Following the loss of two U-2 Dragon Lady reconnaissance aircraft over the Soviet Union and Cuba in the early 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson demanded the seemingly impossible — a surveillance aircraft that could not be shot down by Soviet Bloc anti-aircraft missiles or interceptor aircraft.
To answer this Cold War need, the SR-71 Blackbird was born. The new photoreconnaissance aircraft evolved from the existing A-12 which was engineered by the preeminent aircraft designers of the twentieth century; Lockheed’s covert Skunk Works team led by Clarence “Kelly” Johnson.
During its 34 years of service, the SR-71 gathered intelligence in some of the world’s most hostile environments. The Blackbird evaded all 4,000 missiles fired at it and, to this day, remains the only Air Force aircraft to never lose a crewmember associated with it; whether in the air or on the ground.The Blackbird was designed to operate at extreme velocities, altitudes and temperatures. It was the first aircraft constructed with titanium, as the friction caused by air molecules passing over its surface at Mach 2.6 would melt a conventional aluminum frame. Its engineering was so cutting edge that even the tools to build the SR-71 needed to be designed from scratch. (U.S. Air Force Video // Andrew Arthur Breese)
The fledgling design provided the Air Force with a barrier-breaking aircraft to improve intelligence gathering in an airframe that could fly higher and faster than the U-2 with a reduced radar cross section.
The SR-71’s first flight took place on Dec. 22, 1964, and the first operational aircraft entered service with the 4200th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base, California, in January 1966.