SR-71 Blackbird YF-12
by Weston Westmoreland
Title
SR-71 Blackbird YF-12
Artist
Weston Westmoreland
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
The Lockheed YF-12 is an American prototype interceptor aircraft developed and manufactured by American aerospace company Lockheed Corporation.
It was developed during the late 1950s and early 1960s as a potential replacement for the F-106 Delta Dart interceptor for the United States Air Force (USAF). The YF-12 was a twin-seat version of the then-secret single-seat Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); unlike the A-12, it was furnished with the Hughes AN/ASG-18 fire-control radar and could be armed with AIM-47 Falcon (GAR-9) air-to-air missiles. Performing its maiden flight on 7 August 1963, the YF-12's existence was revealed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on 24 February 1964; this move was to provide plausible deniability for the CIA-operated A-12 fleet, which closely resembled the prototype YF-12.
During the 1960s, the YF-12 underwent flight evaluations by the USAF, but funding to put it into operational use was not forthcoming partly due to the pressing demands of the Vietnam War and other military priorities. It set and held speed and altitude world records of over 2,000 miles per hour (3,200 km/h) and over 80,000 feet (24,000 m) (later surpassed by the closely-related SR-71 Blackbird), and is the world's largest, heaviest and fastest crewed interceptor. Following its retirement by the USAF, it served as a research aircraft for NASA for a time, which used it to develop several significant improvements in control for future supersonic aircraft.
Nasa, however, also used SR-71s designated as YF-12 too. NASA was not allowed to have an SR-71 but they did and they passed it off as a YF-12.
The “YF-12C” was a then-secret SR-71A (serial no. 64-17951, the second production SR-71A) given the NASA tail no. 60-6937. The reason for this bit of subterfuge lay in the fact that NASA, while flying the YF-12A interceptor version of the aircraft, was not allowed to possess the strategic reconnaissance version for some time. The bogus tail number actually belonged to a Lockheed A-12 (serial no. 60-6937), but the existence of the A-12 remained classified until 1982. The tail number 06937 was selected because it followed in the sequence of tail numbers assigned to the three existing YF-12A aircraft: 06934, 06935, and 06936.
The SR-71 differed from the YF-12A in that the YF-12A had a round nose while the SR-71 had its chine carried forward to the nose of the airplane. There were other differences in internal and external configuration, but the two aircraft shared common inlet designs, structural concepts, and subsystems.
Whichever model we see in this image, it remains a spectacular design.
More NASA and Hubble enhanced images one copy-paste away in my gallery at https://weston-westmoreland.pixels.com/collections/astronomy
More fighters, bombers and biplanes one copy-paste away in my Aircraft Gallery at http://westonwestmoreland.com/collections/aircraft
Weston Westmoreland
Uploaded
October 18th, 2021
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