After 25 Years, ‘Blackbird’ Is Still on the Wing

The SR-71 appeared out of nowhere, like you would expect of the original stealth jet that rockets at 2,100 m.p.h. to the edge of space as it spies on global hot spots above reach of attacks.

The jet sliced clouds in an otherwise blue sky on a slow climb toward a refueling air tanker, its dagger shape, black and sinister, resembling a starship out of the movies.

The spacesuit-clad pilot and navigator--members of an exclusive Air Force team--peered out toward a refueling tanker, where a news crew was watching a training exercise that wandered 1,200 miles over five Western states.

This was the “Blackbird,” the photo reconnaissance jet U.S. Air Force officials call part engineering miracle, part ghost; the one that first employed stealth or radar-evading technology; the one that still packs top-secret gear and was once so secret that TV news film of it was confiscated by the military.

Its crew members, who themselves were the target of an espionage attempt at their home base in California, say they have been attacked numerous times by missiles fired from ground forces or jet fighters futilely trying to cut short the Blackbird’s grueling missions, which involve photographing foreign nations. SR-71s don’t return fire; they are unarmed.

The twin-engine Blackbird is able to outstrip the attacks because it still holds world records for speed and altitude, even though it is 25 years old.

Its top capabilities remain secret, but the Air Force says it flies to more than 85,000 feet at more than three times the speed of sound. That’s roughly 33 miles a minute--faster than a bullet; fast enough to streak from San Francisco to New York in 1 hour, 45 minutes.

A former SR-71 pilot, Col. Richard Graham, said the aging plane’s ability to outperform most or all other operational aircraft in the world, while packing the latest photographic and sensing gear and sometimes evading radar detection, is a reflection of its design by Lockheed.

“For the 1960s, it was way ahead of its time. It was at the leading edge of stealth technology,” said Graham, who commands the wing that includes the sole SR-71 squadron, stationed at Beale Air Force Base, 110 miles northeast of San Francisco.

Added current Blackbird pilot Lt. Col. Bill Orcutt: “I think the aircraft still carries quite a bit of mystique. . . . It looks like something from outer space. The SR-71 excites the boy in all of us who love to fly.”

And the pilots say it flies like no other: “You’re so far up you don’t have a sensation of speed and you start to see the curvature of the Earth,” said Graham. “It’s smooth, serene, peaceful, quiet--you hear your own breathing. There’s no weather at that altitude. . . . If you look straight up (into space), it’s black.”

But cutbacks are planned in the Blackbird program, and the aircraft--which has become scarce anyway--may soon be condemned altogether to museums by the super-advanced stealth spy plane that is under development.

The new jet will fly even farther out of reach of hostile forces, hurtling at about five times the speed of sound--nearly twice as fast as the SR-71--to more than 100,000 feet, news reports say.

Moreover, the new plane is so shrouded in stealth technology that it will go undetected as it careens over other nations, according to the reports. The stealth technology, still largely secret, has grown far more sophisticated in the two decades since design of the SR-71, which was built with radar-absorbing materials and beam-deflecting curves on its body.

With the new jet still under development, along with its F-19 fighter and B-2 bomber counterparts, it is the SR-71 that continues to collect information for the Pentagon and the CIA.

Recent missions reportedly have included flights over the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea to provide data to U.S. warships operating in the area. Its cameras can photograph 100,000 square miles an hour, revealing the terrain in enough detail to, say, make out a license plate, according to the Air Force.

The recent training mission observed by a news crew began at Beale, with the pilot and reconnaissance systems operator arriving three hours before takeoff for physicals, breakfast, briefings, and donning of $100,000 spacesuits that include toilet facilities.

A van like those used to take astronauts to launch pads carried the men to the SR-71.

Fuel that is not particularly flammable dripped to the ground from half-full tanks, which would fully seal only after the aircraft had expanded in the heat of flight.

Equipment screamed as it ignited the SR-71’s twin turbojets, which belched greenish-blue flames and 100-foot streams of shimmering heat simply while idling.

Finally, the Blackbird blasted down the runway, then skyward, in a crackling thunder that shook the ground like roaring freight trains.

Two hours later, those aboard the KC-135 Stratotanker again saw the delta-winged Blackbird--this time over a practice refueling corridor, 25,000 feet above southern Idaho’s snowed-capped mountains.

The refueling boom operator lay in the belly of the tanker at its tail, staring out the back through portals as he helped guide the boom into the 107-foot-long Blackbird.

Fueling Done in Stages

Within minutes, the second half of the SR-71’s fuel load--too heavy a burden for its liftoff--was gushing between the coupled planes, which were traveling at 500 m.p.h.

The tanker navigator, Lt. Phil Campbell, said: “We’re going as fast as we can, and he’s going as slow as he can.”

Aerial refueling provides the Blackbird its global range. A mission can keep an SR-71 in the air for 12 hours, entering hostile territory and leaving it to refuel perhaps four or five times, said Orcutt, SR-71 squadron commander at Beale.

Tanker crews are somewhat jealous of attention focused on the Blackbird and its close-knit crews: “Everything is always SR this, SR that,” griped one tanker crew member.

But both tanker and Blackbird crews acknowledge a mutual respect: “Tankers have gone the extra mile in many cases to reach an SR-71 in trouble,” said wing commander Graham.

Last Assignment

Many of the Blackbird crew members are family men, with the younger ones in their early 30s. For most, it’s their last active-duty flying assignment.

Of the dangers that they face, said Judy Bozek, the 31-year-old wife of SR-71 crewman Maj. Blair Bozek: “I worry . . . but you sort of get numb to the fear. Seeing him today (from the tanker) made it worse. I can visualize it now.”

Squadron commander Orcutt, who has flown 80 Blackbird missions in five years, said he experienced an in-flight emergency that could have led to an explosion. Such dramas are doubly tense because pilots are flying over hostile territory.

Blackbird pilots say their background helps them survive. Crews usually have a decade of flying experience before they can compete for the program. If accepted, they train for another year.

Even on the ground, dangers persist. Former airman Bruce Ott was sent to prison in 1986 for passing an SR-71 unit personnel list to FBI agents posing as Soviet spies.

Satellites Limited

Indeed, the role of the SR-71 in world affairs apparently remains significant. Department of Defense officials say aircraft are still needed to gather intelligence because of the limits of satellite surveillance, according to news reports.

But SR-71s are becoming more scarce and the prototype photo reconnaissance planes, the glider-like U-2s, are even older and less capable. There are reportedly only nine of the 30 original SR-71s still in operation. Some have crashed; others have simply worn out.

Even so, the military plans cutbacks in the SR-71 squadron operated by the Strategic Air Command out of Beale and its forward fields at Mildenhall, a Royal Air Force installation in England, and at Kadena Air Base on the Japanese island of Okinawa.

Wing commander Graham said he has been told that four Blackbirds will be deactivated in fiscal 1989, which would reportedly save the Air Force $300 million annually. Congressional members are protesting the cuts.

As the era of the Blackbirds wanes due to development of the new stealth spy plane and budget cutbacks, SR-71 pilots are looking to the future.

Asked if he would like to fly the new stealth photo reconnaissance jet, Orcutt replied: “I’d be the first one to raise my hand.”

Faster than a bullet, more sinister than Darth Vader, able to outstrip attacks in a burst of speed--it’s the “Blackbird,” above, the U.S. photo reconnaissance spy jet. Even though the plane is 25 years old, it still holds a number of world records for speed and altitude. At right, the SR-71 is refueled by a KC-135 Stratotanker during mission over the snow-capped mountains of Idaho; below, view of refueling from tanker.