SR-71 Blackbird

The SR-71 Blackbird

The SR-71 Blackbird is a top quality Air vehicle used for surveillance and is also a top speed jet at high altitude!  The SR-71 Blackbird is an advanced, long-range, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft. During a mission if a surface-to-air missile was fired the Blackbird would just fly faster and out fly the missile. The SR-71 served with the U.S Air Force from 1964 to 1998. A total of 32 aircraft were built; 12 were lost in accidents, but none lost to enemy action. The SR-71 has been given several nicknames, including Blackbird and Habu. Since 1976, it has held the world record for the fastest air-breathing manned vehicles, a record previously held by the YF-12.Lockheed's previous reconnaissance aircraft was the relatively slow U-2, designed for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The 1960 downing of Francis Gary Powers's U-2 underscored the aircraft's vulnerability and the need for faster reconnaissance aircraft. The CIA turned again to Kelly Johnson and Lockheed's Skunk Works, who developed the A-12 and would go on to build upon its design concepts for the SR-71.Drawing on the first studies in radar stealth technology, which indicated that a shape with flattened, tapering sides would reflect most radar energy away from the radar beams' place of origin, engineers added chines and canted the vertical control surfaces inward. Special radar-absorbing materials were incorporated into sawtooth-shaped sections of the aircraft's skin. Water vapor is condensed by the low-pressure vortices generated by the chines outboard of each engine inlet.

The first operational aircraft designed around a stealthy shape and materials, the SR-71 had several features designed to reduce its radar signature. The SR-71 had a radar cross section (RCS) of around 10 square meters. Cesium-based substances were added to the fuel to somewhat reduce the visibility of the exhaust plumes to radar, although the large and hot exhaust stream produced at speed remained quite apparent. For all this effort, Kelly Johnson later conceded that Soviet radar technology advanced faster than the stealth technology employed against it. The SR-71 carried electronic countermeasures, but its greatest protection was its high speed and cruising altitude that made it almost invulnerable to the weapons of its day. Merely accelerating would typically be enough to evade a surface-to-air missile, and the plane was faster than the Soviet Union's principal interceptor, the MiG-25. During its service life, no SR-71 was shot down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3tvBRs8_qU

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/100years/stories/blackbird.html