SR-71 Blackbird | Documentary

Video from the channel Random Aviation about Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 46:07. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

A documentary about the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird that reconstructs its development at Lockheed's Skunk Works, its flight testing and its operational career, combining narration with testimony from pilots, crew members and engineers. It opens with the January 1966 accident: on a test flight at Mach 3.2, an engine failed during a turn, the aircraft went out of control and broke apart. Pilot Bill Weaver survived and parachuted down in New Mexico; the reconnaissance systems specialist accompanying him died instantly.

The account traces its origin to the Cold War. Following the Soviet intercontinental missiles of 1957, the CIA commissioned Lockheed at the end of that year to build a hard-to-detect spy plane, the Archangel project, led by Kelly Johnson. Soviet radars had tracked the U-2 since its first mission in 1956. Of the ten designs studied, one redesigned with a flatter underside reduced the radar cross-section by 90%, and on 11 February 1960 the CIA approved a 96-million-dollar contract for a dozen A-12s. The shooting down of Francis Gary Powers's U-2 by an SA-2 missile on 1 May 1960 increased the pressure. In 1964 President Johnson introduced the aircraft as the SR-71, with the letters reversed from the planned RS-71 designation, and the name stuck.

The documentary explains the use of titanium, bought through shell companies because its main producer was the Soviet Union, and of JP-7, a low-volatility fuel developed by Shell. The first official flight took place on 22 December 1964 at Plant 42 in Palmdale, with Bob Gilliland at the controls, and it already broke the sound barrier. From 1967 it operated at Beale Air Force Base with the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing. Its first combat mission, in March 1968 over Vietnam, located an enemy supply area during the siege of Khe Sanh. On 26 August 1981, over the Korean demilitarized zone, Maury Rosenberg and Ed McKim evaded a missile thanks to the aircraft's speed. No SR-71 was ever lost to enemy fire. On its last flight before the programme's closure, in March 1990, it covered the Los Angeles-Washington route in 1 h 4 min 20 s.