Aircraft A-12 - Research and development continued for a couple years before the first A-12 was completed and taken from Burbank to the Groom Lake test facility on 26 February 1962. A few months later, the A-12 made its first flight on April 25 with Lockheed test pilot Lou Schalk. During this flight, there were a few technical problems with the aircraft so the aircraft did not make its official first flight until 30 April 1962. After this event, a few days later, the aircraft went supersonic for the very first time and reached Mach 1.1 during the second test flight.
The choice of venue in which to test fly this state-of-the-art plane was simple. The CIA was already in place at Groom Lake, Nevada where it test flew the U-2. The first A-12 lifted off from Groom on April 26, 1962. This is absolutely amazing technology at the time that even today is still the fastest plane ever deployed for combat. Of the 15 A-12s that were built, 9 remain, scattered in museums across the country.
Aircraft A-12
Two years later on 28 December 1966, the decision is made to terminate A-12 operations by 1 June 1968. The BoB (Bureau of the Budget) decided that it would be too costly to have both the SR-71 and the A-12 programs at the same time because both aircraft are very similar and do similar tasks. In May of 1967, A-12s were flown to Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, Japan and BLACK SHIELD unit was declared operational. Near the end of May in 1967 was the first flight of the A-12 in a combat mission over North Vietnam, which lasted three hours and thirty-nine minutes. In November of 1967, the A-12 and the SR-71 conducted a reconnaissance fly-off to decide which aircraft was superior and worthy to keep. The final choice was the SR-71 but it is still debatable that the A-12 is superior.
A- Development And Operations
In February of 1968, Lockheed was ordered to destroy all tooling used to create the Blackbirds. Also during this year, the first SR-71 arrived at Kadena to replace the A-12s and it also flew its first operational mission on March 21st. May 8th saw the last operational mission of an A-12, which was over North Korea. After this, all A-12s were sent back to Palmdale to be put into storage for several decades before going to museums around the United States.
The following is a comparison gleaned from the exhibit placards for both the A-12 and SR-71A on static display at the Blackbird Airpark in Palmdale, California. There's been continual discussion among many aircraft fans as to just how fast or how high these things could go. If "official" inquiries are made, the answer is often "That information is still classified". Yet this data, quietly displayed on a street corner in Palmdale, is pretty close to the truth. After all, who's going to argue with Lockheed? Even so, certain atmospheric conditions could allow either of these craft to exceed their listed parameters slightly.
The development of the A-12 began back in the mid 1950s when the CIA decided that it would be best to replace the U-2. They desired an aircraft that would travel much faster and higher to avoid enemy defenses. Lockheed, the developer of the U-2 was also given the contract to develop this supersonic aircraft after a competition with Convair. Funded by the CIA, the project was called ARCHANGEL. The Skunk Works, a division of the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation went through twelve design proposals before they reached their final design, the A-12.
Officially, the program was known as Oxcart, a misnomer if ever there was one. Since no self-respecting pilot wanted to fly something as un-sexy as an "Oxcart", Lockheed unofficially dubbed them "Cygnus", named after the constellation of Cygnus the swan.
Early in 1963, the A-12 made its first flight with two of the J58 engines. During this year, the program experienced its first Blackbird loss when an A-12 crashed near Wendover, Utah on May 24th. Also, the aircraft made its first flight at Mach 3.2, the speed that the aircraft was intended to fly at in November. Due to a political motivation brought on by Barry Goldwater during the upcoming election, President Johnson announced the existence of the Blackbird on 29 February 1964. In June of 1964, the last A-12 was delivered to the Groom Lake test facility.
The numbers show that the A-12 was a little faster and could climb a little higher than the SR-71. It was, after all, a significantly lighter aircraft. Of course, the A-12 couldn't carry as much fuel, and its sensor payload was less, but an A-12 was spared the need for a 2-man crew. Overall, the two craft are more alike than they are different.
The A-12 is the forerunner of the SR-71 and has nearly the same shape and dimensions as its replacement. Designed to replace the U-2, the A-12 flew higher and four times as fast to outrun enemy defenses and gather intelligence. The A-12 is primarily an over flight vehicle unlike the SR-71. Its major advantages in capabilities to the SR-71 include its higher-resolution photography and its ability to go marginally faster (Mach 3.3) than the SR-71. However, the SR-71 was chosen as successor to the A-12 due to its side-looking radar and cameras, allowing it to gather important reconnaissance data without penetrating enemy airspace.
On 26 January 1960, the CIA ordered twelve A-12 aircraft. The next month, Lockheed began to search for 24 pilots for the A-12. Soon after in May of 1960, Francis Gary Powers was shot down in a U-2 over the Soviet Union. This event resulted in the United States and the Soviet Union signing an agreement not to fly manned vehicles over the Soviet Union again, a treaty that was undermined even before the SR-71 was built.
Most people, when shown a picture of an A-12 identify it as an SR-71", if there was any recognition at all on their part. But they would be wrong. Few are able to note the differences between the two craft at any distance, but the differences are significant.
An SR-71 was nothing to sneeze at. It flew close to the same speed and height as the A-12, and seated two instead of the A-12's single, overworked occupant. But it just didn't have the same charisma as its sneaky black older brother. The SR-71 was publicly announced in late 1964, prior to its first flight. The A-12s had already been zipping around for two years! And although much remained classified about the SR-71, it was still very much in the public eye.
The A-12 program was just the opposite, hiding out at Groom Lake (with occasional overseas postings) until the program was finally closed down in June of 1968. The burdens of running both the A-12 and SR-71 programs were just proving too costly. Besides, the Air Force wasn't too pleased that the CIA was in the spy plane business and wanted to keep all that Mach 3 stuff to themselves. But even though the project was shut down in 1968, the surviving A-12s were put in secret storage, and the project remained classified until 1981!
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