere for the metal. Much of the needed material came from the Soviet Union. Colonel Rich Graham, SR-71 pilot, described the acquisition process:
The airplane is 92% titanium inside and out. Back when they were building the airplane the United States didn't have the ore supplies – an ore called
rutile Rutile is an oxide mineral composed of titanium dioxide (TiO2), the most common natural form of TiO2. Rarer polymorphs of TiO2 are known, including anatase, akaogiite, and brookite. Rutile has one of the highest refractive indices at visib ...
ore. It's a very sandy soil and it's only found in very few parts of the world. The major supplier of the ore was the USSR. Working through Third World countries and bogus operations, they were able to get the rutile ore shipped to the United States to build the SR-71.


Shape and threat avoidance

The second operational aircraft designed around a
stealth aircraft Stealth aircraft are designed to avoid detection using a variety of technologies that reduce reflection/emission of radar, infrared, visible light, radio frequency (RF) spectrum, and audio, collectively known as stealth technology. The F-117 ...
shape and materials, after the Lockheed A-12, the SR-71 had several features designed to reduce its
radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, Marine radar, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor v ...
signature. The SR-71 had a radar cross-section (RCS) around . Drawing on early studies in radar
stealth technology Stealth technology, also termed low observable technology (LO technology), is a sub-discipline of military tactics and passive and active electronic countermeasures, which covers a range of methods used to make personnel, aircraft, ships, su ...
, which indicated that a shape with flattened, tapering sides would reflect most energy away from a radar beam's place of origin, engineers added
chines A chine () is a steep-sided coastal gorge where a river flows to the sea through, typically, soft eroding cliffs of sandstone or clays. The word is still in use in central Southern England—notably in East Devon, Dorset, Hampshire and the Isl ...
and canted the vertical control surfaces inward. Special
radar-absorbing material In materials science, radiation-absorbent material, usually known as RAM, is a material which has been specially designed and shaped to absorb incident RF radiation (also known as non-ionising radiation), as effectively as possible, from as ma ...
s were incorporated into sawtooth-shaped sections of the aircraft's skin. Cesium-based fuel additives were used to somewhat reduce exhaust plumes' visibility to radar, although exhaust streams remained quite apparent. Kelly Johnson later conceded that Soviet radar technology advanced faster than the stealth technology employed against it. The SR-71 featured chines, a pair of sharp edges leading aft from either side of the nose along the fuselage. These were not a feature on the early A-3 design; Frank Rodgers, a doctor at the Scientific Engineering Institute, a CIA
front organization A front organization is any entity set up by and controlled by another organization, such as intelligence agencies, organized crime groups, terrorist organizations, secret societies, banned organizations, religious or political groups, advocacy ...
, discovered that a cross-section of a sphere had a greatly reduced radar reflection, and adapted a cylindrical-shaped fuselage by stretching out the sides of the fuselage. After the advisory panel provisionally selected Convair's FISH design over the A-3 on the basis of RCS, Lockheed adopted chines for its A-4 through A-6 designs. Aerodynamicists discovered that the chines generated powerful vortices and created additional lift, leading to unexpected aerodynamic performance improvements. The angle of incidence of the
delta wing A delta wing is a wing shaped in the form of a triangle. It is named for its similarity in shape to the Greek uppercase letter delta (Δ). Although long studied, it did not find significant applications until the Jet Age, when it proved suita ...
s could be reduced for greater stability and less drag at high speeds, and more weight carried, such as fuel. Landing speeds were also reduced, as the chines' vortices created turbulent flow over the wings at high angles of attack, making it harder to stall. The chines also acted like
leading-edge extension A leading-edge extension (LEX) is a small extension to an aircraft wing surface, forward of the leading edge. The primary reason for adding an extension is to improve the airflow at high angles of attack and low airspeeds, to improve handling a ...
s, which increase the agility of fighters such as the F-5,
F-16 The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a single-engine multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it evolved into a successf ...
,
F/A-18 The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather, twin-engine, supersonic, carrier-capable, multirole combat aircraft, designed as both a fighter and attack aircraft (hence the F/A designation). Designed by McDonnell Douglas (now part ...
,
MiG-29 The Mikoyan MiG-29 (russian: Микоян МиГ-29; NATO reporting name: Fulcrum) is a twin-engine fighter aircraft designed in the Soviet Union. Developed by the Mikoyan design bureau as an air superiority fighter during the 1970s, the Mi ...
, and
Su-27 The Sukhoi Su-27 (russian: Сухой Су-27; NATO reporting name: Flanker) is a Soviet-origin twin-engine supermaneuverable fighter aircraft designed by Sukhoi. It was intended as a direct competitor for the large US fourth-generation j ...
. The addition of chines also allowed the removal of the planned canard foreplanes.


Air inlets

The air inlets allowed the SR-71 to cruise at over Mach 3.2, with the air slowing down to subsonic speed as it entered the engine. Mach 3.2 was the design point for the aircraft, its most efficient speed.Johnson 1985 However, in practice the SR-71 was sometimes more efficient at even faster speeds—depending on the outside air temperature—as measured by pounds of fuel burned per nautical mile traveled. During one mission, SR-71 pilot Brian Shul flew faster than usual to avoid multiple interception attempts; afterward, it was discovered that this had reduced fuel consumption.Shul and O'Grady 1994 At the front of each inlet, a pointed, movable cone called a "spike" (
inlet cone Inlet cones (sometimes called shock cones or inlet centerbodies) are a component of some supersonic aircraft and missiles. They are primarily used on ramjets, such as the D-21 Tagboard and Lockheed X-7. Some turbojet aircraft including the Su-7 ...
) was locked in its full forward position on the ground and during subsonic flight. When the aircraft accelerated past Mach 1.6, an internal jackscrew moved the spike up to inwards, directed by an analog air inlet computer that took into account
pitot-static system A pitot-static system is a system of pressure-sensitive instruments that is most often used in aviation to determine an aircraft's airspeed, Mach number, altitude, and altitude trend. A pitot-static system generally consists of a pitot tube, a s ...
, pitch, roll, yaw, and angle of attack. Moving the spike tip drew the
shock wave In physics, a shock wave (also spelled shockwave), or shock, is a type of propagating disturbance that moves faster than the local speed of sound in the medium. Like an ordinary wave, a shock wave carries energy and can propagate through a me ...
riding on it closer to the inlet
cowling A cowling is the removable covering of a vehicle's engine, most often found on automobiles, motorcycles, airplanes, and on outboard boat motors. On airplanes, cowlings are used to reduce drag and to cool the engine. On boats, cowlings are a cove ...
until it touched just slightly inside the cowling lip. This position reflected the spike shock wave repeatedly between the spike center body and the inlet inner cowl sides, and minimized airflow spillage which is the cause of spillage drag. The air slowed supersonically with a final plane shock wave at entry to the subsonic diffuser. Downstream of this normal shock, the air is subsonic. It decelerates further in the divergent duct to give the required speed at entry to the compressor. Capture of the plane's shock wave within the inlet is called "starting the inlet". Bleed tubes and bypass doors were designed into the inlet and engine
nacelle A nacelle ( ) is a "streamlined body, sized according to what it contains", such as an engine, fuel, or equipment on an aircraft. When attached by a pylon entirely outside the airframe, it is sometimes called a pod, in which case it is attache ...
s to handle some of this pressure and to position the final shock to allow the inlet to remain "started". In the early years of operation, the analog computers would not always keep up with rapidly changing flight environmental inputs. If internal pressures became too great and the spike was incorrectly positioned, the shock wave would suddenly blow out the front of the inlet, called an "inlet unstart". During unstarts, afterburner extinctions were common. The remaining engine's asymmetrical thrust would cause the aircraft to yaw violently to one side. SAS, autopilot, and manual control inputs would fight the yawing, but often the extreme off-angle would reduce airflow in the opposite engine and stimulate "sympathetic stalls". This generated a rapid counter-yawing, often coupled with loud "banging" noises, and a rough ride during which crews' helmets would sometimes strike their cockpit canopies.Crickmore 1997, pp. 42–43. One response to a single unstart was unstarting both inlets to prevent yawing, then restarting them both.Landis and Jenkins 2005, p. 97. After wind tunnel testing and computer modeling by NASA Dryden test center, Lockheed installed an electronic control to detect unstart conditions and perform this reset action without pilot intervention. During troubleshooting of the unstart issue, NASA also discovered the vortices from the nose chines were entering the engine and interfering with engine efficiency. NASA developed a computer to control the engine bypass doors which countered this issue and improved efficiency. Beginning in 1980, the analog inlet control system was replaced by a digital system, which reduced unstart instances.Landis and Jenkins 2005, p. 83.


Engines

The SR-71 was powered by two Pratt & Whitney J58 (company designation JT11D-20) axial-flow
turbojet The turbojet is an airbreathing jet engine which is typically used in aircraft. It consists of a gas turbine with a propelling nozzle. The gas turbine has an air inlet which includes inlet guide vanes, a compressor, a combustion chamber, a ...
engines. The J58 was a considerable innovation of the era, capable of producing a static thrust of .Kloesel, Kurt J., Nalin A. Ratnayake and Casie M. Clark
"A Technology Pathway for Airbreathing, Combined-Cycle, Horizontal Space Launch Through SR-71 Based Trajectory Modeling."
''NASA: Dryden Flight Research Center''. Retrieved: 7 September 2011.
The engine was most efficient around Mach 3.2, the Blackbird's typical cruising speed. At take-off, the afterburner provided 26% of the thrust. This proportion increased progressively with speed until the afterburner provided all the thrust at about Mach 3. Air was initially compressed (and heated) by the inlet spike and subsequent converging duct between the center body and inlet cowl. The shock waves generated slowed the air to subsonic speeds relative to the engine. The air then entered the engine compressor. Some of this compressor flow (20% at cruise) was removed after the fourth compressor stage and went straight to the afterburner through six bypass tubes. Air passing through the turbojet was compressed further by the remaining five compressor stages and then fuel was added in the combustion chamber. After passing through the turbine, the exhaust, together with the compressor
bleed air Bleed air is compressed air taken from the compressor stage of a gas turbine upstream of its fuel-burning sections. Automatic air supply and cabin pressure controller (ASCPCs) valves bleed air from high or low stage engine compressor sections. Lo ...
, entered the afterburner. At around Mach 3, the temperature rise from the intake compression, added to the engine compressor temperature rise, reduced the allowable fuel flow because the turbine temperature limit did not change. The rotating machinery produced less power, but still enough to run at 100% RPM, thus keeping the airflow through the intake constant. The rotating machinery had become a drag item and the engine thrust at high speeds came from the afterburner temperature rise. Maximum flight speed was limited by the temperature of the air entering the engine compressor, which was not certified for temperatures above . Originally, the Blackbird's J58 engines were started with the assistance of two
Buick Wildcat The Buick Wildcat is a full-size car that was produced by Buick from the 1963 to 1970 model years. Taking its name from a series of 1950s Buick concept cars, the Wildcat replaced the Invicta within the "junior" B-body Buick sedan range. Serving ...
V8
internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal co ...
s, externally mounted on a vehicle referred to as an AG330 "start cart". The start cart was positioned underneath the J58 and the two Buick engines powered a single, vertical
drive shaft A drive shaft, driveshaft, driving shaft, tailshaft ( Australian English), propeller shaft (prop shaft), or Cardan shaft (after Girolamo Cardano) is a component for transmitting mechanical power and torque and rotation, usually used to conne ...
connecting to the J58 engine and spinning it to above 3,200 RPM, at which point the turbojet could self-sustain. Once the first J58 engine was started, the cart was repositioned to start the aircraft's other J58 engine. Later start carts used Chevrolet big-block V8 engines. Eventually, a quieter, pneumatic start system was developed for use at main operating bases. The V8 start carts remained at diversion landing sites not equipped with the pneumatic system.


Fuel

Several exotic fuels were investigated for the Blackbird. Development began on a coal slurry power plant, but Johnson determined that the coal particles damaged important engine components. Research was conducted on a
liquid hydrogen Liquid hydrogen (LH2 or LH2) is the liquid state of the element hydrogen. Hydrogen is found naturally in the molecular H2 form. To exist as a liquid, H2 must be cooled below its critical point of 33  K. However, for it to be in a fully l ...
powerplant, but the tanks for storing cryogenic hydrogen were not of a suitable size or shape. In practice, the Blackbird would burn somewhat conventional
JP-7 Turbine Fuel Low Volatility JP-7, commonly known as JP-7 (referred to as Jet Propellant 7 prior to MIL-DTL-38219) is a specialized type of jet fuel developed in 1955 for the United States Air Force (USAF) for use in its supersonic military aircr ...
, which was difficult to ignite. To start the engines, triethylborane (TEB), which ignites on contact with air, was injected to produce temperatures high enough to ignite the JP-7. The TEB produced a characteristic green flame, which could often be seen during engine ignition. On a typical SR-71 mission, the airplane took off with only a partial fuel load to reduce stress on the brakes and tires during takeoff and also ensure it could successfully take off should one engine fail. It is a common misconception that the planes refueled shortly after takeoff because the jet fuel leaked. The leaking of fuel was an intentional design feature because the high heat generated by the aircraft made it impossible to fully seal the fuselage tanks against leaks. However, the amount of fuel that leaked was not enough to make the refueling necessary; the planes refueled because the maximum speeds of the aircraft were only possible with aerial refueling. The SR-71 also required
in-flight refueling Aerial refueling, also referred to as air refueling, in-flight refueling (IFR), air-to-air refueling (AAR), and tanking, is the process of transferring aviation fuel from one aircraft (the tanker) to another (the receiver) while both aircraft a ...
to replenish fuel during long-duration missions. Supersonic flights generally lasted no more than 90 minutes before the pilot had to find a tanker. Specialized KC-135Q tankers were required to refuel the SR-71. The KC-135Q had a modified high-speed boom, which would allow refueling of the Blackbird at nearly the tanker's maximum airspeed with minimum flutter. The tanker also had special fuel systems for moving
JP-4 JP-4, or JP4 (for "Jet Propellant") was a jet fuel, specified in 1951 by the U.S. government (MIL-DTL-5624). Its NATO code is F-40. It is also known as avtag. Usage JP-4 was a 50-50 kerosene-gasoline blend. It had a lower flash point than JP-1, ...
(for the KC-135Q itself) and JP-7 (for the SR-71) between different tanks. As an aid to the pilot when refueling, the cockpit was fitted with a peripheral vision horizon display. This unusual instrument projected a barely visible artificial horizon line across the top of the entire instrument panel, which gave the pilot subliminal cues on aircraft attitude.


Astro-inertial navigation system

Nortronics,
Northrop Corporation Northrop Corporation was an American aircraft manufacturer from its formation in 1939 until its 1994 merger with Grumman to form Northrop Grumman. The company is known for its development of the flying wing design, most successfully the B-2 Sp ...
's electronics development division, had developed an
astro-inertial guidance Missile guidance refers to a variety of methods of guiding a missile or a guided bomb to its intended target. The missile's target accuracy is a critical factor for its effectiveness. Guidance systems improve missile accuracy by improving its P ...
system (ANS), which could correct
inertial navigation system An inertial navigation system (INS) is a navigation device that uses motion sensors ( accelerometers), rotation sensors ( gyroscopes) and a computer to continuously calculate by dead reckoning the position, the orientation, and the velocity ...
errors with celestial observations, for the
SM-62 Snark The Northrop SM-62 Snark is an early-model intercontinental range ground-launched cruise missile that could carry a W39 thermonuclear warhead. The Snark was deployed by the United States Air Force's Strategic Air Command from 1958 through 1961 ...
missile, and a separate system for the ill-fated
AGM-48 Skybolt The Douglas GAM-87 Skybolt (AGM-48 under the 1962 Tri-service system) was an air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) developed by the United States during the late 1950s. The basic concept was to allow US strategic bombers to launch their weapons ...
missile, the latter of which was adapted for the SR-71. Before takeoff, a primary alignment brought the ANS's inertial components to a high degree of accuracy. In flight, the ANS, which sat behind the reconnaissance systems officer's (RSO's), position, tracked stars through a circular quartz glass window on the upper fuselage. Its "blue light" source
star tracker A star tracker is an optical device that measures the positions of stars using photocells or a camera. As the positions of many stars have been measured by astronomers to a high degree of accuracy, a star tracker on a satellite or spacecraft may ...
, which could see stars during both day and night, would continuously track a variety of stars as the aircraft's changing position brought them into view. The system's digital computer
ephemeris In astronomy and celestial navigation, an ephemeris (pl. ephemerides; ) is a book with tables that gives the trajectory of naturally occurring astronomical objects as well as artificial satellites in the sky, i.e., the position (and possibly ...
contained data on a list of stars used for celestial navigation: the list first included 56 stars and was later expanded to 61."SR-71A-1 Flight Manual, Section IV, p. 3."
''sr-71.org''. Retrieved: 13 December 2011.
The ANS could supply altitude and position to flight controls and other systems, including the mission data recorder, automatic navigation to preset destination points, automatic pointing and control of cameras and sensors, and optical or SLR sighting of fixed points loaded into the ANS before takeoff. According to Richard Graham, a former SR-71 pilot, the navigation system was good enough to limit drift to off the direction of travel at Mach 3.


Sensors and payloads

The SR-71 originally included optical/ infrared imagery systems; side-looking airborne radar (SLAR); electronic intelligence (ELINT) gathering systems; defensive systems for countering missile and airborne fighters; and recorders for SLAR, ELINT, and maintenance data. The SR-71 carried a Fairchild tracking camera and an
infrared camera Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...
, both of which ran during the entire mission. As the SR-71 had a second cockpit behind the pilot for the RSO, it could not carry the A-12's principal sensor, a single large-focal-length optical camera that sat in the "Q-Bay" behind the A-12's single cockpit. Instead, the SR-71's camera systems could be located either in the fuselage chines or the removable nose/chine section. Wide-area imaging was provided by two of Itek's Operational Objective Cameras, which provided stereo imagery across the width of the flight track, or an Itek Optical Bar Camera, which gave continuous horizon-to-horizon coverage. A closer view of the target area was given by the HYCON Technical Objective Camera (TEOC), which could be directed up to 45° left or right of the centerline.Crickmore 1997, p. 74. Initially, the TEOCs could not match the resolution of the A-12's larger camera, but rapid improvements in both the camera and film improved this performance.Crickmore 1997, p. 563. SLAR, built by Goodyear Aerospace, could be carried in the removable nose. In later life, the radar was replaced by Loral's Advanced
Synthetic Aperture Radar Synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) is a form of radar that is used to create two-dimensional images or three-dimensional reconstructions of objects, such as landscapes. SAR uses the motion of the radar antenna over a target region to provide fine ...
System (ASARS-1). Both the first SLAR and ASARS-1 were ground-mapping imaging systems, collecting data either in fixed swaths left or right of centerline or from a spot location for higher resolution. ELINT-gathering systems, called the Electro Magnetic Reconnaissance System, built by AIL could be carried in the chine bays to analyze electronic signal fields being passed through, and were programmed to identify items of interest.Crickmore 1997, p. 77. Over its operational life, the Blackbird carried various
electronic countermeasures An electronic countermeasure (ECM) is an electrical or electronic device designed to trick or deceive radar, sonar, or other detection systems, like infrared (IR) or lasers. It may be used both offensively and defensively to deny targeting info ...
(ECMs), including warning and active electronic systems built by several ECM companies and called Systems A, A2, A2C, B, C, C2, E, G, H, and M. On a given mission, an aircraft carried several of these frequency/purpose payloads to meet the expected threats. Major Jerry Crew, an RSO, told '' Air & Space/Smithsonian'' that he used a jammer to try to confuse
surface-to-air missile A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-aircraft syst ...
sites as their crews tracked his airplane, but once his threat-warning receiver told him a missile had been launched, he switched off the jammer to prevent the missile from homing in on its signal. After landing, information from the SLAR, ELINT gathering systems, and the maintenance data recorder were subjected to postflight ground analysis. In the later years of its operational life, a datalink system could send ASARS-1 and ELINT data from about of track coverage to a suitably equipped ground station.


Life support

Flying at meant that crews could not use standard masks, which could not provide enough oxygen above . Specialized protective pressurized suits were produced for crew members by the
David Clark Company David Clark Company, Inc. is an American manufacturing company. DCC designs and manufactures a wide variety of aerospace and industrial protective equipment, including pressure-space suit systems, anti-G suits, headsets, and several medical/safet ...
for the A-12, YF-12, M-21 and SR-71. Furthermore, an emergency ejection at Mach 3.2 would subject crews to temperatures of about ; thus, during a high-altitude ejection scenario, an onboard oxygen supply would keep the suit pressurized during the descent. The cockpit could be pressurized to an altitude of during flight. The cabin needed a heavy-duty cooling system, as cruising at Mach 3.2 would heat the aircraft's external surface well beyond ''
Popular Mechanics ''Popular Mechanics'' (sometimes PM or PopMech) is a magazine of popular science and technology, featuring automotive, home, outdoor, electronics, science, do-it-yourself, and technology topics. Military topics, aviation and transportation o ...
'', June 1991, p. 28.
and the inside of the windshield to . An air conditioner used a
heat exchanger A heat exchanger is a system used to transfer heat between a source and a working fluid. Heat exchangers are used in both cooling and heating processes. The fluids may be separated by a solid wall to prevent mixing or they may be in direct conta ...
to dump heat from the cockpit into the fuel prior to combustion. The same air-conditioning system was also used to keep the front (nose) landing gear bay cool, thereby eliminating the need for the special aluminum-impregnated tires similar to those used on the main landing gear. Blackbird pilots and RSOs were provided with food and drink for the long reconnaissance flights. Water bottles had long straws which crewmembers guided into an opening in the helmet by looking in a mirror. Food was contained in sealed containers similar to toothpaste tubes which delivered food to the crewmember's mouth through the helmet opening.


Operational history


Main era

The first flight of an SR-71 took place on 22 December 1964, at USAF Plant 42 in
Palmdale, California Palmdale is a city in northern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. The city lies in the Antelope Valley region of Southern California. The San Gabriel Mountains separate Palmdale from the Los Angeles Basin to the south. On A ...
, piloted by Bob Gilliland.Crickmore 1997, pp. 56, 58. The SR-71 reached a top speed of Mach 3.4 during flight testing, with pilot Major Brian Shul reporting a speed in excess of Mach 3.5 on an operational sortie while evading a missile over Libya. The first SR-71 to enter service was delivered to the 4200th (later, 9th) Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at
Beale Air Force Base Beale Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force base located approximately east of Marysville, California. It is located outside Linda, about east of the towns of Marysville and Yuba City, and about north of Sacramento. The host ...
, California, in January 1966.Crickmore 1997, p. 59. SR-71s first arrived at the 9th SRW's Operating Location (OL-8) at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan on 8 March 1968.Crickmore 1997, pp. 62–64. These deployments were code-named "Glowing Heat", while the program as a whole was code-named "Senior Crown". Reconnaissance missions over North Vietnam were code-named "Black Shield" and then renamed "Giant Scale" in late 1968. On 21 March 1968, Major (later General)
Jerome F. O'Malley General Jerome Francis O'Malley (February 25, 1932 – April 20, 1985) was a United States Air Force four-star general who served as Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force (VCSAF) from 1982 to 1983; Commander in Chief, Pacific Air Forces (CINCPACAF) ...
and Major Edward D. Payne flew the first operational SR-71
sortie A sortie (from the French word meaning ''exit'' or from Latin root ''surgere'' meaning to "rise up") is a deployment or dispatch of one military unit, be it an aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining supp ...
in SR-71 serial number 61-7976 from Kadena AFB, Okinawa. During its career, this aircraft (976) accumulated 2,981 flying hours and flew 942 total sorties (more than any other SR-71), including 257 operational missions, from Beale AFB; Palmdale, California; Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan; and RAF Mildenhall, UK. The aircraft was flown to the National Museum of the United States Air Force near
Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the List of cities in Ohio, sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, Ohio, Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County, Ohio, Greene County. The 2020 United S ...
in March 1990. The USAF could fly each SR-71, on average, once per week, because of the extended turnaround required after mission recovery. Very often an aircraft would return with rivets missing, delaminated panels or other broken parts such as inlets requiring repair or replacement. There were cases of the aircraft not being ready to fly again for a month due to the repairs needed. Rob Vermeland,
Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...
's manager of Advanced Development Program, said in an interview in 2015 that high-tempo operations were not realistic for the SR-71. "If we had one sitting in the hangar here and the crew chief was told there was a mission planned right now, then 19 hours later it would be safely ready to take off." From the beginning of the Blackbird's reconnaissance missions over North Vietnam and Laos in 1968, the SR-71s averaged approximately one
sortie A sortie (from the French word meaning ''exit'' or from Latin root ''surgere'' meaning to "rise up") is a deployment or dispatch of one military unit, be it an aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining supp ...
a week for nearly two years. By 1970, the SR-71s were averaging two sorties per week, and by 1972, they were flying nearly one sortie every day. Two SR-71s were lost during these missions, one in 1970 and the second aircraft in 1972, both due to mechanical malfunctions. Over the course of its reconnaissance missions during the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese fired approximately 800 SAMs at SR-71s, none of which managed to score a hit. Pilots did report that missiles launched without radar guidance and no launch detection, had passed as close as from the aircraft. While deployed at Okinawa, the SR-71s and their aircrew members gained the nickname
Habu is a Ryukyuan and Japanese name referring to certain venomous snakes: * The following species are found in the Ryukyu Islands of Japan: ** '' Protobothrops elegans'', a.k.a. the Sakishima habu, found in the southern Ryukyu Islands ** ''Protoboth ...
(as did the A-12s preceding them) after a
pit viper The Crotalinae, commonly known as pit vipers,Mehrtens JM (1987). ''Living Snakes of the World in Color''. New York: Sterling Publishers. 480 pp. . crotaline snakes (from grc, κρόταλον ''krotalon'' castanet), or pit adders, are a subfa ...
indigenous to Japan, which the Okinawans thought the plane resembled.Crickmore 1997, p. 64. Operational highlights for the entire Blackbird family (YF-12, A-12, and SR-71) as of about 1990 included: *3,551 mission sorties flown *17,300 total sorties flown *11,008 mission flight hours *53,490 total flight hours *2,752 hours Mach 3 time (missions) *11,675 hours Mach 3 time (total) Only one crew member, Jim Zwayer, a Lockheed flight-test reconnaissance and navigation systems specialist, was killed in a flight accident. The rest of the crew members ejected safely or evacuated their aircraft on the ground. An SR-71 was used domestically in 1971 to assist the FBI in their manhunt for the skyjacker D.B. Cooper. The Blackbird was to retrace and photograph the flightpath of the hijacked 727 from Seattle to Reno and attempt to locate any of items that Cooper was known to have parachuted with from the aircraft. Five flights were attempted but on each occasion no photographs of the flight path were obtained due to low visibility.


European flights

European operations were from RAF Mildenhall, England. There were two routes. One was along the Norwegian west coast and up the
Kola Peninsula The Kola Peninsula (russian: Кольский полуостров, Kolsky poluostrov; sjd, Куэлнэгк нёа̄ррк) is a peninsula in the extreme northwest of Russia, and one of the largest peninsulas of Europe. Constituting the bulk ...
, which contained several large naval bases belonging to the Soviet Navy's Northern Fleet. Over the years, there were several emergency landings in Norway, four in Bodø and two of them in 1981 (flying from Beale) and 1985. Rescue parties were sent in to repair the planes before leaving. On one occasion, one complete wing with engine was replaced as the easiest way to get the plane airborne again. The other route, from Mildenhall over the
Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...
, was known as the Baltic Express.
Swedish Air Force The Swedish Air Force ( sv, Svenska flygvapnet or just ) is the air force branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. History The Swedish Air Force was created on 1 July, 1926 when the aircraft units of the Army and Navy were merged. Because of the e ...
fighter pilots have managed to lock their radar on an SR-71 on multiple occasions within shooting range. Target illumination was maintained by feeding target location from ground-based radars to the fire-control computer in the JA 37 Viggen interceptor. The most common site for the lock-on was the thin stretch of international airspace between
Öland Öland (, ; ; sometimes written ''Øland'' in other Scandinavian languages, and often ''Oland'' internationally; la, Oelandia) is the second-largest Swedish island and the smallest of the traditional provinces of Sweden. Öland has an area ...
and
Gotland Gotland (, ; ''Gutland'' in Gutnish), also historically spelled Gottland or Gothland (), is Sweden's largest island. It is also a province, county, municipality, and diocese. The province includes the islands of Fårö and Gotska Sandön to ...
that the SR-71s used on their return flights. On 29 June 1987, an SR-71 was on a mission around the Baltic Sea to spy on Soviet postings when one of the engines exploded. The aircraft, which was at 20 km altitude, quickly lost altitude and turned 180° to the left and turned over Gotland to search for the Swedish coast. Thus, Swedish airspace was violated, whereupon two unarmed Saab JA 37 Viggens on an exercise at the height of Västervik were ordered there. The mission was to do an incident preparedness check and identify an aircraft of high interest. It was found that the plane was in obvious distress and a decision was made that the Swedish Air Force would escort the plane out of the Baltic Sea. A second round of armed JA-37s from Ängelholm replaced the first pair and completed the escort to Danish airspace. The event had been classified for over 30 years, and when the report was unsealed, data from the NSA showed that multiple MiG-25s with the order to shoot down the SR-71 or force it to land, had started right after the engine failure. A MiG-25 had locked a missile on the damaged SR-71, but as the aircraft was under escort, no missiles were fired. On 29 November 2018, the four Swedish pilots involved were awarded medals from the USAF.


Initial retirement

One widely conventional view, and probably the best-known view, of the reasons for the SR-71's retirement in 1989—a view that the Air Force itself offered to the Congress—was that besides being very expensive, the SR-71 had become redundant anyway, among other reconnaissance methods that were ever-evolving. However, another view held by various officers and legislators is that the SR-71 program was terminated owing to
Pentagon In geometry, a pentagon (from the Greek πέντε ''pente'' meaning ''five'' and γωνία ''gonia'' meaning ''angle'') is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be sim ...
politics, and not because the aircraft had become obsolete, irrelevant, too hard to maintain, or unsustainably expensive. Retired Colonel Richard H. Graham, a former 1st-SRS and 9th-SRW commander, presented in 1996 what he viewed as a factual summary, not an opinion, of how the SR-71 provided some intelligence capabilities that none of its alternatives (such as satellites, U-2s, and UAVs) were providing in the 1990s (when the SR-71 was retired and then re-retired from Air Force reconnaissance duty.) The chief question for opinion, beyond that point, was only how crucial, or disposable, those unique advantages properly were. Graham noted that in the 1970s and early 1980s, SR-71 squadron and wing commanders were often promoted into higher positions as general officers within the USAF structure and the Pentagon. (In order to be selected into the SR-71 program in the first place, a pilot or navigator (RSO) had to be a top-quality USAF officer, so continuing career progression for members of this elite group was not surprising.) These generals were adept at communicating the value of the SR-71 to a USAF command staff and a Congress who often lacked a basic understanding of how the SR-71 worked and what it did. However, by the mid-1980s, these SR-71 generals all had retired, and a new generation of USAF generals mostly wanted to cut the program's budget and spend its funding on different priorities, such as the very expensive new
B-2 Spirit The Northrop (later Northrop Grumman) B-2 Spirit, also known as the Stealth Bomber, is an American heavy strategic bomber, featuring low-observable stealth technology designed to penetrate dense anti-aircraft defenses. A subsonic flying w ...
strategic bomber A strategic bomber is a medium- to long-range Penetrator (aircraft), penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating the enemy's capacity to wage war. Unl ...
program. Such generals had an interest in believing, and persuading the services and the Congress, that the SR-71 had become either entirely or almost entirely redundant to satellites, U-2s, incipient UAV programs, and an alleged top-secret successor already under development. Graham said that the last-mentioned one was only a sales pitch, not a fact, at the time in the 1990s. The USAF may have seen the SR-71 as a bargaining chip to ensure the survival of other priorities. Also, the SR-71 program's "product", which was operational and strategic intelligence, was not seen by these generals as being very valuable to the USAF. The primary consumers of this intelligence were the CIA, NSA, and DIA. A general misunderstanding of the nature of aerial reconnaissance and a lack of knowledge about the SR-71 in particular (due to its secretive development and operations) was used by detractors to discredit the aircraft, with the assurance given that a replacement was under development.
Dick Cheney Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He is currently the oldest living former ...
told the Senate Appropriations Committee that the SR-71 cost $85,000 per hour to operate. Opponents estimated the aircraft's support cost at $400 to $700 million per year, though the cost was actually closer to $300 million. The SR-71, while much more capable than the Lockheed U-2 in terms of range, speed, and survivability, suffered the lack of a
data link A data link is the means of connecting one location to another for the purpose of transmitting and receiving digital information (data communication). It can also refer to a set of electronics assemblies, consisting of a transmitter and a recei ...
, which the U-2 had been upgraded to carry. This meant that much of the SR-71's imagery and radar data could not be used in real time, but had to wait until the aircraft returned to base. This lack of immediate real-time capability was used as one of the justifications to close down the program. The counterargument was that the longer the SR-71 was not upgraded as aggressively as it ought to have been, the more people could say that it was obsolescent, which was in their interest as champions of other programs (a self-fulfilling bias). Attempts to add a datalink to the SR-71 were stymied early on by the same factions in the Pentagon and Congress who were already set on the program's demise, even in the early 1980s. These same factions also forced expensive sensor upgrades to the SR-71, which did little to increase its mission capabilities, but could be used as justification for complaining about the cost of the program. In 1988, Congress was convinced to allocate $160,000 to keep six SR-71s and a trainer model in flyable storage that could become flightworthy within 60 days. However, the USAF refused to spend the money. While the SR-71 survived attempts to retire it in 1988, partly due to the unmatched ability to provide high-quality coverage of the Kola Peninsula for the US Navy,Crickmore 1997, pp. 84–85. the decision to retire the SR-71 from active duty came in 1989, with the last missions flown in October that year.Crickmore 1997, p. 81. Four months after the plane's retirement, General
Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. (; August 22, 1934 – December 27, 2012) was a United States Army general. While serving as the commander of United States Central Command, he led all coalition forces in the Gulf War. Born in Trenton, N ...
, was told that the expedited reconnaissance, which the SR-71 could have provided, was unavailable during
Operation Desert Storm Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Ma ...
.Remak and Ventolo 2001, The SR-71 program's main operational capabilities came to a close at the end of fiscal year 1989 (October 1989). The 1st Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron (1 SRS) kept its pilots and aircraft operational and active, and flew some operational reconnaissance missions through the end of 1989 and into 1990, due to uncertainty over the timing of the final termination of funding for the program. The squadron finally closed in mid-1990, and the aircraft were distributed to static display locations, with a number kept in reserve storage.


Reactivation

Due to unease over political situations in the Middle East and North Korea, the U.S. Congress re-examined the SR-71 beginning in 1993. Rear Admiral Thomas F. Hall addressed the question of why the SR-71 was retired, saying it was under "the belief that, given the time delay associated with mounting a mission, conducting a reconnaissance, retrieving the data, processing it, and getting it out to a field commander, that you had a problem in timelines that was not going to meet the tactical requirements on the modern battlefield. And the determination was that if one could take advantage of technology and develop a system that could get that data back real time... that would be able to meet the unique requirements of the tactical commander." Hall also stated they were "looking at alternative means of doing [the job of the SR-71].""Department of Defense Authorization for Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1994 and The Future Years." ''United States Senate'', May–June 1993. Macke told the committee that they were "flying U-2s, Boeing RC-135, RC-135s, [and] other strategic and tactical assets" to collect information in some areas. Senator Robert Byrd and other senators complained that the "better than" successor to the SR-71 had yet to be developed at the cost of the "good enough" serviceable aircraft. They maintained that, in a time of constrained military budgets, designing, building, and testing an aircraft with the same capabilities as the SR-71 would be impossible.Graham 1996 Congress's disappointment with the lack of a suitable replacement for the Blackbird was cited concerning whether to continue funding imaging sensors on the U-2. Congressional conferees stated the "experience with the SR-71 serves as a reminder of the pitfalls of failing to keep existing systems up-to-date and capable in the hope of acquiring other capabilities." It was agreed to add $100 million to the budget to return three SR-71s to service, but it was emphasized that this "would not prejudice support for long-endurance Unmanned aerial vehicle, UAVs" [such as the Global Hawk]. The funding was later cut to $72.5 million. The Skunk Works was able to return the aircraft to service under budget at $72 million.Jenkins 2001 Retired USAF Colonel Jay Murphy was made the Program Manager for Lockheed's reactivation plans. Retired USAF Colonels Don Emmons and Barry MacKean were put under government contract to remake the plane's logistic and support structure. Still-active USAF pilots and Reconnaissance Systems Officers (RSOs) who had worked with the aircraft were asked to volunteer to fly the reactivated planes. The aircraft was under the command and control of the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base and flew out of a renovated hangar at Edwards Air Force Base. Modifications were made to provide a data-link with "near real-time" transmission of the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar's imagery to sites on the ground.


Final retirement

The reactivation met much resistance: the USAF had not budgeted for the aircraft, and UAV developers worried that their programs would suffer if money was shifted to support the SR-71s. Also, with the allocation requiring yearly reaffirmation by Congress, long-term planning for the SR-71 was difficult. In 1996, the USAF claimed that specific funding had not been authorized, and moved to ground the program. Congress reauthorized the funds, but, in October 1997, President Bill Clinton attempted to use the line-item veto to cancel the $39 million allocated for the SR-71. In June 1998, the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Clinton v. City of New York, line-item veto was unconstitutional. All this left the SR-71's status uncertain until September 1998, when the USAF called for the funds to be redistributed; the USAF permanently retired it in 1998.
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...
operated the two last airworthy Blackbirds until 1999. All other Blackbirds have been moved to museums except for the two SR-71s and a few Lockheed D-21, D-21 drones retained by the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center (later renamed the Armstrong Flight Research Center).


Timeline


1950s–1960s

* 24 December 1957: First J58 engine run * 1 May 1960:
Francis Gary Powers Francis Gary Powers (August 17, 1929 – August 1, 1977) was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Lockheed U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission in Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 in ...
is shot down in a Lockheed U-2 over the Soviet Union * 13 June 1962: SR-71 mock-up reviewed by the USAF * 30 July 1962: J58 completes pre-flight testing * 28 December 1962: Lockheed signs contract to build six SR-71 aircraft * 25 July 1964: President Johnson makes public announcement of SR-71 * 29 October 1964: SR-71 prototype (AF Ser. No. 61-7950) delivered to Air Force Plant 42 at Palmdale, California * 7 December 1964: Beale AFB, CA, announced as base for SR-71 * 22 December 1964: First flight of the SR-71, with Lockheed test pilot Robert J "Bob" Gilliland at PalmdaleLandis and Jenkins 2005, p. 58. * 21 July 1967: Jim Watkins and Dave Dempster fly first international sortie in SR-71A, AF Ser. No. 61-7972, when the Astro-Inertial Navigation System (ANS) fails on a training mission and they accidentally fly into Mexican airspace * 5 February 1968: Lockheed ordered to destroy A-12, YF-12, and SR-71 tooling * 8 March 1968: First SR-71A (AF Ser. No. 61-7978) arrives at Kadena AB, Okinawa to replace A-12s * 21 March 1968: First SR-71 (AF Ser. No. 61-7976) operational mission flown from Kadena AB over Vietnam * 29 May 1968: CMSgt Bill Gornik begins the tie-cutting tradition of Habu crews' neckties * 13 December 1969: Two SR-71s deployed to Taiwan.


1970s–1980s

* 3 December 1975: First flight of SR-71A (AF Ser. No. 61-7959) in "big tail" configuration * 20 April 1976: TDY operations started at RAF Mildenhall, United Kingdom with SR-71A, AF Ser. No. 61-7972 * 27–28 July 1976: SR-71A sets speed and altitude records (altitude in horizontal flight: and speed over a straight course: ) * August 1980: Honeywell starts conversion of AFICS to DAFICS * 15 January 1982: SR-71B, AF Ser. No. 61-7956, flies its 1,000th sortie * 21 April 1989: SR-71, AF Ser. No. 61-7974, is lost due to an engine explosion after taking off from Kadena AB, the last Blackbird to be lost * 22 November 1989: USAF SR-71 program officially terminated


1990s

* 6 March 1990: Last SR-71 flight under Senior Crown program, setting four speed records en route to the Smithsonian Institution * 25 July 1991: SR-71B, AF Ser. No. 61-7956/NASA No. 831 officially delivered to NASA Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, California * October 1991: NASA engineer Marta Bohn-Meyer becomes the first female SR-71 crew member * 28 September 1994: Congress votes to allocate $100 million for reactivation of three SR-71s * 28 June 1995: First reactivated SR-71 returns to USAF as Detachment 2 * 9 October 1999: The last flight of the SR-71 (AF Ser. No. 61-7980/NASA 844)


Records

The SR-71 was the world's fastest and highest-flying air-breathing operational manned aircraft throughout its career and it still holds that record. On 28 July 1976, SR-71 serial number 61-7962, piloted by then Captain Robert Helt, broke the world record: an "absolute altitude record" of ."Records: Sub-class : C-1 (Landplanes) Group 3: turbo-jet."
''records.fai.org''. Retrieved: 30 June 2011.
Landis and Jenkins 2005, pp. 77–78. Several aircraft have exceeded this altitude in zoom climbs, but not in sustained flight. That same day SR-71 serial number 61-7958 set an Flight airspeed record, absolute speed record of , approximately Mach 3.3. SR-71 pilot Brian Shul states in his book ''The Untouchables'' that he flew in excess of Mach 3.5 on 1986 United States bombing of Libya, 15 April 1986 over Libya to evade a missile. The SR-71 also holds the "speed over a recognized course" record for flying from New York to London—distance , , and an elapsed time of 1 hour 54 minutes and 56.4 seconds—set on 1 September 1974, while flown by USAF pilot James V. Sullivan and Noel F. Widdifield, reconnaissance systems officer (RSO)."Blackbird Records."
''sr-71.org''. Retrieved: 18 October 2009.
This equates to an average speed of about Mach 2.72, including deceleration for in-flight refueling. Peak speeds during this flight were likely closer to the declassified top speed of over Mach 3.2. For comparison, the best commercial Concorde flight time was 2 hours 52 minutes and the Boeing 747 averages 6 hours 15 minutes. On 26 April 1971, 61-7968, flown by majors Thomas B. Estes and Dewain C. Vick, flew over in 10 hours and 30 minutes. This flight was awarded the 1971 Mackay Trophy for the "most meritorious flight of the year" and the 1972 Harmon Trophy for "most outstanding international achievement in the art/science of aeronautics". When the SR-71 was retired in 1990, one Blackbird was flown from its birthplace at USAF Plant 42 in
Palmdale, California Palmdale is a city in northern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. The city lies in the Antelope Valley region of Southern California. The San Gabriel Mountains separate Palmdale from the Los Angeles Basin to the south. On A ...
, to go on exhibit at what is now the Smithsonian Institution's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. On 6 March 1990, Lt. Col. Raymond E. and Lt. Col. Joseph T. Vida piloted SR-71 S/N 61-7972 on its final Senior Crown flight and set four new speed records in the process: *Los Angeles, California, to Washington, D.C., distance , average speed , and an elapsed time of 64 minutes 20 seconds. *West Coast of the United States, West Coast to East Coast of the United States, East Coast, distance , average speed , and an elapsed time of 67 minutes 54 seconds. *Kansas City, Missouri, to Washington, D.C., distance , average speed , and an elapsed time of 25 minutes 59 seconds. *St. Louis, Missouri, to Cincinnati, Ohio, distance , average speed , and an elapsed time of 8 minutes 32 seconds. These four speed records were accepted by the National Aeronautic Association (NAA), the recognized body for aviation records in the United States. Additionally, ''Air & Space/Smithsonian'' reported that the USAF clocked the SR-71 at one point in its flight reaching . After the Los Angeles–Washington flight, on 6 March 1990, Senator John Glenn addressed the United States Senate, chastising the United States Department of Defense, Department of Defense for not using the SR-71 to its full potential:


Successor

Speculation existed regarding a replacement for the SR-71, including a rumored aircraft codenamed Aurora (aircraft), Aurora. The limitations of
reconnaissance satellite A reconnaissance satellite or intelligence satellite (commonly, although unofficially, referred to as a spy satellite) is an Earth observation satellite or communications satellite deployed for military or intelligence applications. Th ...
s, which take up to 24 hours to arrive in the proper orbit to photograph a particular target, make them slower to respond to demand than reconnaissance planes. The fly-over orbit of spy satellites may also be predicted and can allow assets to be hidden when the satellite passes, a drawback not shared by aircraft. Thus, there are doubts that the US has abandoned the concept of spy planes to complement reconnaissance satellites. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are also used for aerial reconnaissance in the 21st century, being able to overfly hostile territory without putting human pilots at risk, as well as being smaller and harder to detect than manned aircraft. On 1 November 2013, media outlets reported that Skunk Works has been working on an unmanned reconnaissance airplane it has named SR-72, which would fly twice as fast as the SR-71, at Mach 6. However, the USAF is officially pursuing the Northrop Grumman RQ-180 UAV to assume the SR-71's strategic ISR role.


Variants

* SR-71A was the main production variant. * SR-71B was a trainer variant. * SR-71C was a hybrid trainer aircraft composed of the rear fuselage of the first YF-12A (S/N 60-6934) and the forward fuselage from an SR-71 static test unit. The YF-12 had been wrecked in a 1966 landing accident. This Blackbird was seemingly not quite straight and had a yaw at supersonic speeds. It was nicknamed "The Bastard".Merlin 2005, p. 4.


Operators

;
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Si ...
:Air Force Systems Command *Air Force Flight Test Center – Edwards AFB, California ::4786th Test Squadron 1965–1970 ::SR-71 Flight Test Group 1970–1990 :Strategic Air Command *9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing – Beale AFB, California ::1st Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron 1966–1990 ::99th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron 1966–1971 ::Detachment 1, Kadena Air Base, Japan 1968–1990 ::Detachment 4, RAF Mildenhall. England 1976–1990 :Air Combat Command *Detachment 2, 9th Reconnaissance Wing – Edwards AFB, California 1995–1997 :(Forward Operating Locations at Eielson AFB, Alaska; Griffis AFB, New York; Seymour-Johnson AFB, North Carolina; Diego Garcia and Bodo, Norway 1973–1990) National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) *Dryden Flight Research Center – Edwards AFB, California 1991–1999


Accidents and aircraft disposition

Twelve SR-71s were lost and one pilot died in accidents during the aircraft's service career.Pace 2004, pp. 126–127. Eleven of these accidents happened between 1966 and 1972. Some secondary references use incorrect 64- series aircraft serial numbers (''e.g.'' SR-71C 64-17981) After completion of all USAF and NASA SR-71 operations at Edwards AFB, the SR-71 Flight Simulator was moved in July 2006 to the Frontiers of Flight Museum at Dallas Love Field, Love Field Airport in Dallas, Texas."Frontiers of Flight Museum."
''flightmuseum.com''. Retrieved: 14 March 2010.


Specifications (SR-71A)


See also


References


Footnotes


Citations


Bibliography

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The Oxcart Story
. Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 2 July 1996. Retrieved: 10 April 2009. * Merlin, Peter W. ''From Archangel to Senior Crown: Design and Development of the Blackbird''., Reston, Virginia: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), 2008. . * Merlin, Peter W. "The Truth is Out There... SR-71 Serials and Designations". ''Air Enthusiast'', No. 118, July/August 2005. Stamford, UK: Key Publishing, pp. 2–6. ISSN 0143-5450. * Pace, Steve. ''Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird''. Swindon, UK: Crowood Press, 2004. . * Remak, Jeannette and Joe Ventolo Jr. ''A-12 Blackbird Declassified''. St. Paul, Minnesota: MBI Publishing Company, 2001. . * Rich, Ben R. and Leo Janos. ''Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed''. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1994. . * Shul, Brian and Sheila Kathleen O'Grady. ''Sled Driver: Flying the World's Fastest Jet''. Marysville, California: Gallery One, 1994. . * Shul, Brian and Walter Watson Jr. ''The Untouchables''. Chico, California: Mach 1, Inc. 1993. . * Suhler, Paul A. ''From RAINBOW to GUSTO: Stealth and the Design of the Lockheed Blackbird (Library of Flight Series) ''. Reston, Virginia: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), 2009. . Additional sources * Brandt, Steven A., Randall J. Stiles and John J. Bertin
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''Popular Mechanics'', June 1968, pp. 59–62, 190. * Clarkson, Jeremy. ''I Know You Got Soul (book), I Know You Got Soul''. London: Penguin Books Limited, 2006. . * Crickmore, Paul F
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Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2004. . * Crickmore, Paul and Jim Laurier
''Lockheed SR-71 Operations in the Far East''.
Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2008. . * Darwall, Bjarne. ''Luftens Dirigenter'' (Air Conductors) (in Swedish). Nässjö, Sweden: Air Historic Research AB, 2004. . * Goodall, James and Jay Miller. "Lockheed's SR-71 'Blackbird' Family A-12, F-12, M-21, D-21, SR-71". Hinckley, UK: AeroFax-Midland Publishing, 2002. . * Grant, R.G. ''Flight: 100 Years of Aviation''. New York: DK Publishing, 2007. . * Hobson, Chris. ''Vietnam Air Losses, USAF, USN, USMC, Fixed-Wing Aircraft Losses in Southeast Asia 1961–1973''. North Branch, Minnesota: Specialty Press, 2001. . * Merlin, Peter W
''Design and Development of the Blackbird: Challenges and Lessons Learned''.
Orlando, Florida: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), 2009. AIAA 2009-1522. * Merlin, Peter W
''Mach 3+: NASA USAF YF-12 Flight Research 1969–1979''.
Washington, D.C.: Diane Publishing Co., NASA History Division Office, 2002. . * Pappas, Terry
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''Popular Mechanics'', June 1991, pp. 27–31, 104–105.
''Sr-71 Blackbird Pilot's Flight Manual''
* Reithmaier, Lawrence W
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External links

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