SR-71 Blackbird: World's Fastest Plane Ever Built

sr 71 blackbird america's old super spy plane is still the world's fastest jet [Music] the sleek and sinister sr-71 blackbird looks like it belongs in a science fiction movie though in fact the jet black spy plane proved far more successful without running enemy missiles than any of the spaceships depicted in star wars though retired in the 1990s in favor of spy satellites and recon drones it doesn't look like any modern designs are likely to challenge the blackbirds record as the fastest manned aircraft ever stealthy speedster as cold war tensions heightened during the 1950s the central intelligence agency cia began flying the u2 spy plane to keep tabs on the soviet union's fast expanding nuclear weapons capabilities ungainly and relatively slow moving the u-2 relied upon its ability to fly at extremely high altitudes to avoid enemy fighters and early surface-to-air missiles the intelligence provided by u2s in 1962 uncovered the soviet nuclear missiles deployed to cuba leading to the dramatic events of the cuban missile crisis but the u2s also provoked diplomatic incidents because they simply couldn't fly high enough to avoid russian sa-2 surface-to-air missiles a u-2 was shot down in 1960 and its pilot gary powers captured triggering an embarrassing diplomatic row another u-2 was shot down during the cuban missile crisis killing the pilot and escalating tensions between moscow and washington at a critical moment five taiwanese u2s were shot down over china american engineers realized altitude was no longer an adequate defense and in 1957 began working on a plane for the cia that they hoped soviet radar would be unable to detect and they could outrun any missiles fired at it the lockheed skunk works factory ultimately developed the a12 codenamed archangel the prototype was first tested in area 51 in 1962 and in the end 15 a12s were produced cia lockheed a12s flew a total of 29 spy missions over north korea and vietnam through 1968 in operation black shield losing six aircraft to accidents intelligence gathered by a-12 helped the cia to map out north vietnamese air defenses and locate the uss pueblo after it was hijacked by north korea the air force developed prototypes of an interceptor version the yf-12 and later considered a high-speed bomber the b-71 coming numerically after the xb70 valkyrie bomber that never entered production there was even a bizarre m21 drone carrier that launched a d21 spy drone off its back however none of these spin-offs entered service and the a-12 was retired in favor of an air force operated variant the sr-71 the blackbird could sustain speeds above mach 3 with a so far unbroken manned flight record of mach 3.3 or 3.5 3.3 is confirmed while mach 3.5 is claimed by pilot brian schull to have been achieved while outrunning a missile over libya in 1986. that speed is actually even more impressive than it seems because while later soviet mig-25 and mig-31 fighters could attain mach 3 they could only do so for brief periods on afterburners the aerial equivalent of an energy burning sprint the sr-71 could sustain mach 3 flight for 90 minutes at which points it required in-flight refueling a blackbird once set the record for flying from new york to london in one hour and 54 minutes in effect by the time it took a sam missile system to lock onto an sr-71 traveling at mach 3 and launch a missile the blackbird was already moving beyond the effective range of the missile but lockheed wasn't just counting on speed to evade enemy missiles the blackbird was the first operational airplane intentionally designed with a reduced radar cross section to minimize the chance of detection the blackbird's chines the knife-like tapered edges of the fuselage were even coated with early radar absorbent iron ferrite paint to help lower radar detection ranges the chines were also found to provide additional lift and greater aerodynamic stability however the blackbird wasn't a stealth plane by modern standards it had a cross-section of 10 square meters which soviet radar technology soon proved capable of detecting anyway adding to the problem was the enormous heat exhaust plumes the sr-71's engines generated which disrupted the air particles behind it in a manner visible to radar fortunately the blackbird also mounted a radar jammer and other electronic countermeasures for confusing enemy missiles to cap it all off it was capable of sustained flight at 85 000 feet another unbroken record and employed an astro inertial navigation system that used the stars overhead to calculate the plane's position an impressive record the first operational sr-71 unit was activated in 1968 based at kadena air base in okinawa japan the locals nicknamed the recon birds habu pit vipers a nickname which stuck among blackbird pilots they went on to fly numerous reconnaissance missions over vietnam and while the plane performed well it seems those who would want to take the plane down as the ultimate trophy were catching up american pilots soon discovered that the blackbird's reduced radar cross-section wasn't an effective defense by itself russian-made radars were powerful enough to track the habu and launch missiles however they learned the sr-71 speed did not work as a defense around 800 missiles were fired at blackbirds over vietnam alone but not a single one was lost to enemy fire although one cia a12 did take a piece of shrapnel from an sa-2 missile that exploded 100 meters away blackbirds went on to fly over 3 51 reconnaissance missions over the next 30 years flying over the middle east north africa europe and asia 11 sr-71s were lost in accidents though all but one pilot survived not one was lost to hostile fire blackbird pilot colonel james shelton jr recounted how his plane flew an epic 11 and a half hour mission to photograph israeli army positions near the end of the yom kippur war along the way he overflew egyptian airspace and was tracked by multiple radar sites and interceptors but none of them could keep up the photos he took later established that israeli troops were further in egyptian territory than they had admitted leading the u.s to successfully pressure israel into withdrawing its forces blackbirds also flew recon missions off the russian coast though not over russia itself evading all of the mach 3 mig-25 fighters sent after them soviet defector victor balenko wrote in his biography mig pilot they taunted and toyed with the mig-25 sent up to intercept them scooting up to altitudes the soviet planes could not reach and circling leisurely above them or dashing off at speeds the russians could not match yet the blackbird had shortcomings it was expensive to operate costing more than a hundred thousand dollars per hour flown according to one estimate furthermore an sr-71 required an average of a week of maintenance between each mission because the high-speed flights often cause bits and pieces of the airplane to loosen or come off more importantly spy satellites and drones could handle these strategic missions that the sr-71 was supposed to perform and the blackbird which relied on 1960s technology had no data link to transmit its intelligence data back to base so it was not considered ideal for providing data in a time-sensitive manner the sr-71 was first retired in 1989 before three airframes were brought back into service in 1994. however the operating costs of the small fleet were extremely high despite attempts by politicians like senator john glenn to save the program the air force wanted to redirect funding to other projects the sr-71 was finally withdrawn from service in 1998. nasa's two blackbirds were retired the following year for years there were rumors of an even faster spy plane the aurora but its existence seems unlikely at this point rather the pentagon relies on drones and satellites if it needs to cast an eye on a well-defended location why risk lives and diplomatic incidents using manned aircraft the still classified rq-180 global hawk stealth drone currently in development is believed to be the effective successor of the blackbird what about gathering intel over places where there is no threat from surface-to-air missiles then the air force can call upon the venerable 1950s era u2 which in heavily upgraded form is now flying photo reconnaissance missions over iraq having outlasted its successor by two decades and counting nonetheless it looks like the blackbird will remain the queen of speed for some time to come [Music] you

Channel: US Military News

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Keywords: SR-71, SR71, SR-71 Blackbird, Fastest jet, reconnaissance aircraft, fastest jet drone, fastest jet ever, fastest jet engine, fastest jet ever made, fastest jet ever built, fastest jet fighter, fastest jet flying, fastest jet flight, the fastest jet, the world's fastest jet, fastest jet military, fastest jet of all time, fastest jet plane, Fastest Aircraft

Id: ru4AHP7wOMA

Length: 10min 11sec (611 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 26 2021