Hello, Blackbird : Restoration Work Nearly Done on Venerable Spy Plane
The Blackbird spy plane sits forlornly on the runway outside of a hangar near Lindbergh Field, its wings clipped.
In fact, the Blackbird, as the A-12 spy plane manufactured by Lockheed was dubbed, was cut into six pieces earlier this year before being shipped by truck from an Air Force hangar in Palmdale to San Diego, where the retired spy plane will be displayed at the Aerospace Museum in Balboa Park. Crews in Palmdale also removed the powerful turbojet engines that helped make the Blackbird the fastest and highest-flying production aircraft in history.
And--horror of horrors--the Blackbird was not even black when it arrived in San Diego, because a white, rubber-like substance had been applied to protect the plane from the elements as it sat in Palmdale.
But the Blackbird will be back in the black next spring after a group of retirees from General Dynamics’ San Diego-based Convair Division help renovate and repaint the plane, which will be displayed outside the museum.
The Blackbird is the latest in a string of aircraft that the former Convair employees have restored for the Aerospace Museum. The retirees donate their time and expertise, and General Dynamics contributes tools, some funding and the hangar that is used to complete the renovation.
The spy plane was one of 32 Blackbirds produced during the late 1950s and early 1960s by Lockheed Aeronautical System Co. in Burbank, which manufactured a number of advanced aircraft for the military. The San Diego museum is one of a handful of museums nationwide that will receive one of the planes that were officially retired by the Air Force in March because of budgetary constraints.
The Blackbird was designed by Clarence L. (Kelly) Johnson, who also created Lockheed’s secret “Skunk Works” research and development division in Burbank. Johnson, who designed myriad aircraft, ranging from the World War II P-38 Lightning to the triplesonic SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance planes, died Dec. 21 at the age of 80.
Most of the Blackbirds that Lockheed manufactured were second-generation SR-71s, a two-seat reconnaissance aircraft. The Blackbird being restored in San Diego is an A-12, an earlier version of the SR-71 that also was manufactured by Lockheed.
“To most folks who aren’t real knowledgeable about the A-12, there probably wouldn’t appear to be much difference from an SR-71,” Air Force Maj. Dick Cole said.
Both versions share the dagger-like shape. Both are about 100 feet long, 55 feet wide and 18 feet high. Both the A-12 and the SR-71 have flown faster than 2,000 m.p.h. and cruised at 80,000 feet or higher.
The Blackbird that is being restored by 40 Convair retirees, however, is destined to remain earthbound after it is attached to a pedestal outside of the Aerospace Museum in Balboa Park.
The Convair retirees who are putting the Blackbird back together begin their workday at about 8 a.m. in the hangar supplied by General Dynamics. They work through to 2 p.m., interrupted only by a mid-morning coffee break that gives them a chance to munch on cookies and trade stories.
Former careers don’t dictate who does what at the renovation site. Engineers, supervisors, line workers and executives alike use putty knives, cutting tools, screwdrivers and paint brushes to restore the plane’s lines.
This is the closest that any of the Convair retirees has ever gotten to a Blackbird, which the Air Force used as an airborne “spy” that carried the nation’s most exotic intelligence-gathering equipment.
None of the retirees ever saw the plane in flight. Because the planes have been retired, the chances are good that none of them ever will.
“It’s now history, the missiles have taken over,” said Tony Berarini, 73, who retired in 1980 after 44 years with General Dynamics. “The satellites, they say, can now do it all.”
A. Lou Scheibel, who retired from General Dynamics in 1976 after 37 years, believes that he heard Blackbirds flying overhead when he worked at Edwards Air Force Base during the 1960s. But “they flew them so far away, and the altitude was so high that I never saw one,” Scheibel said. “It was still a hush-hush program back then.”
To a degree, the Blackbird remains a hush-hush program, even though the aircraft were officially retired earlier this year. The Air Force, for example, still declines to state just how fast and how high the planes could fly.
The Air Force only recently declassified seemingly harmless information, including how many SR-71 Blackbirds (32) were built, and how many (12) were destroyed in accidents. No pilots were killed in those accidents, Cole said.
Nine of the remaining operational aircraft have been flown to aerospace museums around the country. The Air Force placed three in long-term storage at a hangar in Palmdale, and three were turned over to NASA for experimental projects. More than a dozen non-operational aircraft, many of which were cannibalized for parts, were dispatched to San Diego and other cities, where they will be displayed at aerospace museums.
The Air Force’s decision to retire the Blackbirds does not sit well with those Convair retirees who believe the airplane could still play a vital role in the nation’s defense.
Their belief is bolstered by the fact that, on March 6, SR-71 model No. 17972 made a record-setting cross-country flight before being trucked to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. That Blackbird flew from Los Angeles to Washington in just 68 minutes and 17 seconds, averaging 2,112.52 m.p.h.
Partly because of the Air Force’s penchant for secrecy, the Space Museum has learned little about the history of its Blackbird.
Cole said that records are incomplete, but that the airplane probably made its last flight during the late 1960s. But the Convair retirees speculate that a string of dates stenciled on the plane’s fuselage near the forward landing gear might be proof that the craft remained flight-ready well into the late 1980s.
The retirees also think that the Blackbird’s tail number is 06933. But aerospace industry sources said that the number might be bogus because the Air Force evidently changed tail numbers on the Blackbirds in order to confuse spies who wanted to know how many of the aircraft had been built.
The Convair retirees also have no idea of where the airplane they are restoring was flown, or if it has set any speed or altitude records. They do know, however, that the A-12 Blackbird is far faster than any civilian or military aircraft that they worked on at General Dynamics.
Paul Pearson, who retired from General Dynamics’ Convair Division in 1972, remembers standing in awe at air races in Los Angeles during the 1930s when racing planes reached speeds of nearly 300 m.p.h.
“Man, I thought that was it,” said Pearson, who is working on an aircraft that has flown at Mach 3, or three times the speed of sound.
The Convair retirees are equally enthralled by the technology that made the Blackbird so fast.
Lockheed’s Burbank facility used manufacturing techniques that “were a mystery to us” during the 1960s, said Mike Alianelli, 82, who retired nearly 20 years ago.
During the early 1960s, GD engineers were using titanium, then an exotic material, to forge a relatively simple “shroud” that would protect the fuselages of F-106 fighters from intense engine heat. The shroud proved difficult to manufacture, Pearson said.
Convair employees learned much later that, at that same time, Lockheed’s Burbank facility was using advanced manufacturing techniques to produce all-titanium Blackbirds. “They were on the outer fringes of the state of the art at the time,” Pearson said.
Although the Blackbird was designed to withstand the stresses caused by Mach 3.5 speeds, the plane will face less hazardous duty in San Diego, where its biggest threats will come from the sunny climate, gusty winds and the occasional earthquake.
Accordingly, the retirees won’t use titanium bolts as they put the six pieces back together. And, they won’t use the extravagantly costly paint that was needed to withstand 500-degree heat at extremely high altitudes, said Joe Miller, who retired from General Dynamics in 1979.
The General Dynamics retirees have helped to restore other aircraft for the Aerospace Museum, but the Blackbird project is perhaps the most complex because the massive airplane was cut into pieces before being shipped to San Diego on four flatbed trucks.
When the Blackbird finally is bolted to its perch, Pearson promised that the spy plane will look exactly as it did while on active duty.
“It’s a one-of-a-kind airplane,” said Harold Arneson, another Convair retiree. “It’s 25 years old, but it still has the top speed record. . . . It’s just a phenomenally good airplane.”
