![]() ![]() The rest of the crew members ejected safely or evacuated their aircraft on the ground. Only one crew member, Jim Zwayer, a Lockheed flight-test reconnaissance and navigation systems specialist, was killed in a flight accident. The 32nd airframe was fabricated in 1969 as a hybrid trainer designated the SR-71C by mating the back half of an YF-12 wrecked in a 1966 landing accident with a fully-functional SR-71 forward section of a static test specimen. The United States Air Force Strategic Air Command had SR-71 Blackbirds in service from 1966 through 1991.Ī total of 32 SR-71 aircraft were built: 29 as SR-71As for operational missions and two as SR-71B trainers. Payne flew the first operational SR-71 sortie in SR-71 serial number 61-7976 from Kadena AB, Okinawa. On 21 March 1968, Major (later General) Jerome F. The first SR-71 to enter service was delivered to the 4200th (later, 9th) Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base, California, in January 1966. The J58s later became the standard power plant for all subsequent aircraft in the series (A-12, YF-12, M-21) as well as the follow-on SR-71 aircraft.Īlthough the predecessor A-12 first flew in 1962, the first flight of an SR-71 took place on 22 December 1964, at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. The first flight, by an A-12 known as “Article 121”, took place at Groom Lake, Nevada, on Apequipped with the less powerful Pratt & Whitney J75 engines due to protracted development of the intended Pratt & Whitney J58. As the project evolved, Lockheed designated the aircraft A-1 to A-12 as configuration changes occurred. The SR-71 came from a project designed for the CIA by Kelly Johnson at the Lockheed Skunk Works.
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