The Complete Book of the SR-71 Blackbird: The Illustrated Profile of Every Aircraft, Crew, and Breakthrough of the World's Fastest Stealth Jet

By Richard H. Graham and Frank Stampf

The ultimate guide to the history, development, manufacture, modification, and active service of all fifty models in the SR-71 program.

At the height of the Cold War in 1964, President Johnson announced a new aircraft dedicated to strategic reconnaissance. The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird spy plane flew more than three-and-a-half times the speed of sound—so fast that no other aircraft could catch it. Above 80,000 feet, its pilots had to wear full-pressure flight suits similar to what was used aboard the space shuttle.

Developed by the renowned Lockheed Skunk Works, the SR-71 was an awesome aircraft in every respect. It was withdrawn from use in 1998, when it was superseded by satellite technology. Twelve of the thirty-two aircraft were destroyed in accidents, but none were ever lost to enemy action.

Throughout its thirty-four-year career, the SR-71 was the world’s fastest and highest-flying operational manned aircraft. It set world records for altitude and speed: an absolute altitude record of 85,069 feet and an absolute speed record of 2,193.2 miles per hour.

The Complete Book of the SR-71 Blackbird covers every aspect of the SR-71’s development, manufacture, modification, and active service from the insider’s perspective of one of its pilots and is lavishly illustrated with more than 400 photos. Former pilot and author Richard Graham also examines each of the fifty planes that came out the SR-71 program (fifteen A-12s; three YF-12s; and thirty-two SR-71s) and tells each plane’s history, its unique specifications, and where each currently resides.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781627888097

Book preview

01

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

PROJECT OXCART: THE A-12

In the mid-1950s the United States had a tremendous thirst within the intelligence community to learn more about the Soviet Union’s nuclear capability, intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program, and their military installations. In 1954, the Central Intelligence Agency retained the Lockheed Corporation to build the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. Essentially a jet-powered glider, the U-2 could fly at seventy thousand feet, beyond the range of Soviet fighters or missiles, and take detailed photographs over the Soviet Union. Its publicity cover story stated the aircraft would be used primarily by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Funding for the new aircraft came from the CIA’s secret Contingency Reserve Fund. The contract with Lockheed was signed December 9, 1954.

Lou Schalk piloted the second test flight of the A-12 924 on April 30, 1962. Lockheed Martin

The first U-2 flight on August 4, 1955, departs from Edwards AFB, North Base facility. Lockheed test pilot Bill Park was at the controls. Lockheed Martin

The U-2 was ready for operations in June 1956. At the time, CIA project officers had estimated that the U-2 would be able to fly safely over the Soviet Union for two years at the most before it became vulnerable to Soviet air defenses. The Soviets tracked the U-2 on its first mission. One of the revelations of the overflight program was the ease with which the Soviet radar systems found and tracked the U-2 before and after it penetrated Soviet airspace. The estimate had proven too optimistic, and a more radical solution was needed—an entirely new aircraft.

Convinced the U-2 would have a short service life, in the fall of 1957, Kelly Johnson was contacted and asked if Lockheed’s Advanced Development Projects engineering team would conduct an operational analysis to determine how far the probability of shooting down an aircraft varied with speed, altitude, and radar cross section (RCS), a measure of radar reflectivity. Johnson agreed to accept the project. The resulting analysis concluded that supersonic speed, coupled with the use of radar attenuating materials and design considerations, greatly reduced the chances of radar detection.

Attention in the CIA now focused on the possibility of building an aircraft that could fly at extremely high speeds and altitudes and would also incorporate the best available radar-absorbing materials. This effort was code-named Gusto. In the fall of 1957, U-2 project manager Richard Bissell established an advisory committee to help select a design for the U-2’s successor. Chaired by Polaroid chief executive Edwin Land, the committee met seven times between November 1957 and August 1959. Designers from several aircraft manufacturers and senior officials from the Navy and Air Force attended some of the meetings. The two most prominent aircraft firms involved in the process were Lockheed and Convair, which was building a supersonic bomber for the Air Force, the B-58 Hustler.

On April 21, 1958, Lockheed’s Advanced Development Projects component, jokingly nicknamed Skunk Works after the backwoods moonshine still in the comic strip Li’l Abner, began designing an aircraft that would cruise at Mach 3.0 at altitudes above ninety thousand feet. Kelly Johnson, head of Skunk Works, said, It makes no sense to just take this one or two steps ahead, because we’d be buying only a couple of years before the Russians would be able to nail us again … I want to come up with an airplane that can rule the skies for a decade or more. … The higher and faster we fly, the harder it will be to spot us, much less stop us.

The official name of Skunk Works is Advanced Development Programs (ADP), and this is its logo. Lockheed Martin

On July 23, 1958, Johnson presented his concept to Land’s committee, which expressed interest in the approach. By September, Skunk Works had studied various configurations called Archangel-1, Archangel-2, and so forth. Each configuration soon became simply A-1, A-2, etc.

On November 25, 1958, the Land Panel conducted a review of studies provided to it by the two competing design teams and decided that each company would be granted a year to refine its initial proposal and generate a definitive aircraft design. This decision was relayed to President Dwight Eisenhower, who agreed that funding would be made available from the CIA’s special Contingency Reserve Fund.

For the next twelve months, Kelly and Lockheed program manager Dick Boehme went into overdrive and studied no fewer than ten major design models designated A-3 to A-12. Each of these were further subdivided into a number of variations on the parent design. On May 18, 1959, at the request of General Thomas White, Air Force chief of staff, a CIA panel was formed to further provide expert advice in respect to the looming design selection process. On August 20, the final design submissions from Lockheed and General Dynamics (Convair was now part of General Dynamics) were delivered to the joint Department of Defense (DoD), Air Force, and CIA selection panel.

On August 28, Kelly wrote in his project log, Saw the director of the program office [Mr. Bissell] alone. He told me that we had the project and that General Dynamics is out of the picture. They [CIA] accept our conditions 1) of the basic arrangement of the A-12 and 2) that our method of doing business will be identical to that of the U-2. He agreed very firmly to this latter condition and said that unless it was done this way, he wanted nothing to do with the project either. Much of the eventual success of the A-12 Oxcart program can be attributed to CIA and Lockheed following the best practices from the U-2 project that Johnson and Bissell tacitly referred to: an urgent national need, development in total secrecy, complete trust between customer and contractor, individual responsibility and accountability, start-to-finish ownership of design, willingness to take risks, tolerance for failure, and streamlined bureaucracy with minimal staffing and paperwork.

Ben Rich became the head of the Lockheed Skunk Works after Kelly Johnson. Lockheed Martin

Comparison chart of the Lockheed A-12 and General Dynamics Kingfish. Paul Crickmore

SKUNK WORKS OPERATING RULES

1

THE SKUNK WORKS MANAGER MUST BE DELEGATED PRACTICALLY COMPLETE CONTROL OF HIS PROGRAM IN ALL ASPECTS. HE SHOULD REPORT TO A DIVISION PRESIDENT OR HIGHER.

2

STRONG BUT SMALL PROJECT OFFICES MUST BE PROVIDED BOTH BY THE MILITARY AND INDUSTRY.

3

THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE HAVING ANY CONNECTION WITH THE PROJECT MUST BE RESTRICTED IN AN ALMOST VICIOUS MANNER. USE A SMALL NUMBER OF GOOD PEOPLE (10% TO 20% COMPARED TO THE SO-CALLED NORMAL SYSTEMS).

4

A VERY SIMPLE DRAWING AND DRAWING RELEASE SYSTEM WITH GREAT FLEXIBILITY FOR MAKING CHANGES MUST BE PROVIDED.

5

THERE MUST BE A MINIMUM NUMBER OF REPORTS REQUIRED, BUT IMPORTANT WORK MUST BE RECORDED THOROUGHLY.

6

THERE MUST BE A MONTHLY COST REVIEW COVERING NOT ONLY WHAT HAS BEEN SPENT AND COMMITTED BUT ALSO PROJECTED COSTS TO THE CONCLUSION OF THE PROGRAM. DON’T HAVE THE BOOKS NINETY DAYS LATE AND DON’T SURPRISE THE CUSTOMER WITH SUDDEN OVERRUNS.

7

THE CONTRACT MUST BE DELEGATED AND MUST ASSUME MORE THAN NORMAL RESPONSIBILITY TO GET GOOD VENDOR BIDS FOR SUBCONTRACT WORK ON THE PROJECT. COMMERICAL BID PROCEDURES ARE VERY OFTEN BETTER THAN MILITARY ONES.

8

THE INSPECTION SYSTEM CURRENTLY USED BY ADP SHOULD BE USED. PUSH MORE BASIC INSPECTION BACK TO THE VENDOR—DON’T PAY FOR PIECES THAT DON’T WORK! DON’T DUPLICATE SO MUCH INSPECTION.

9

THE CONTRACTOR MUST BE DELEGATED THE AUTHORITY TO TEST HIS FINAL PRODUCT IN FLIGHT. HE CAN AND MUST TEST IT IN THE INITIAL STAGES. IF HE DOESN’T HE RAPIDLY LOSES HIS COMPETENCY TO DESIGN OTHER VEHICLES.

10

THE SPECIFICATIONS APPLYING TO THE PROJECT MUST BE AGREED TO IN ADVANCE OF CONTRACTING. BE SURE THERE IS MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING IN THIS FIELD BEFORE PROCEEDING; OTHERWISE IT TAKES A MAMMOTH CONTRACTING DEPARTMENT TO UNSCRAMBLE THE MESS THAT NORMALLY DEVELOPS.

11

FUNDING A PROGRAM MUST BE TIMELY SO THAT THE CONTRACTOR DOESN’T HAVE TO KEEP RUNNING TO THE BANK TO SUPPORT GOVERNMENT PROJECTS.

12

THERE MUST BE MUTUAL TRUST BETWEEN THE MILITARY PROJECT ORGANIZATION AND THE CONTRACTOR, WITH VERY CLOSE COOPERATION AND LIAISON ON A DAY TO DAY BASIS. THIS CUTS DOWN MISUNDERSTANDINGS AND CORRESPONDANCE TO AN ABSOLUTE MINIMUM.

13

ACCESS BY OUTSIDERS TO THE PROJECT AND ITS PERSONNEL MUST BE STRICTLY CONTROLLED BY APPROPRIATE SECURITY MEASURES.

14

BECAUSE ONLY A FEW PEOPLE WILL BE USED IN ENGINEERING AND MOST OTHER AREAS, WAYS MUST BE PROVIDED TO REWARD GOOD PERFORMANCE BY PAY NOT BASED ON THE NUMBER OF PERSONNEL SUPERVISED.

Kelly Johnson was highly successful as head of the Skunk Works because he lived by his 14 rules of management. Lockheed Martin

The next day, the selection panel voted for the A-12 but required Lockheed to demonstrate by January 1, 1960, that it could reduce the aircraft’s RCS. The CIA awarded a four-month contract to Lockheed to proceed with antiradar studies, aerodynamic structural tests, and engineering designs. Oxcart was selected from a random list of code names to designate this research and development and all later work on the A-12. The aircraft came to be called Oxcart as well. Funding for the four-month period was $4.5 million.

Johnson’s number two man at Skunk Works was Ben Rich, who is considered the father of stealth technology. When Johnson retired, Rich took over as head of the Skunk Works in 1975 and retired in 1991. During tests over the trial period, Lockheed demonstrated that its concept of shape, nonmetallic parts, and fuel additives would produce the needed reduction in RCS. In the course of this phase of radar testing and after, which required a full-scale, pylon-mounted mockup and further wind tunnel tests, the A-12 took on more of its distinctive cobra-like shape that allowed for better dispersion of radar pulses. To further reduce radar reflections, the two canted rudders were fabricated from laminated nonmetallic materials. No one knew that its wings, tail, and fuselage were loaded with special composite materials, mostly iron ferrites laced with asbestos that absorbed radar energy rather than returning it to the sender. Basically 65 percent of its low radar cross section comes from shaping the airplane; 35 percent from radar absorbent coating.

Lockheed could not do research and development work on the A-12 at its Burbank, California, facility because the runway there was too short and the facility too public. Ideally, the test site would be remote from metropolitan areas and aviation flight routes, easily accessible by air, reasonably close to an Air Force installation, and able to accommodate large numbers of personnel. It needed to have good weather, fuel storage facilities, and a runway at least eight thousand feet long. It was inevitable that Oxcart flight testing would be completed from Groom Lake, also known as Area 51, Paradise Ranch, Watertown, and Dreamland. Very little had changed after the U-2 program moved out of Groom Lake. A small group of contractors were required to bring Groom Lake up to new standards.

An A-12 931 rests on a taxiway at Minneapolis Air National Guard in Minnesota prior to embarking to the CIA for display. James Goodall

In September 1960 work began in earnest and continued in double shifts. Construction began that month with a weekly air shuttle ferrying work crews from Burbank to Las Vegas, Nevada, and then to Groom Lake. By November the new 8,500-foot runway had been completed, as the old one could not handle the A-12’s gross weight. All essential facilities at the site were ready for the delivery of the first A-12, scheduled for August 1961. By the time the testing ended, more than four years later, the site had a population of more than 1,800, and three shuttle flights arrived every day from Burbank to Las Vegas.

The pilots who would fly the A-12 also had to satisfy a rigorous set of qualifications. The Air Force, with advice from Johnson and the CIA, drew up the selection criteria. Each candidate pilot had to be currently qualified and proficient, with a minimum of two thousand hours of flying time, one thousand hours in the latest high-performance fighter jets. They had to be married, emotionally stable, and well-motivated; between twenty-five to forty years old; and less than six feet tall and 175 pounds so they could fit into the A-12’s cramped cockpit. Extensive physical and psychological screening of Air Force personnel files produced sixteen candidates. The CIA put them through an intensive security and medical screening process. Those who survived the screening process were then approached to work for the CIA on a highly classified project involving a very advanced aircraft. By November 1961 only five had agreed. A second search and screening process produced six more.

The eleven pilots selected to fly A-12 missions were Kenneth Collins, Ronald Jack Layton, Francis Frank Murray, Walter Ray, Russell Scott, William Skliar, Dennis Sullivan, Mele Vojvodich, Alonzo Lon Walter, Jack Weeks, and David Young. These pilots were then sheep dipped like their U-2 counterparts, from the Air Force into CIA employment. Scott, Walter, and Young left the program before the A-12 became operational. Skliar was attached to the Air Force portion of Oxcart that developed the supersonic interceptor, the YF-12, and did not fly the A-12 operationally. Lockheed test pilots of the A-12 were Jim Eastham, Bob Gilliland, Darrell Greenamyer, Bill Park, Art Peterson, Lou Schalk, and Bill Weaver.

An A-12 sits on the Radar Cross Section (RCS) testing pole. Lockheed Martin

Area 51. The two long parallel runways continue into the dry lake-bed for extended runway length if needed. T. D. Barnes collection

This carriage box was built at the Burbank, California, Skunk Works facility to hide and transport A-12 924’s main fuselage while traveling to Groom Lake. Lockheed Martin

With the help of the California and Nevada highway patrol, the secret A-12 convoy heads to Groom Lake for the first time with aircraft 924 dismantled. Lockheed Martin

DESIGNATION NUMBERS

Aircraft numbers or tail numbers…which is it? Lockheed uses aircraft number in reference to planes manufactured and the Air Force uses the aircraft’s serial number or tail number in reference to a specific plane. For instance, the first A-12 built is Lockheed aircraft number 121 and is serial number 60-6924. For consistency throughout the book, I will refer to all aircraft by the last three digits of their tail numbers.

While work at Groom Lake moved ahead at a rapid pace, the prototype aircraft were being assembled with considerable difficulty at Burbank. A review of Johnson’s A-12 log highlights some of the problems.

AUGUST 30, 1960—The stress and flutter boys presented a study on aero elasticity which was woefully in error. If it had been correct, the airplane couldn’t fly at all.

SEPTEMBER 30, 1960—We are in desperate trouble trying to get extrusions for the wing beams. The material is not acceptable.

OCTOBER 3/24, 1960—Continuing to have many shop problems. Can’t get material, and it appears that the schedule is slipping some more.

DECEMBER 20, 1960—Have a very strong suspicion that Pratt & Whitney are not going to meet their schedule. They have run into trouble on the compressor with tip shrouds. Of course they didn’t mention this as being a major problem.

MARCH 6, 1961—Having trouble with wing load distribution and have to put twist in the outboard leading edge.

MARCH 15/APRIL 1, 1961—Just a great deal of work with the many problems we have trying to get this airplane built. Everywhere you turn there are tremendous problems requiring invention, new systems, and money.

In March, Johnson informed the CIA, Schedules are in jeopardy on two fronts. One is the assembly of the wing and the other is in satisfactory development of the engine. Our evaluation shows that each of these programs is from three to four months behind the current schedule.

To this, the CIA’s Richard Bissell replied, I have learned of your expected additional delays in first flight from 30 August to 1 December 1961. This news is extremely shocking on top of our previous slippage from May to August and my understanding as of our meeting on 19 December that the titanium extrusion problems were essentially overcome. I trust this is the last of such disappointments short of a severe earthquake in Burbank.

Lou Schalk piloted the second test flight of the A-12 924 on April 30, 1962. Lockheed Martin

A-12 924 currently on display at the Blackbird Airpark in Palmdale, California. Blackbird Airpark

A-12: 924

With New York City as its background, A-12 925 is currently on display at the USS Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. USAF

A-12 925 joining up with the KC-135Q refueling tanker. Lockheed Martin

APRIL 12, 1961—Fighting a whole host of problems on power plant, ejectors, plumbing, material shortages, and lack of space.

JULY 10, 1961—Having a horrible time building the first plane and we are stopped on the second by a change in the design of the radar configuration of the chines [the flared portions of the fuselage]. Everyone on edge connected with the production of the A-12 airplane, and we still have a long, long way to go.

The completion date of the first A-12 now had slipped to December 22, 1961, and the expected first flight date to February 27, 1962. Construction pressures were intense at Burbank, and work went on around the clock in three shifts. Engine problems continued as well. Johnson, following a meeting with Pratt & Whitney in Florida, would note in his log, Their troubles are desperate. It is almost unbelievable that they could have gotten this far with the engine without uncovering basic problems which have been normal in every jet engine I have ever worked with. Prospects of an early flight engine is dismal, and I feel our program is greatly jeopardized. It’s a good thing we went to the J75, although these engines, too, have trouble and require new compressor discs.

The first A-12, serial number 924, was ready for final assembly during mid-February 1962. Johnson and the CIA had decided that, in light of the secrecy surrounding the project, the aircraft could not be flown from Burbank to Area 51. A $100,000 special trailer was designed and built to haul the aircraft fuselage, minus the wings, to the test location by road. A thorough survey of the route during June 1961 had ascertained the hazards and problems of moving the A-12 to Groom Lake. Obstructing road signs and debris would have to be removed, and selected trees would have to be trimmed. On February 26, 1962, the convoy left Burbank at 2:30 a.m. Everything went smoothly, and it arrived at 1:00 p.m. on February 28.

Finally, on April 25, the aircraft appeared ready for its initial tests. Skunk Works’ test pilot Lou Schalk, who had joined the program two years earlier, had spent many hours in the cockpit and a rudimentary A-12 simulator. By the time of the first taxi and flight tests, Schalk was as prepared as possible by using existing technology. Lou recalled the first test flight:

It all went like a dream until I lifted off. Immediately after liftoff, I really didn’t think I was going to be able to put the aircraft back on the ground safely because of lateral, directional, and longitudinal oscillations. The aircraft was very difficult to handle, but I finally caught up with everything that was happening [and] got control back enough to set it back down and to chop engine power. Touchdown was on the lakebed instead of the runway, creating a tremendous cloud of dust into which I disappeared entirely. Finally, when I slowed down and started my turn on the lakebed and re-emerged from the cloud of dust, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

When the A-12’s nose appeared out of a cloud of dust and dirt, Johnson’s angry voice erupted over the radio, What in hell, Lou? That night, he asked Schalk if the aircraft ought to fly again the next day. The pilot thought it should fly but added, I also think we ought to turn the SAS [stability augmentation system] dampers on.

The first real test flight was made two days later, on April 26, 1962. This trouble-free sortie lasted thirty-five minutes with the landing gear remaining extended throughout the flight to avoid any gear retraction problems. The SAS performed admirably, the aircraft failing to repeat the bucking bronco ride of two days earlier. Schalk flew the second test flight on April 30. That second flight went smoothly, lasted fifty-nine minutes, and attained all second-flight test objectives. On May 4 he broke Mach 1 at forty thousand feet. When word of these initial successes was passed to Washington, D.C., John McCone, the new director of the CIA, telegrammed congratulations to Johnson. However, the A-12 was year behind schedule, and much work remained to obtain an operational status.

By the end of 1962, more aircraft had arrived at the test site. Two were used primarily for flight testing (serial numbers 924 and 925) and two were outfitted for operational use (926 and 928). Aircraft 927 was to be the trainer version to check out aspiring A-12 pilots. Nicknamed the Titanium Goose the trainer was fitted with the less-powerful Pratt & Whitney J75 engines. It could reach only Mach 1.6 and forty thousand feet and was the only Blackbird that Johnson ever flew in. The remaining ten aircraft in the A-12 fleet would arrive at the test site by mid-1964. Of those, eight were designated for reconnaissance missions and two would become the mother ships for the Tagboard project discussed in Chapter 3.

A-12: 925

On October 5, 1962, the first A-12, re-engined with the flightworthy J58 mounted in its left engine nacelle and a J75 in the right engine nacelle, took to the air for the first time. It wasn’t until January 15, 1963, that the first flight with two J58 engines installed took place. The Cuban missile crisis now reinvigorated the program. The loss of Major Rudolph Anderson’s U-2 over Cuba on October 27 underscored the increasing vulnerability of this subsonic platform when operating in denied airspace. Successful execution of Oxcart now became a matter of highest national security.

By the end of January 1963, ten J58s had been delivered to the test location. The first A-12 flight with two J58s took place on January 15, 1963. The other aircraft were retrofitted with the J58s, and all future aircraft were flown with J58 propulsion. The only exception became the A-12 trainer, which was left equipped with J75s throughout its life. On March 20, 1963, Johnson wrote in the log, We have been to Mach 2.5 and as high as seventy thousand feet, but we are in trouble from Mach 2.0 and up.

From September 12 to October 10, Johnson summarized, We have been to Mach 3.0 twice now, the first time on July 20. On the second flight we blew an engine at design speed. It was very difficult to slow down, and it rattled Lou Schalk around for three minutes. The aircraft stability augmentation system did precisely as I asked it to do three years ago, and no high structural loads were obtained.

With some inlet modifications, the roughness that was encountered at Mach 2.4 and upward disappeared. Test pilot Jim Eastham took the first A-12 out to Mach 3.3 and then cruised at Mach 3.2 for fifteen minutes.

By early 1964 the argument for disclosure of the A-12 had become persuasive. More A-12s were arriving at Area 51 and making more flights. The aircraft’s existence probably would be revealed eventually under circumstances the US government could not control, such as a training accident, equipment malfunction, or a news leak. Airline crews had sighted the A-12 flying, and the editor of Aviation Week indicated that he knew about highly secret activities at Skunk Works and would not let another publication scoop him. The White House’s reluctance to resume flights over Soviet territory would soon force a change in the A-12’s mission.

On July 24, 1964, president Lyndon Johnson released a statement to the press on the existence of an advanced experimental jet aircraft, the A-11, which has been tested in sustained flight at more than two thousand miles an hour and at altitudes in excess of 70,000 feet. Kelly Johnson worked on the draft for President Johnson and proposed the terminology A-11, as it was the non-antiradar version.

Most A-12 test flights were short, averaging less than an hour. Through 1963, 573 flights had flown 765 hours. More air time was not necessary for the earlier tests, and brief flights helped maintain security. The pilots also practiced aerial refueling with Air Force tanker crews in early 1963. Slowing down to the KC-135’s refueling speed was found to be tricky. The tanker had to fly as fast as it could, while the A-12 was throttled way back. Progress came quickly during 1965 and into 1966. Peak speed and altitude—Mach 3.29 at ninety thousand feet—were reached by separate aircraft in May and August 1965. By March 1966, more than 146 out of nearly 2,750 hours were flown above Mach 3.0.

Some of the problems encountered were mundane but serious nonetheless. One was foreign object damage, which by July 1963 had resulted in eighteen engine removals and extensive nacelle modifications. During the aircraft’s assembly at Burbank, small items such as bolts, nuts, screws, pens, and metal shavings would fall into the nacelles. When engines were started at Area 51, these objects were pulled into the engine and damaged its internal parts. Taking x-rays, shaking the nacelles, installing screens over air inlets and having workers wear coveralls without pockets largely controlled the problem. Another issue was debris on the taxiways and runways. Like huge vacuum cleaners, the giant J58 engines would suck up anything loose on the pavement. Site personnel had to sweep and vacuum the runway before each test flight.

The dual seated A-12 trainer, nicknamed the Titanium Goose, was never retrofitted with J58 engines. Kelly Johnson received his only Blackbird flight in 927, achieving Mach 1.6 at forty-thousand feet. Lockheed Martin

The A-12 trainer is currently on display at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, California. California Science Center

During the first three years of pre-operational testing, three A-12s crashed—two from mechanical malfunctions and one because of ground crew error. All pilots ejected safely. On May 24, 1963, A-12 number 926, involved in a subsonic engine test flight and piloted by Ken Collins, crashed fourteen miles south of Wendover, Utah. While testing an inertial navigation system, Collins flew into heavy clouds above thirty thousand feet and began noticing erroneous and confusing airspeed and altitude readings just before the A-12 pitched up, stalled, and went into an inverted spin. Unable to regain control, he ejected at around twenty-five thousand feet and was unhurt. A press cover story referred to the crashed aircraft as being a Republic F-105. The A-12 fleet was temporarily grounded following the accident while an investigation was conducted. So great was the need to find out what went wrong that Collins willingly took truth serum to help his memory put the puzzle together. A Pitot-static system failure due to icing was determined to be cause.

The next crash occurred on July 9, 1964, while A-12 939 was approaching the runway after a Mach 3 check flight. At about five hundred feet and 230 miles per hour, the aircraft began a steady leftward roll that Lockheed test pilot Bill Park could not correct. A component of the roll and pitch control had frozen. Although only about two hundred feet off the ground when he ejected, Park escaped injury. No news of the accident leaked to the press.

On December 28, 1965, barely a month after the A-12 was declared operationally ready, aircraft 929 crashed less than thirty seconds after takeoff because an electrician had crossed the wiring to the yaw and pitch gyros, in effect reversing the aircraft’s controls and rendering it unable to fly. Like Park, CIA pilot Mele Vojvodich ejected close to the ground but was not injured. Simple negligence was found to be the cause, and Lockheed instituted stringent corrective measures. As with the previous crash, there was no publicity about the incident.

In-flight photo of A-12 926 prior to its crash with Ken Collins. Lockheed Martin

A-12: 927

A-12: 926

A-12: 939

A-12: 929

TIME TO EJECT by Ken Collins

As we were having a lot of problems with engine fuel controls during acceleration and cruise, I was scheduled for a flight test mission to perform subsonic engine test runs. Jack Weeks was scheduled as my F-101 chase pilot. The date was 24 May 1963. Takeoff and initial cruise at twenty-five thousand feet was routine. I made the planned right turn to a heading of 180 degrees and climbed to twenty-seven thousand feet to stay out of the building cloud formations. During these missions the chase plane was to stay close enough to observe the engine nacelles and afterburner area, but far enough away to maintain safe flight. The F-101 had a historical pitch-up problem if it got too slow in flight. As we continued south in the Wendover Danger Area (northwest of the Great Salt Lake) I entered an area of heavy cumulus cloud formations. My chase moved into keep visual contact. Minutes later, Jack signed that we were getting too slow for the F-101. All my A-12 instruments (airspeed, altitude) were giving normal indications. Jack signaled that he could not stay with me. I waved him off, and he cleared to my right and disappeared into the clouds.

I dedicated my efforts to determining what the real problems were. I engaged the autopilot and reviewed all of the instruments and systems. There were no observable failures or abnormal indications. I then disengaged the autopilot, maintaining my planned airspeed and thirty thousand feet altitude.

In a matter of seconds, all hell broke out. Without any noticeable change of aircraft attitude or speed, the altimeter was rapidly unwinding, indicated a rapid loss of altitude. The airspeed indicator was also unwinding, displaying a rapid loss

Reviews for The Complete Book of the SR-71 Blackbird

[joshnyoung · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent history and incredible photos.