The U-2 was always able to be tracked on Soviet radar, they just didn't have any missiles or aircraft that could fly high enough to intercept it until some years later.
Yes that's how I understood it as well, but the U2 shot down, Gary Powers, were the Soviets passed crucial data by?? Who? CIA skullduggery or something else?
Im British and immensely proud of our aircraft designs like the EE Lightning, Avro Vulcan, Mile M.52, Canberra etc. However there are TWO American planes i adore. The A10 warthog and the SR71 which never fails to send shivers down my spine every time i see it. AWESOME engineering and beautiful machine.
I was in the Civil Air Patrol in 1971 and our squadron was visiting an air force base for familiarization with a pilot training program they were putting on for Cadet officers. While we were walking around we saw this sleek black spaceship looking thing parked over at one end of the tarmac. And we went to look at it and I took some pictures on a little instamatic camera I had. A truck drove over toward us at high speed and screeched to a stop and a guy hopped out and grabbed my camera and would not give it back. He said we couldn’t take pictures of that plane and that we needed to leave the area.
@christopherpardell4418 or they just didn't notice. But regardless that's pretty standard. I mean if you do to Edward's AFB and try to take pictures on the flight line without approval and the same thing can happen.
@@gr8crashIn 1970 the SR-71 was still highly secretive. The government admitted to them, but you didn’t see pictures of them published. I was in the Civil Air Patrol and we were All About military aviation and none of us had seen a photo of one before. We were all in Air Force uniforms. And like I said, they saw us take pictures of every other plane on the tarmac, and even some in a hanger undergoing maintenance. The ONLY thing they didn’t want us taking pictures of, or getting closer than 100 yard to was the Blackbird.
Some of the things we got to do in CAP around '85 are simply irreplaceable, especially as a young guy. 2 weeks at Lackland AFB getting busted down all day everyday, flew down there on C -130. Trips to DC on USAF MD-80, and so many other awesome things. Miss those times
I die inside every time I hear “A-12 Oxcart”. Archangel-12 and Project Oxcart were two different code names for the project, and they were never combined.
Someone might have mentioned this, but your use of "Lockheed Martin" was incorrect when you talked about the SR71. The merger was well after the development of the SR71.
Used to work near Mildenhall airfield in East Anglia in the late eighties and got to watch this plane fly out on its weekly scheduled reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union for the “Trust but verify” purposes of the SALT Treaties. Spine tingling stuff.
That speed record you mentioned wasn’t set by an a-12 it was set by an sr-71 in 1976. We much is the official fastest recorded speed set by an air breathing jet. Which beat the a-12 previous record of Mach 2.9 not 3.9. Unofficially Brian shull in 1996 supposedly pushed the sr-71 just past Mach 4 briefly in a dive over lybia to out run a missile they fired at him
Most of that is incorrect. The A12 did set its speed record of mach 3.29 in 1965, followed by max sustained altitude of 90k ft also in 1965. The SR71, while setting its speed records across the country it set a couple at mach 3.3. And the Shul story your reference is also largely untrue. Was never close to mach 4, nor was it in a "dive".
Kind of left us hanging on the Ken Collins thing. Was the part about the use of "truth serum," on Ken Collins edited out? also the fact the it was not clearly stared what aircraft he was flying, although I'm sure most were able to surmise the type.
Oxcart was the project code name, not the name of the aircraft. The only name ever hung on the plane itself was "Cygnus", though I heard one pilot say that the pilots never called it that. Also, from what I've been told, the marriage requirement for crews was a myth that has endured for decades.
I've had that debate with people do. The one pilot, Jack Weeks I think is the one that came up with Cygnus and created the patch, and agree Oxcart was the program name, but was/is often used for the plane as well. The married part wasn't a myth though that was absolutely true for the Oxcart Program. But it wasn't a requirement for the SR71 program, even though people think it was.
It’s funny that now titanium can be had cheaper than aluminum and we get it from beach sand. Some sands run 30% titanium dioxide beating the best concentrations of bauxite (aluminum oxide) at 22%. The new chemical process is one tenth the cost of the electrolytic process, making titanium in bulk incredibly cheap. New methods of cutting and shaping with abrasives and explosive welding make it easy to work with. I work with titanium and now we even use 3d printers to print parts and set them by baking them in a high temperature kiln. The process is for copper alloys of titanium which are very strong, crack resistant and abrasion resistant. Further fitting and finishing is done with abrasives. We’ve come a long way.
A Agriculture equipment company(s) was the cover for the Titanium importation. Russian titanium went to space on Nasa rockets. Just machining that stuff, required new tooling design. At one time, you could buy sheet titanium from Boeing Surplus in Everett Wa along with many other cool items. Their ""Tool Crib"" area of the warehouse was legendary. I need to run up to the Seattle Museum of Flight and see the SR again. Thanks DS.
for few videos now, there is some music in the background. To me, unnecessary. On the contrary, it is disturbing. I prefered the old format with your voice. So characteristic (en enjoyable) of your channel. If you get more feedback like this, maybe consider reverting to the old format without music. Otherwise, great videos, as always.
The SR-71 was never shoot down, as stated. But the swedish pilot Per-Olof Eldh was the first who had a missilelock on a SR-71 (known as the Baltic express)with a Saab Viggen. The strategy was to get up to high altitude, then go head to head with the SR-71. He two planes passed each other in visual range. The speed between them must have been around mach 4(!) Eldh had 5 more locks on it later, and other Viggen-pilots had lock on it too.
Really doubt an SR is lockable from the front…the bottom, maybe, but not from the front; it’s the smallest radar cross-section. I understood the lock happened when the plane was limited to one engine but perhaps I’m wrong?
You can lock it but can the missile reach it? I remember a Blackbird pilot saying that Ballistic missiles were launch on them but it just exploded behind them.
@@jaybee9269It was returning from a recon run in the Baltic with one engine out due to a problem & with a couple of Soviet MiGs on their tail when the Swedish Viggens met up with it & escorted it into Swedish airspace. I think one of Viggen pilots decided to see if he could get missile lock on the world's fastest, most secret plane just for the hell of it. The Swedish pilots were awarded years later by the USAF for their efforts.
Not an expert but I'm pretty sure speed doesn't reduce the ability of radar to detect the aircraft. However, combined with stealth, by the time the radar detects a fast aircraft, there's no time for a missile to climb to it.
You can imagine that an aircraft that potentially changes radar map position about .55 miles a second at top speed can make targeting it a bit difficult.
Kelly Johnson, would turn in his grave if he heard you calling him Clarence. Johnson was nicknamed “Kelly” by his peers after he tripped a boy who called him “Clara” in grade school. The nickname came from the popular song at the time, “Has Anyone Here Seen Kelly? (Kelly from the Emerald Isle)”.
A12/SR71 is pure sex Linda Evangelista, Christie Brinkley has nothing on the SR71! I can look in awe at Kelly Johnson's marvel such an amazing machine so sexy in its lines - and we will never know its true capabilities.
It was ironic acquiring Titanium from Soviet Union, but what goes around comes around because now they acquire computer chips from the US... through third parties just like we did.
@@xodiaq Just like the random aircraft that are often seen in this channel's videos that have nothing to do with the actual subject of the video. I did not watch long enough to know whether this one suffers from that
And for 38 years now, we're still waiting on the true SR-71successor and replacement, the classified top secret SR-91 Aurora. As for the SR-72, the prototype was delivered to the air force days ago, with the new block of aircraft getting ready. Time will tell when we'll see the SR-72. Though it might actually be the SF-91 Aurora.
Funny, just last night I watched a new doco on JFK. Evidence points to Oswald working for the CIA. When he was in the military, he was involved in training the Cuban soldiers who embarked on the Bay of Pigs fiasco. When he was out and passing pamphlets out saying free Cuba he was in an office across the road from the CIA and also in the same building as him was an Anti-Castro group. New evidence also shows that he and 11 other American who defected were on the CIA payroll, and they all returned to America. It is believed they were sent there to spy and gather intelligence for the CIA. Add in the fact that the rifle they recovered was actually different to the one Oswald was photographed with by his wife. And they found him within 70 minutes of the shooting. And Jack Ruby was associated with the Mob and was also an FBI informant. The CIA was training the Mob in assassination techniques to go after Castro. Seems Oswald was a patsy. Even the Warren Investigation left a lot of evidence out and ignored several key witnesses. And the head of the Warren Report was the head of the CIA, and he did not like JFK. Along with Hoover.
I highly recommend the book "Area 51: An Uncensored History Of America's Top Secret Military Base" The last part of the book had some wacko ideas about Roswell, but the history of the site including the Oxcart was fascinating.
The U2 flying in 1954 and the A12 Oxcart a few years later, shows absolutely incredible aircraft development. Only digital technology has ever progressed as rapidly I think. The first ever flight was, about 1905 I think, the Wright brothers, and within 50 years, incredible progress
excellent video (as usual) your video begins with the May 1963 incident. In these epic times of aviation (without our simulators) a pilot with steel nerds had to test the limits of the test plane himself to know how far not to go. therefore the risks of crashing the prototype were great. the crash of an SR71 prototype on January 25, 1966 ! here is a story for your channel in flight at 78,000ft and 2400 mph pilot Bill Waver saw his plane disintegrate around him; in similar circumstances your life expectancy is limited and yet........
While officially M3.5+ is the listed speed, it is likely its general 'mission' cruising speed, over the years of my reading and watching aircrew & aircraft documentaries, I do believe that the SR71 is able to surpass M4 quite easily as hinted at by many pilots over the decades (although I do think M4.3 @>95,000ft, is its emergency max structural-thermal limit), just so long as it has enough fuel (over 65%ish) capacity left within its fuel tanks to absorb the aerodynamical heatsoaking, - as the special jet fuel is the aircrafts 'total loss' cooling system for all the birds subsystems.
Right out of high school, I worked occasionally with Jim Eastham, and, after several years of prodding, he gave me a maximum speed number that I immediately brushed off as being total BS. However, after hearing of his passing & learning exactly what he did for the entire Blackbird program (and learning that Mach 3.2 was but a cruising speed!), maybe that number wasn't so far fetched afterall...
After the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a catalog company that imported Soviet tools like a (near) 100% Titanium Crowbar. Compared to a regular steel crowbar, it was so lightweight it felt like it was made of aluminum, but was just as strong (if not stronger) than steel. Sadly, my crowbar from Russia was stolen many years ago, But I still have a battery-powered handheld Soviet military handheld Night Vision scope that I also bought out of that mail-order catalog. I believe it was called the "Sovietski Collection", but the company is long gone.
That is a very interesting bit of information that I had never heard of before, wish I had, it sounds like they had excellent tools, the crowbar especially, I think that maybe it was made of titanium because of either a lack of steel or an abundance of titanium, I don’t know how rich in titanium or steel they were, but I can imagine that the CIA had a finger in that particular pie. Thanks for your comment and letting me know where to find it. 😀👍🇬🇧🏴🇺🇸🇺🇦
The SR-71 could takeoff in Groom Lake, and be over Canada (1500 miles) in 30 minutes. Simple math extrapolates the top speed being 3000 mph. This is common information now, but some of what you said has never been released from secret.
LA to Dulles in 69 minutes. I heard the boom when the Blackbird slowed down to land and become an exhibit at the Udvar-Hazy museum. Literally shook the building I was in. 👍
Why would they put a crashed pilot on truth serum?? To find out about some human error? I guess he probably would have told them so due to his high professionality and sense of duty...
Still amazing that the A-12 and SR-71 were up and flying with air-breathing engines at over Mach 3 while the X-15 was still using rockets to experiment with high speeds and altitudes.
Everyone says nobody knew of the A12 in the early sixties yet I had a plastic floor toy molded in red plastic with a big A12 on one wing. This toy was made by Ideal and I got one in '65 when my brother was born.
Model kits are how I first saw the F-117 and B-2 years before their public release. I haven’t checked for the NGAD that flew three years ago, but it’s probably the same story.
Thanks for filling in the gap in my knowledge of the time period between the A-12 and SR-71. As I understand it. There was to be a fighter/interceptor to also come out of that program. There was a special Falcon AIM variant, I believe the Falcon 47. According to a later 1970's edition of JANE'S POCKET BOOK OF ROCKETS AND MISSILES, this had a range of 40+ miles
@@gapratt4955Also in the works was the F-108, primarily designed as an escord fighter for the B-70 Valkyrie I think we are headed for the days when the intercepto, no better thought of as Defensive Air Superiority asset will be a large, relatively slow, Mach .7 to Mach 1.4, plane stuffed with AIM's. This could be the new role for the B-1 and B-52 airframees. Carrying maybe 30-35 missiles and defended by drones with short-range AIM's like Sidewinder and Sparrow, inot the mid 21st century. The high speed missions will belong to the strike fighters like Eagle II or Strike Eagle. I understand the Eagle X is slated to be a Mach 3 plaine. Strategic bombing will appearnelty be carried out by slow, stealth bomboers that can come in at "treetop level". I found an interesting reprot in the 1976 JANE'S POCKET BOOK OF MAJOR COMBAT AIRCRAFT. The top speed of the F-111 was liested as 1980 MPG. IIRC, isn't that Mach 3?
And there was the A-11 that preceded the A-12. It had too high a radar cross section so the wing structure was redesigned. The A-12 was a stealth aircraft.
@@allangibson8494I thought I was imagining the A=11, I heard so little about it after early '64. That might have been the one the fighter/interceptor was to be derived from. Because that was mentioned in the same stories as the 11. I really did not know what the A stood for since these were really more experimental at the time. But boy howdy, did they set the world on fire!
@@SpacePatrollerLaser the A was for “Article”. It’s a CIA designation. It had a set far more sharply swept outer wing panels than the A-12 that superseded it.
They tried painting the U-2 with radar absorbing paint, but the few hundred lbs. caused the plane to not be able to climb over like 45.000 ft. Weight was tuned to a knat's whisker.
Wait, what? 30 years? This isn't accurate. I was born in 1961 and was a kid in the 60s. Around 1965 I had a little, plastic A-12 model toy. Not much was known about the actual aircraft, but to say it was secret for 30 years is preposterous. I know this has very little to do with the video, but I have to laugh when I hear about "truth serum" aka. Sodium Pentothol because it has no effect on me. I have an extremely rare disease called Porphyria, which is, among other things, the basis for the "Vampire Myth". Strangely approximately 35% of all pharmaceuticals either don't work at all on me, or have a "paradoxical (opposite) effect" on me. I've never come across a stimulant that works on me, not caffeine, nicotine, cocaine, phentermine or any others for example. There are some drugs though that do have a stimulating result like Ketamine and Versed but those commonly have a sedative effect on normal humans. This may seem like fun in some ways, however there are compounds that are innocuous to normal humans that are lethal to Porphyrics and vica versa. It's very much like being a different species. Unfortunately I cannot hypnotize others with my gaze or turn into a bat and fly away. C'est la vie.
I still remember a time when documentaries wouldn't go anywhere near the name Area 51 in concern over being labeled conspiracy nuts. Now, you can't have one about the SR-71 or F-117 that doesn't mention testing at Groom Lake.
The A-12 belonged too the CIA. While derivative SR-71 belonged to the USAF. I’m betting the A-12 retirement was the air force winning a turf battle with the CIA. The USAF got it’s way
I was 5 in 89 when the iron curtain fell but i remember what a big deal it was. I still dont like the gd soviets/russians. I grew up in an airforce family watching chuck norriws and rambo fight the soviets. Only cold war kids know what i mean.
For @mhobin. The blackbird never has done mach 4. I've met an actual blackbird pilot who lives in Colorado Springs and they were engine and airframe limited to mach 3.2.
Somewhat as their max authorized speed was 3.3. There are a few examples of speeds in the 3.4x range but these were only due to VERY specific atmospheric conditions and not fully within the pilots control.
Popular myth but no. Lemay wanted it changed from the RS71 to SR71 so it was and LBJ read everything correctly. But the stenographer messed up the press release leading to the myth that LBJ messed up.
Other than reduced exposure time (time in a radar's area of operation) due to high speed, how would high Mach speed alone reduce the chance of being tracked by radar? 03:58 | The air rushing past it OR the high pressure stagnant air in contact with the surface of the A-12/SR-71? 10:31 | "Along side OR behind the pilot"? TD
I suppose it stretches and distorts the signal that is reflected, as it's moving while the signal is hitting it. Depends on the sampling time and length of the signal used.
Back in the 50's and 60's Groom Lake was mostly named Paradise Ranch. Kelly nicknamed Groom Lake, Paradise Ranch to get pilots to sign up for these programs. Over the years it has gone through different nicknames.
Can't tell you how many times I've worked on a project where we all gave it a real cool name based on some design aspect only to have management come by at the end of the project and give it some stupid name. Then all of the design documentation suddenly has the wrong name on it.
I read Brian Shul said at cruise the throttle still had 4 inch of travel to the stop, but the limiting factor of the aircrafts speed would be heat in the engines and airframe.
That comment of his is missing A LOT of context though as the throttle wasn't necessarily linear like that. Meaning just because you had travel left didn't mean you had throttle left. And the initial limiting factor to higher speed was the engine CIT limit.
An A-12 pilot said that inlet temp was the limit factor after that the engines would shred apart. "No one wants to fly a twin engine shredder..." Frank Murray.
"I OWN" a Titanium Digging/Pry Bar "I Watched" the Smith pull the Hot Alloy Ingot out of the Oven and Hammered it out for me as (about?) a 12 or 14 yr old around 1977 working as a Pipe Fitter for Dad in Ca. on the foundry ovens gas systems. I suspect was either meant for an SR71, Nuclear Sub, or a Reactor? Used it in the trades All My Life!
I was at an Air Show at NAS Pt Mugu, Ca. In 1982 or 83 While stationed with a Navy Reserve A-7 squadron in which it had been announced publicly that there would be a flyover by an SR-71 returning from a training flight. As it made a pass down the main runway I took several photos with a 35 mm camera which could not be made to take a photo if there wasn't sufficient light. When I got the pictures from The photo kiosk in the employee cafeteria at Hughes Aircraft Company where I worked there were no pictures of the craft. Not blurred or ruined, just not there. All the others came out. Could never get an answer. why.
A “Ridiculous Requirement “ ? It’s only ridiculous if the wife wasn’t also interviewed and checked out . Fact ! If a prospects wife was a woman with a notorious case of the runaways , said prosoect was no longer a prospect . It is amazing how even this channel must declare that todays non moral , non normal society is somehow more evolved , somehow more intelligent . Straight up , I give this video a cool thumbs up , however , I give the title , “The Finger”.
The U-2 Dragon Lady flies no where near the edge of space, the Kármán Line at 100 kilometres is where conventional aircraft can no longer function because the air pressure is too low for flight
I wish I understood the formulae for altitude, air density and friction induced surface temperatures. I guess this is why we all went to 200 to 600 miles above the surface. Remember M Crichton's book "The Andromeda strain?" One of the most important points was the "Odd Man" theory. someone who is well educated, Is relatively young and has no family ties that would influence a decision to use or not use "extreme measures" to solve a problem?
@Rich77UK. What about SR72 ? The new Stealth Raider isn't a bad bird. The Russians had some real nice birds but haven't gone very far since the Vertical Take-Off,they had some trying to copy those.
