Projects don't get much more secret than building a super-advanced spy plane. When you think about it, it's kind of amazing that these photos even exist. It's a unique view of one of the most impressive programs in American history.
The Blackbird didn't begin as quite the same plane we know it as – it was originally the A-12 Oxcart, and it was totally, radically different from everything that had come before it.
Kelly Johnson and his team at Lockheed's Skunk Works facility worked tirelessly on a nearly impossible task – and they delivered.
“Everything had to be invented. Everything,” he later recalled. The timeline for all that inventing? Just 20 months.
The new planes would have to break existing records, flying at over 2,000 mph for hours at a time. Flying at such speeds would create enough friction with the atmosphere to melt conventional airframes.
At the time, only a few jets had ever flown that fast, and they had only done so for short bursts.
Only titanium panels could stand up to the temperatures the Blackbird would encounter, but creating a titanium skin for the planes proved troublesome.
The panels would shatter easily if they were mishandled, so assembly line workers had to be re-trained. Then the machinists discovered that their cadmium-plated tools were turning the titanium brittle, so all-new tools had to be designed and made out of titanium. So much titanium went into the plane's production that more had to be purchased from a surprising source: the Soviet Union.
Many, many more systems and materials had to be invented to make the Blackbird a success.
According to former SR-71 pilot Major Brian Shul, "Special heat-resistant fuel, oil, and hydraulic fluids that would function at 85,000 feet and higher also had to be developed." Creating those systems and fluids saved many lives over the years – no Blackbird was ever shot down.
Even the black paint coating the SR-71 served a multiple critical purposes. The special formula could absorb radar and helped manage the extreme differences in heat when the aircraft was in flight.
While the leading edges could reach 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the outside of the cockpit window would be -60 at the same time.
Then there are the J-58 engines, legendary in aviation circles. The speed and altitude these engines allowed the SR-71 to reach didn't just break records – they re-wrote the rules of aerial navigation.
Flying at 3,000 feet per second, traditional visual references like highways and rivers meant little. Pilots would have to use things like mountain ranges and coast lines instead.
It's probably not surprising that pilots could become giddy with so much power at their fingertips.
“At 85,000 feet and Mach 3, it was almost a religious experience,” said Air Force Colonel Jim Wadkins. “Nothing had prepared me to fly that fast… My God, even now, I get goose bumps remembering.”
The Blackbird's speed kept its pilots safe. No air defense could hope to catch up to a bird going Mach 3 on the edge of space.
Although many surface-to-air missiles were fired at Blackbirds over the years, they typically missed by many miles. Even 53 years after its inaugural flight, it remains the fastest and highest manned plane ever produced.
So it's no surprise that the U.S. did its utmost to keep the Blackbird's secrets under wraps.
Only 50 SR-71 airframes were ever made, and the dies and molds used to make them were destroyed at the order of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.
The SR-71 made its first flight in 1964 and remained in active service until 1990.
Its final flight, from LA to Washington, took a mere 67 minutes.
And even after the USAF had retired the Blackbirds, NASA found uses for this unique, amazing plane.
It's still an absolutely amazing plane.
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