The SR-71 Blackbird remains the fastest operational military aircraft in history to this day, despite leaving service more than two decades ago, but its Lockheed predecessor in the A-12 was actually faster.
The A-12 that would ultimately lead to the missile-packing Mach 3 interceptor YF-12 and the missile-defeating legend that is the SR-71 first took to the skies in 1962 under the CIA’s banner in what was dubbed Project Oxcart. All three of these efforts were highly classified, not only because of the advanced technology Lockheed was developing, but also because–unbeknownst to Moscow–the United States was secretly sourcing materials to build these jets from within the Soviet Union,
In his book, “Archangel: CIA’s Supersonic A-12 Reconnaissance Aircraft,” official CIA historian David Robarge offers incredible insight into the Oxcart program, as well as what it took to be chosen to fly America’s highly classified, outrageously fast, and incredibly dangerous new platforms.
Related: America’s YF-12 was an SR-71 armed with air-to-air missiles
The need for keeping secrets
The A-12 wasn’t just another secret project for Kelly Johnson’s team at Lockheed’s legendary Skunk Works. The program was a massive undertaking in terms of both resources they expended and the results that were expected of them.
Johnson, the aeronautical engineer behind some of the most influential military aircraft designs of the 20th century, had already successfully fielded the high-flying U-2 spy plane for the CIA seven years prior. He’d designed the aircraft to fly right on the edge of space, soaring some 80,000 feet above the ground, using little more than his wits and trusty slide rule in less than a year.
Not only had Johnson’s success with the U-2 made him seem like the right choice for this new secretive and high-flying effort, but test flights of Johnson’s U-2 were also the reasoning behind establishing the now infamous Area 51 — a dry lake bed used as an isolated airstrip in Nevada known as Groom Lake.
Related: Kelly Johnson: How one man changed aviation forever
While most high-speed aircraft use their afterburners to exceed the speed of sound in short bursts of just a few minutes at a time, the A-12 was meant to sustain those speeds for hours. That meant every inch of the aircraft had to be able to withstand the incredible heat produced by the air itself as it tore by at over 2,300 miles per hour, often raising external temperatures beyond 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Traditional materials used in aircraft construction like steel and aluminum just weren’t capable of withstanding that sort of punishment as reliably as needed.
There was a titanium alloy that was up for the job… but America’s titanium supply simply wasn’t enough. Instead, the CIA used third parties and shell companies to procure the titanium Project Oxcart needed from the world’s largest supplier at the time… the Soviet Union. With Moscow totally unaware, the U.S. bought the materials it needed to build jets that could defeat their most advanced surface-to-air missiles and fastest intercept fighters from within their own borders. Needless to say, when you’re buying the materials you need to fight your enemy from your enemy, secrecy is paramount.
So, when the time came to begin testing Johnson’s latest creation, the powerful new A-12, Groom Lake was once again the logical place to do so… they just needed to find some pilots who were up for the most secretive job in the Air Force.
Related: Lockheed pitched arming the U-2 with anti-ship missiles
Mental, physical… and marital requirements for Project Oxcart
Air Force officials teamed up with representatives from the CIA and Johnson himself to establish a set of criteria A-12 pilots would have to meet in order to even be considered for the job. Most of these qualifications seem rather ordinary, with physical requirements established by the practical limitations of cockpit space and an understandably strict requisite in terms of experience in high-performance jets.
“Pilots had to be currently qualified and proficient, with at least 2,000 total flight hours, 1,000 of them in the latest high-performance fighter jets; married, emotionally stable, and well motivated; between 25 and 40 years old; and under six feet tall and 175 pounds so they could fit in the A-12’s cramped cockpit,” CIA historian David Robarge explained.
The requirement that tends to stand out, of course, is marriage. According to legend, the Spartans who met the Persian army at the hot gates of Thermopylae were all required to have sons because the warriors knew they likely wouldn’t be coming back. The Air Force and CIA, on the other hand, were likely looking at being a “family man” in another way.
From our vantage point here in the 21st century, comfortably removed from the looming threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, the idea of worrying about defection seems almost comical. That was not the case during the days of Project Oxcart. In fact, as Johnson and his team prepared for the first test flight of the A-12 in 1962, at least a dozen American intelligence officials and service members had already turned on the United States since the end of World War II in favor of new homes in the Soviet Union, one of whom was an officer in the U.S. Air Force.
One of those service members, a U.S. Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald, defected in 1959, only to return the year of the A-12’s first test flight with his new Russian wife. A year later, he’d assassinate American president John F. Kennedy, though official reports suggest that killing and his defection were, for the most part, unrelated.
You’re apt to find both official and unofficial sources account for the marriage requirement as a measure of maturity, arguing that married men with families are more stable and level-headed. Even if that supposition doesn’t hold true in practice, the idea that it was a prevalent belief among Defense officials may indeed be true. After all, every potential pilot candidate for Oxcart was subjected to thorough psychological screenings, seemingly proving that mental health was indeed a priority. However, the marriage requirement was also very likely a bit of social insurance against putting a potential defector behind the stick of America’s most expensive and technologically advanced state secrets.
While no one would come right out and say defection was a concern, there’s no arguing that hiding this program from the Soviet Union and even the American public was an utmost priority.
Related: How the CIA hijacked a Soviet spacecraft in 1959
“The process was kept so secret that the candidates’ superiors did not know what their subordinates were doing. Those who survived the screening were approached to work for the Agency on a highly classified project involving a very advanced aircraft. By November 1961, only five had agreed,” Robarge wrote.
It’s important to note that the pilots chosen for Project Oxcart, as well as many others involved, may have hailed from the Air Force, but ultimately answered to the CIA. Because the A-12 and SR-71 are so similar, you’ll sometimes see people claim the Air Force required their Blackbird pilots to be married. That wasn’t the case.
Ultimately only 11 men were chosen from the Air Force for the dangerous honor of flying the A-12. Two of them, Walter L. Ray and Jack W. Weeks, would lose their lives in crashes as a result. Project Oxcart would end in 1968, but its successor in the SR-71 would fly for decades to come — and outrun at least 800 surface-to-air missiles, many fired from Soviet soil, along the way.
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Outside of any Space Shuttle flights, the X-15 holds the record for fastest speed at Mach 6.70 = 4,520 mph, and highest altitude at 354,200 feet.
That’s about 67 miles up there.
Do you want to talk about how gay men were also blocked? Do you want to mention how they were banned from any kind of service because they were assumed to be a security risk because they could be blackmailed about being gay because they would be fired if it came out that they were gay? Do you want to talk about how this was an idiotic circular reasoning excuse to bake discrimination into the national security system?
Let’s not forget that the period of time you’re talking about was a bad time in the history of this country. It was a time of jingoism and paranoia.
Yes the aircraft was very nifty. But let’s not get too carried away with celebrating the arbitrary and bizarre requirements they put on the people who actually put their lives in the line piloting them.
Let’s just remember. If we were talking about the China of today and we talked about a military aircraft or anything else in which China only allowed married people to be involved because they could threaten harm upon the family of the service member, I think we would consider this a horrible thing.
So let’s not remember this less than glorious part of our own history with rose colored glasses.
No. No one wants to talk about it because no one cares. You can’t apply today’s reasoning to a time period other than today. That’s ignorant.
I think they took married men because they are much more likely to resist and survive torture. What more can they do to me? I’m married.
It was also a huge success. The world was very different then. Success mattered more than politics.
Looks like someone needs to study history a bit more, and then address his understanding of what the world was going through back then.
Remember history so that the bad stuff does not get repeated.
It’s a scientific fact that sexual disorders and perversies such as being gay indeed is correlated with mentally unstable and immoral. And ALL of them are pedophiles!
It’s a Scientific fact you comments is full of lies. Your prejudice is running you life. I almost feel sorry for you; so misguided.
Dude,stop being bitter for no reason. Trying to apply today’s wokism to events of 6 decades ago shows how poor your reasoning is. You can’t keep on complaining and getting offended by anything and everything.
Grow up please
Omg, who the fuck cares, take your critical theory somewhere else nothing and no one is perfect. What’s the point of your rant? Now gay peaple can, so what are you trying to accomplish? Besides trying to tear down an institution that I guarantee you there are some gay men and woman in it who take pride in it.
Critical theory is for peaple who can not build or improve things so they can only point out who terrible everything else is to justify their own terrible existence they refuse to do the work to improve
The Us air force hires peaple of any ethnic or cultural backgrounds, also girls can inlist.
While in China Only Chinese men can join the PLA.
As far as setting examples of who’s more progressive here you could atleast pick one that’s not counter intuitive to the point your trying to make.
Paranoid for a reason, the only reason the world didn’t end three times already is because three different russian dudes decide they didn’t want to end the world today and would rather just take an ear full and ignore orders.
Critical theory is only useful in propaganda. It’s like when the ussr would say look what you did to the native Americans and their homes and act like they care but turn around and threaten to turn native americans and their homes into nuclear dust. It’s like you don’t really care your just trying to manipulate here and play the good guy because reality is your intentions are anything but good but then again Marxism is just a raider/slaves mentality put into what seem like a sophisticated political ideology made to fool illiterate peasant russian farmers into slavery and misery and givees pompous, well off, self label intellectuals who are really half wits to have the comforts of religion while it runs others who actually experience it through hell!
Raider/slaver
Wow! DUDE!!! Sounds like somebody needs a f’n Midol. WHY you bring that shit up out of the blue? Nobody going along with your agenda? Well guess what? If you haven’t noticed things and times have changed so get some help and keep the bullshit to a dull roar! Half that crap you’re speaking is a load of crap anyways. Know your shit before spewing it publicly!!!
Must be on the Leftist side too.
USMC
As they should be now, freak
Geeze, you suck. Get over yourself. I care even less about this issue now than before i read your comment. Yes gays were treated badly, but that doesn’t mean there was nothing good about that time. There’s a difference between viewing things through Rose colored glasses and just looking back at interesting or cool things about the past. Your comment is basically saying that nothing about the past can be celebrated because there was some injustice going on somewhere. You’re ridiculous. Just a joke.
I’m certainly luckly to have witnessed SR’s blasting off out of RAF Mildenhall and Kadena Air Base Okinawa Japan back in the early to mid 1980’s. I used to go to Beale for my physiological training and refresher courses and saw the Strategic Recon Wing’s special suitup rooms for their astronaut looking pressure suits. Their pilots wore Astronaut wings I believe, correct me if I’m wrong.
Great report and comments. The SR-71 Blackbird for me, is the best of all aircraft designs generated by our country. The performance data published is extraordinary and incredible for a craft designed and built by guys using slide rules. I have heard from USAF, Viet Nam era pilots, that the SR-71 on takeoff leaked fuel and had a trail of flames in addition to the engines exhaust, is thi accurate.
Actually all versions of the Blackbird, the CIA A-12 Oxcart, the USAF YF-12A, and the SR-71, leaked fuel on the ground and immediately after taking off., and probably even after refueling until they got well supersonic. The reason why is because the titanium skin of the aircraft expanded so much flying at 3 Mach plus due to friction that mating clearance had to be allowed when cold. If the skin plates had fitted flush when cold on the ground the skin would have buckled because of expansion due to friction at 3 Mach. Lockheed tried all kinds of sealants but nothing worked. So all Blackbirds leak fuel until they get up to sufficient speed where friction expands the skin plates, after which the leaks stop.
No, the aircraft didn’t trail flames from the leaking fuel, at least I have never read that nor seen flames other than afterburner plumes on night takeoffs, and there are tons of pictures of Blackbirds taking off at night on the Internet.
Did you read my comment? I was the first to post a comment on this story. I also did a reply to Ted Logan who replied to my comment.
The fuel was a specially developed fuel that was very difficult to ignite
I regard to Toby’s comment on the special fuel used, I believe the fuel used was called JP7. Correct me if I’m wrong.
I would like to know where I can get a model of the A12 and the Sr71
A-12 kind of hard. SR-71: Italeri, Academy and Hasegawa all make one. Go for the Hasegawaw
I don’t care what the author says or who his sources are, he cannot unequivocally say that the A-12 was faster than the SR-71. Personally I doubt very much it was. For one thing, as far as I know the CIA never ‘officially timed’ an A-12. SR-71’s were timed by a world recognized timing association. Google SR-71 fastest speed and you can see the official speed records set by the SR-71 and the official agency that timed them. The USAF did officially time the A-12’s sister ship, the YF-12A, and it’s official records are very close to the SR-71’s, which makes sense since both aircraft have essentially the same aerodynamics designs and are powered by the same P&W J-58 engines (actually perhaps not. ALL CIA A-12’s and I believe all three USAF YF-12A’s were powered by P&W J-58’s rated at 32,500 pounds thrust. SR-71’s were powered up J-58’s pumping out 34,000 pounds thrust).
But in reality none of the Blackbird’s, the original CIA A-12 Oxcart, the USAF YF-12A, and the USAF SR-71, were limited in the fastest speed at which they could fly by the thrust of the engines. What actually limited how fast any Blackbird could be flown was something called CIT – Compressor Inlet Temperature. The pilot could not allow the CIT to exceed 427 degrees C. The CIT was the sum of the temperature of the ambient air through which the plane was flying (at 80,000 plus feet – cold, VERY cold) plus the heat added due to friction at Mach 3+.
The highest speed I have ever seen attributed to an A-12 was 2207 mph (about 3.3 Mach, depending on altitude) by CIA pilot Dennis Sullivan flying a mission over Vietnam with five SAM’s on his tail in October 1967 (when he returned to base in the Philippines a piece of shrapnel was discovered in the back of the aircraft. This is the closest any Blackbird ever was to being shot down.)
The fastest ‘claimed’ speed for an SR-71 is 3.5 Mach, around 2320 mph at 80,000 feet altitude, by pilot Brian Shul evading SAM’s over Libya in 1986. I his book describing the flight Shul says his RSO warned him there were SAM’s on their tail and Shul says he firewalled the throttles and kept them firewalled until they were back over the Mediterranean. If Shul’s account is true I don’t see how he didn’t exceed the max allowed CIT of 427 C for the J-58’s, and likely caused engine damage of unknown seriousness, although not enough to cause engine failure.
I have also read that on its final flight to be put on display at the Smithsonian Museum an SR-71 was allowed to exceed the CIT for a very short period and achieved a speed of 2242 mph briefly.
Theoretically though, neither should be able to achieve a higher airspeed than the other because of the fact that the engines would self destruct at the same airspeed. Because under the same atmospheric flying conditions, i.e., same ambient air temperature at a given altitude, the engines in both should reach the CIT failure temperature and self destruct at the same airspeed.
However, A-12’s definitely could fly higher than SR-71’s, due entirely to the fact that they weighed considerably less. SR-71’s topped out at under 87,000 feet. A-12’s exceeded 90,000. And because it weighed so much less, if both an A-12 and an SR-71 had a drag race and both had respectively full tanks of fuel (SR-71 carried 20,000 pounds more weight in fuel than an A-12), were side by side and both going a steady Mach 3, and the two pilots both firewalled the throttles at the same time the A-12 would pull away due to its lighter weight. Thank Sir Isaac Newton: F=MA, F is Force, M is Mass, A is Acceleration. Solving for Acceleration, A=F/M. Because of its lower weight the A-12 would beat the SR-71 in a drag race.
The A12 was smaller, weighed less and could fly higher. It’s not such a stretch to believe it may have been faster. Even with less powerful engines, like you said, they couldn’t use all the available thrust anyway. There’s less air at higher altitudes, therefore less friction. Speed measured unofficially said it was faster, but the world may never know…
The A-12 was something like seven feet shorter than an SR-71, but from everything I’ve read both aircraft shared the same wing, i.e., they have identical wingspans, which means that at a given airspeed the wings of both aircraft generated the same lifting force. That is why the A-12 flew higher, it weighed less so the same lifting force allowed it to achieve a higher altitude solely because it weighed less. I’ve read Kelly Johnson saying that about the A-12. In fact as both aircraft burned off fuel they just naturally flew higher if the pilot didn’t trim the aircraft to maintain a constant altitude.
The extra airframe length of the SR-71 was used for space to accommodate the RSO and the additional 20,000 pounds of fuel. Basically it is correct to say that an SR-71 is an elongated A-12, not that the A-12 was smaller, because the actual difference in size is very small, and like I said, they both used the same wing.
There has to be a reason why the USAF wanted more powerful engines in the SR-71 but I don’t know what it is and have never read it. But here’s a fact: At Mach 3 the J-58 engines only produced about 16% of the total thrust propelling the ANY Blackbird at Mach 3. Yes, you read that right. The J-58’s only produced 17% of the total thrust. Here’s a mind blower for you. At Mach 3 54% of the thrust propelling ANY Blackbird is generated in the engine inlets where not a drop of fuel is burned. That’s a fact. The remaining 29% of the total thrust is generated in the ejector at the rear of the afterburner. If you want details reply and I’ll send you links.
Per your air density being less at higher altitudes, correct. But at 80,000 and higher it’s actually very small and differences in friction are minimal. And to counter the lower density, the temperature of the ambient air begins to rise the higher you go above something like 67,000 feet. You can google standard atmosphere and get the values for density and temperature of the atmosphere at ascending altitudes and see for yourself.
Like I said, the limiting factor for how fast ANY Blackbird can fly is set by the Compressor Inlet Temperature, CIT. It states unequivocally right in the Flight Manuals for the A-12, the YF-12A, and the SR-71 that the CIT must NOT be allowed to exceed 427 degrees C. It doesn’t say why, what will happen if CIT exceeds 427, only that 427 C is the absolute maximum CIT that the pilot can push the plane to. There is NO maximum speed specified in any of the Flight Manuals, only the CIT limit.
And this actually may work against the A-12 at altitudes above those flown by the SR-71, because if you reference the standard atmosphere tables I mentioned you will see that the ambient temperature at 90,000 feet is higher than the ambient temperature at 85,000 feet, which means that an A-12 flying at 90,000 could reach a CIT of 427 SOONER than an SR-71 flying at 85,000 feet. But to counter this the air at 90,000 is less dense, as you pointed out. Which controls? I don’t know. But you can bet that Lockheed’s resident genius Kelly Johnson and his team of engineers at the Skunk Works in Burbank knew it.
The A-12 was faster.
Cite Internet proof for your claim. And also read my reply to Ted Logan.
I can’t imagine the CIA doesn’t know the A-12’s top speed. I also can’t imagine they would freely share it. Their job is to gather data and keep secrets. Nullum negotium tuum” as they say (well, as Google translate says anyway). In the context of overall performance, service life and significance, it’s not a key metric for me.
It’s not that the CIA doesn’t know the top speed of the A-12 or the Air Force doesn’t know the top speed of an SR-71, it’s like I said originally, a Blackbird, ANY Blackbird, A-12 or SR-71, can be pushed until its Compressor Inlet Temperature reaches 427 degrees C, and THAT is stated EXPLICITLY in both the A-12 and SR-71 Flight Manuals. And the CIT depends on the temperature of the ambient air through which the plane is flying. Kelly Johnson himseIf is on record saying that if a pilot finds himself in a very cold air mass he can fly the plane faster – before he hits the 427 CIT limit. CIT is the ultimate red line. CIT limits how fast ANY Blackbird can be flown.
You do realize you made a mistake in your weight comparison between the A-12 and the SR-71. You had stated the A-12 would win in a drag race with an SR-71 because it weighed 90,000 lbs, which was lighter than the SR-71’s weight of 87,000 lbs.
Correction: Please, disregard my comment. I inadvertently, misprocessed feet for pounds. My mistake🤪