The Lockheed YF-12A; Ultimate Interceptor 

I knew of this aircraft but not much on the detail. So thanks for that.

Seeing how huge they are in person is indescribable. Let alone the fact it can go mach three.

Hi Ed. Another gem. I have the book and the technology required to achieve production was jaw dropping .....and so was the cost ! As much you have to admire Kelly Johnson , you do wonder if the money could have been more wisely used. I 've seen the SR71 at Duxford and it is breath taking . I was also fortunate to chat with a retired pilot ! Thanks Ed.

The YF-12A did have a few problems. Most notably it takes over 20 minutes to start the engines. This does present problems for an interceptor.

Great channel, I love your ability to find obscure but ultimately interesting topics that most people have never heard of.

There's a cockpit assembly of a SR 71 on display in a museum in Seattle. The aircraft is huge, but the cockpits are absolutely tiny. There's simply no room in them. Sitting in that and the cockpit for a Spitfire, the Spitfire felt roomy by comparison. Whomever was flying those things would have to be tiny - well under 6 feet.

The only variant of the A-12 that never got off the drawing board was the bomber.

Fascinating! Even today there's nothing that compares to it.

Thanks for that ... I was definitely lacking in information about this aircraft, although basically aware of it. I remain enthralled by the SR71 ... which stunned me the first time I saw a picture of it. Suddenly we were in aerospace Science Fiction by the appearance and performance.

I remember watching a fantastic documentary about the construction of this aircraft. One of the engineers said they had to design, and build, the entire tooling and factory from the ground up. As well as several failed titanium alloys being used. It took a LONG time to get the recipe right on this bird. It’s amazing to think that THIS is the best… come on. There’s no way they hit a home run. I’m sure they built some MUCH better stuff right after. The interview with the engine engineer is hilarious. The damn engine grows two inches wider and 6 inches longer when hot! That’s wild!!!

To see the B-70 and the SR-71 in the same hangar awesome

Absolute gem a channel Ed 👍

...and the Pratt & Whitney F119, found on the F-22 Raptor, delivers 35,000 lbs (each) of thrust today. Jaw-dropping performance in the line of the J58, yet a completely different engine for a different mission. Then again, the MIM-104 and Standard Missile fill another facet of air defence that was fiction in the day of the YF-12A. Yes, another gem, Ed!

One of the absolute most bad ass planes ever built. Super cool video, thanks.

My grandfather, Victor Horton, was one of the men who flew the YF-12A after the prototypes were transferred to NASA in 1969. 60-6935, which now resides at the USAF Museum in Dayton, OH was his plane. You can see him about 24 minutes in on this video, being wired for sound: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Z1FLEbAbl4Q.html He usually flew as a team with Fitz Fulton, but also made flights with Don Mallick, Tom McMurtry, William Dana (the X-15 pilot) and others. I have many stories about his adventures with the Blackbirds. Having flown both, Grandpa actually liked the YF-12 better than the SR-71 and said it was the better plane, being more ruggedly built and slightly faster than its more famous sibling.

I recently read a book about Skunkworks, there were tentative plans to have interceptor and bomber versions of the Blackbird.

My, this channel is growing quickly!

Imagine something like this with modern day electronic technology lobbing the latest hypersonic missiles.... lol

brilliant vid lots of footage i didnt know existed! great work

Excellent production. Love the channel

Back in the late 60's - early 70's, my mate had a Revell 1/72 plastic kit of the YF-12A, together with it's missiles. I was really rather envious of him, but for some reason never got around to purchasing one myself.

Got to see one of these beauties at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton Ohio back in March! Thanks for an awesome video! Cheers.

It would have made a phenomenal ABM interceptor platform.

Amazing video, thank you!

Great video, Ed.

Great commentary - included much information that I didn't know about and I'm an old USAF aerophile...

Awesome video you should consider a video on xf-85 and the uss akron and uss macon

Saw this plane at the airshow at McConnell AFB Wichita in 67-68. Couldn't get closer than 30-50ft but it was there along with the T-BIRDS in their Super Sabers.

my Favorite A-12/SR-71 variant, yet most ignore it.

Didn’t it take a substantial amount of time to prep an SR-71 for flight? Just how effective would these have been as an interceptor given that, I wonder. Or the costs of keeping them warm and on standby 24/7 until they had to rotate for maintenance.

And yeah, Ed, I’d watch your work on the F-108…multiple times! It would be something to see what you’d come up with in the way of pictures, documentation , manuals, etc. Like the Blackbird, my eyes can’t see enough ofmthe Rapier. And, btw, the Arrow and TSR2.

I have heard it said the recon version of the Mig-25 Foxbat could fly HIGHER and FASTER than the SR-71 but couldn't maintain its max speed or max altitude for as long as the blackbird could.

Seems strange that an aircraft has a radar that is effective out to over 200 miles....But can detect a bomber bomber-sized targets out to 100 miles.... Then what the hell was it detecting out at 200 miles that's bigger than a bomber? ....A blimp?......Earth? Published historical statistics can be weird, sometimes...a pain in the ass for researchers. You've got my sympathies and respect, Ed. I've been loving your stuff.

It took one week to prepare per flight. I still prefer the Mig-31 though slightly slower but still a mach 3, where you just hop in, seat belt lock then start the engine, and fly.

Hallochen Das waren noch Zeiten. Sie war schon ein Spitzen Produkt in der Militär Luftfahrt.!!!!

Yes, please o please, do one on the XF-108!

Very interesting, those planes are so beautiful

Thanks for this 👍✈️

Years ago, I heard from a former DOD accountant 250 YF-12s had been built and in service, with the cost in part hidden as C-5 Galaxy program and other program cost overruns. Being skeptical, I asked a former NORAD SAGE air defense complex commander I knew if he knew anything about that. This was years after both men had retired. He said it was true, with pilots of the YF-12 typically reporting to others they were B-57 Canberra pilots--which they flew when not deployed to the few bases the YF-12 flew out of. Interesting if true.

Many thanks Mr. Nash. Another "Blue Ribbon" Vid. Be safe🦊

The missiles had to be mach four, otherwise the 12A would out-fly its own missiles.

My understanding was that the YF-12 was simply a cover story for the reconnaissance versions. Probably provided a decent disincentive for the development of the T-4 (“Su-100”). Would love to see a video on that plane, the (failed) Soviet answer to the XB-70.

love the comedy... keep it up!

There is 2 YF-12's still remaining just that the 2,nd is only half as it was the one that done an emergency landing and caught fire and so burned the front area and cockpit, the rear was mostly saved and intact. Then Lockheed added a ground static SR-71B nose to it to become the lone SR-71C. Then the sole remaining one at the USAF Museum at Dayton. The SR-71C and A-12 are the only ones from the blackbird family I have not seen in person. The YF-12A, SR-71 A and B I have through the same museum and Kalamazoo Air Zoo in Michigan for the SR-71B

ERROR at 5:00. The A-12 only had the "Q" camera bay behind the pilot. In the YF-12, the RIO was seated in that bay area. The YF-12 missiles were actually placed in the chine area on sides of the fuselage. On the A-12 that area was filled with "radar traps", triangles of titanium filled with radar absorbing material. YF-12 did not need radar traps, so the missiles bays replaced them.

Fantastic vid. So little info available anywhere else about this unicorn. Thanks.

I loved watching this! Thanks.

Amazing

What's hysterical, this thing is far faster than either the Tu-160 or the original Backfire bomber of the USSR (which was in development at the time). It is currently the only interceptor that could realistically intercept a transonic bomber like the xb-70 Valkyrie. It's almost a thousand miles per hour faster than the Mig25 or Mig30! The fastest Soviet interceptors.

I really want to get to the USAF museum. I've visited the A-12 on the USS Intrepid in NY, as well as the SR-71 located in Udvar-Hazy and the M-21 in Seattle Museum of Flight at Boeing Field, which also has an D-21 drone mounted on it. (Also saw one of the two YF-23 protoypes, the other one is in Dayton)

Good lord what a beast!

The "ultimate boom and zoom monster". That is like someone descending upon you and smite you out of the sky like they're God.

Clint Eastwood 1982 film - Firefox. I don't know if it occurred to many that saw the movie, not me anyway: USSR never had a Firefox fighter, it was pure fantasy, but the USA...

One misrepresentation; the A-12 had narrower chines that carried no payload bays like the SR and YF. The A-12 had a single centerline mounted camera, and according to CIA A-12 pilot Frank Murray “nothing but wind” in the chines.

Almost at 30k!

This time period is so interesting, boundaries were constantly being pushed.

I think I got to see this at the USAF museum.

Would the YF-12s initial flight profile even work as an interceptor? I’ve no idea and had always pined for a fleet of these, but I never learned exactly how rapidlly they can make it to Mach3 or to altitude, given the engines are in turbojet mode at lower speeds. Maybe it’d be a phenomenal interceptor, but it would be interesting to learn the time-to-climb specs. Also, as MarkD asks, would they be capable of instantaneous availability? I mean, didn’t reconnaissance missions take about as much preparation as a space flight? And if it’s on patrol at low speeds, wasn’t that an inefficient envelope for the craft? Maybe that’d all been worked out, who knows. But can you imagine seeing a fleet of these guarding our gates? Heaven.

These planes were moved indoors away from Soviet satellites as they passed overhead, but the heat signature the planes left on the tarmac were captured by infrared sensors on those satellites giving the Soviets a pretty good idea of what they were looking at, the purpose, and potential performance.

My dad helped with the radar system. I met Kelly Johnson. And Ben Rich . And knew the engineers personally. Dads folks.

The primary purpose of the airframe was to keep those magnificent engines in close proximity to the fuel tanks.

When sections of an aircraft are opened up, and one sees the sheer multitude of small and large wires and plumbing filling every available space and gap, one hopes and prays everything will be okay inside there whilst ripping along faster than a bullet, at the edge of space.

Love the start of the video. 👍👍😂

The SR-71 is a hyper-sonic aircraft. The US government just won't tell you about the true facts of that aircraft. The SR-71 was retired because the US government had the replacement in service which flies higher and faster and we won't really know about it for sometime.

Was wondering what this was when I went to the museum recently, but didn't really have time to stop and look at it.

Lockheed has literal tech wizards.

Great vid, I've always wondered about that *other* Blackbird. Still a question though: what is that rocketlike pod in the very last picture? I've seen the occasional photograph with it attached to the plane. Is it a heavy missile, or a test craft of some kind?

Nice

Im imagining Kev from the show Derek narrating this.

I don't know what K.J. was smoking when he proposed the YF-12A but it must have been something quite nasty. Seeing the preparations that need to be taken for an SR-71 flight reaches that of a spacelaunch rocket an interceptor version would've been highly impractical.

I got to touch this aircraft at the WPAFB.

Radar picks up vertical lines like tails really easily. I wonder if thats why those ones are at a weird angle? If you look at a f22 there will be no vertical lines on it in level flight. Cheers for the upload.

This I did not know. Could see Slim Pickns' character from "Dr Strangeglove" fly'n one of these if he'd a been a fighter 🏇 jockey.

I thought gee what a good airplane then you mentioned the Falcon missile and my opinion changed

What a formidable interceptor it should have been much like the Avro Arrow

Greatest warplane never built. Became a handful of spy planes, instead of a fleet of interceptors, because we didn't have the metal make more of them. We're lucky we never lost one over Russia, they're sitting on enough "unobtanium" to make submarines out of the stuff, would have been like the movie Firefox IRL. (Even though Eastwood's character accomplished his mission, we would have still been screwed when the analysts found out what it was made of.)

I see you've played Mach-3-Interceptor-Spooney before . . . . .

Those look like AiM 54 Phoenix at 6ft long not the much Smaller Aim 4 Falcon at 4 ft based on the handlers

12:20 WHAT is that pigmy Blackbird on the left?! future video topic right there

Gotta wonder if Revell really made the appropriate modifications to their 1/72 scale SR-71 for their later YF-12, or did they just re-lable the box.

what a bird!

I wonder if the real reason these planes were retired was because they could easily recycle the titanium and reuse it on a new aircraft.

Thanks for speaking metric but you can put that information in the video in writing. This may help to keep the video at a good pace. Nice channel.

Interceptor faster than the missiles it fires?

You need to tell the story of the drone as well.

Imagine having this kind of fighter in the airforce!! Undefeatable!!!

I always fancied they'd have a special passenger version that could carry VIP's or a Special Ops Team places in a hurry.

Okay, the meme at the start had me cracking

Believe it or not, first time i get to know about this plane is from Japan PS2 game Warship Gunner 2 Of course its the fastest plane in the Interceptor category (there's no soviet or russian plane in the game, even though you'll encounter soviet cold war ship later)

The A-12 was a less capable reconnaissance aircraft?! That's incorrect. The full story is that the CIA needed a replacement for the U2. Lockheed developed the A-12 Archangel under the codename Oxcart. When the USAF general, Curtis Le May, found out about it, he told the president that all fixed-wing military aircraft belonged to the air force. They both developed their own versions with the final variant to be decided by the president. Curtis LeMay won. The CIA version, the A-12, was purely intended as a reconnaissance aircraft so it was only crewed by one person. Because of this, it was lighter and was able to carry better cameras and spy gear. It could also fly slightly higher and faster. So, the A-12 was the superior reconnaissance aircraft. The trade-off was that the SR71 was operated by the USAF with USAF pilots for the CIA so that if it was ever shot down, the CIA could deny any accusations of them spying.

Should have started with the F-103 the first aircraft to be .a very short range Mach 3 interceptor using a variant of the engine used in Concorde and a ramjet that carried as much armament as an F-102 but due to it's projected short range of less than 8 minutes of flight time at Mach 3 it was cancelled at the mock up stage. Next the F-108 using two engines of the same type used in the XB-70 bomber and carrying 3 new long range AiM-47 Falcon missiles it was cancelled when both it's missions one of escorting B-70 bombers and the other replacing the F-106 in shooting down USSR nuclear bombers ended one with the cancellation of the B-70 the other with the introduction of ICBM and SLBM's which made using bombers to deliver nuclear weapons obsolete. It's armament and radar then were added to the YF-12 which was a pure F-106 replacement seen as cheaper than the F-108 as first it's adapting an existing proven airframe and engines and second it's reusing an already developed radar and missile package. But alas between the costs of the Vietnam war and the massive shift of the USSR to ballistic missile submarines meant the threat of attack on the USA by aircraft was seen as minimal. Still the radar and missile package in updated form did finally get used somewhere a long range interceptor was needed the USN and so the F-14 got the upgraded radar and missile package upgraded from what was originally going to be used on the F-108 in the late 1950's early 1960's in the 1970's.

Wasn't one of the concerns with the YF-12 its ability to retain structural integrity if it had to perform a sharp turn after releasing a missile? As a child I built the Revell 1/72 model of this aircraft when it was released in 1967 (now $167.41 on eBay!!!), and I distinctly remember reading this in the model's documentation (which I don't have anymore, sadly nor the model). I could be wrong, I couldn't find any such structural concerns with the YF-12 documented anywhere else, so if anyone still has the 1967 Revell model doc for this aircraft I'd really appreciate it if they could check it. I loved how Libyan SAMs could push the airframe to Mach 3.5 if necessary. Thanks!

When I saw the "Falcon" - I thought of the "Phoenix" - did one ever get a Combat Kill ?

I believe another reason that the YF12 would not have been the best choice for an interceptor id the fact that the SR71 took 24 hours preparation before a flight. I would assume the YF12 would be the same. This would be a challenge for an interceptor. I believe the reason for this is to purge the aircraft of oxygen so things don’t become combustionable at the very high operating temperatures during flight.

Wow

the figures look strange, if there is a head to head situation, 4mach is not impossible, the radar range is 200 only, effective in 100 so it gives how many seconds response time for the pilot to shoot? and the missile is also at 4 mach speed.....i don't know how this missile kills, direct hit or fragments, but that missile turns to target ability would be so remarkable in 60s technology? figures don't match? who needs a f35 if yf12 already achieve that?

Scrambling the YF-12A would take so much time before wheels up, they'd have to sit at the ready in the cockpits four hours on end...

um,, I thought the YF's were faster as was the A... according to those that flew them

Ultimate interceptor? It's not worthy to kiss the Supermarine Nighthawk's dual rudders.

Given the heat build up of flying mach 3 can I be forgiven for doubting an interceptor would work? Neither the radar and the missiles could even theoretically work without an effective and reliable way of keeping them cool. The radar would melt and the missile motors would cook off. I’m betting a nuclear armed air too air missile would have been carried.