Those interested in the A-12-Sr-71 might like to look at this article, very interesti

[dharris]

Those interested in the A-12-Sr-71 might like to look at this article, very interesti

http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/The-Real-X-Jet.html?c=y&page=1

 

[peter12213]

You just don't realise how much of a ground braking aircraft this was until you read that, I knee parts of the story but that article is very detailed and interesting! Kelly Johnson really was a genious of biblical proportions!

 

[Railrunner130]

I've read perhaps a dozen books on the Blackbird. It was certainly an amazing airplane that will never be duplicated in terms of high-tech, yet simple technology.

 

[warchild]

dont know.. When i was working on Razbams Convair, i did a lot of research into fish and Kingfish.. The likeness to yet another super top secret that cant be kept ( Aurora ) is remarkable.. Maybe they're still making them simple?? yeah, not likely, but one can always hope eh??
Pam

 

[dharris]

If you ever get a chance to read The Untouchables, and Sled Driver by Brian Shule some of the stories he relates are incredible. Well worth the time if you can find them. And no, your cannot have mine! lol

 

[Dexdoggy]

A fantastic read, many thanks for finding!

 

[Roger]

Great read! Thanks:ernae:

 

[Sundog]

If you're interested in more detail on how they got to the Oxcart program, Lockheed's Code One Magazine online is doing a four part series that covers the Convair side of it.

The first part is on the Super-Hustler.

The second part, just posted, is on the FISH (First Invisible Super Hustler).

I don't know if last two parts are on Convair developments or if the third part will be on the KingFISH and the last part the Blackbird. One of them will definitely be on the KingFish.

Thanks for the Air and Space link.

 

[warchild]

Welll, not to drag the topic off the sr-71, but both Fish and King Fish are top secret still today ( 45 years after they were canned?? ), sooo,, I dont neccessarily trust anything anyone has to say from the government until they declassify it.. till then, a mach 6 plane ( fish ) and odd behavior on the governments part will keep my suspicions quite active..

 

[lazarus]

One mission never talked of much for the YF-12A was ballistic missile interception. It was actually demonstrated with a B-47 lugging a brass board off the shelf test vehicle. They lofted off 3 or 4 at one of the early Discoverer vehicles in LEO in a dem-val program, mid 1960's. The planned version was for Alaskan based Boost-phase interception. Odd ,though, how some miss information keeps being perpetuated, little stuff that says "I did all the research for this article/book in 10 minutes with google" Nitrogen filled tires in the A-11/12/YF-12/SR-71 for flamability reasons- you will find nitrogen in any aircraft tire, as well as accumulators ect, as its dry,clean, and thermally stable- does not expand and contract much over a broad temperature range. Jon Stewart was interveiwing an author last night about a 1944 glider rescue operation in New Guinea- same thing. A' wild, Wilie e Coyote operation' with 'wooden flying coffin' gliders, snatched fron the ground with a 'hook and a rubber band dangling from another plane.' I'm thinking -"this is a revelation? - good thing he never saw the L-4/LST SKYLINE recovery trial photos- he'd have crapped!"
The KINGFISH studies were interesting, though. The F-117's grandpappy...
Edit.... this was one of the pages I remembered- Lockheed studies for strike and attack/Close air support Blackbirds. There were also studies to fit an M-61 Vulcan cannon, racks of FFAR's internally, anti-tank munitions, external 1MT H-bomb/fuel pods- loads of wacky stuff- Close air support in a Blackbird! some times you gotta think- I'll have what they're smoking!
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=3780.0;all

 

[Railrunner130]

I'm convinced a lot of the "studies" related to the Blackbird were ploys for funds and aircraft production.

The CIA were the first to get into the program with the A-12. Because of being lightweight and only having one seat, it was the hotrod of the family.

The YF-12 interceptor version eventually amounted to the development of the radar for the F-14 and further development work for the SR-71. I don't think Lockheed was serious about building the YF-12 because an alert would've taken something like two hours to generate a flying airplane. If they had been serious, I think they would've spent much more time trying to reduce the launch time. They may have been trying to grab funding away from the multi-role F-111 program, but I'm not sure the dates match up to support this theory.

Lockheed also tried to horn funds away from the XB-70 program by revealing drawings for the bomber version. Again, I think they were after cash and not really looking to enter into the bomber business.

Oddly enough, in the 2004-2005 time frame the F-22 magically became the FA-22 in an attempt to gather more funding. I forget what project they were trying to grab funds from, but I suspect it was a continuation of the F-15E. Once that project was scrapped, so was the FA-22.

 

[RKinkor]

I wish somebody would model these. I have the Alphasim SR-71 but it would be nice to have the Fish and Kingfish as well. Also wish Hollywood could do a movie about Kelly Johnson.

 

[lazarus]

...A movie about Kelly Johnson...

One of the things that strikes me about aircraft development now is that there are no singular personalities ( besides Mr.Rutan, and he's a different animal all together) driving design teams and making the cognitive leap, and turning that into ;sometimes, revolutionary hardware in a timely( some times very rapid) fashion. Instead, its become concensus building (or lack of) gestalt entities with accountants as the brain stem, which seems to manifest as 20-30 year development cycles that often produce not much more than endless definition, parametric and feasibility studies. Even now, say at Lock-Mart, they're still coasting on ideas and techniques hammered out by Kelly Johnson and Ben Rich, with a lot of poorly thought out code and half-arsed kluges (the F-22 international date line debacle comes to mind) scabbed on.
25 years ago, when I entered trade school, there sat, of all things, Kelly Johnsons personal airplane, N329J, the twin Orpheus Jetstar prototype, as she was when she left Lockheed. Maybe it was just me, but I swear, you could still see the shadow cast by those giants, you could feel the greatness. A heady experiance to plop yer butt down in Tony Leviers left seat, know that this was where Johnson and Rich brainstormed gods know what, Jack Northrop, Don Douglas, and Bill Boeing caged rides- That airplane oozed history, for those in the know... or, maybe I'm just an incurable romantic under the acerbic facade...

 

[warchild]

and that is exactly why i believe that Fish and King Fish were taken to black ops and covered up. Originally designed as a missile platform, the A-11 was latched onto by the cia and became the A-12. Supposedly, the original A-12 is now what we call the A-11 and identifying either one as the other is acceptable as they are both correct. The Fish and King Fish took a slightly different route. Powered by J-58s the King Fish could only fly at mach 4, and without the B-58 the Fish seemingly had no way to get off the ground.. But i dont believe the government simply shrugged an oh Well too bad and let it go at that. All three designs were lightyears ahead of their time. One piece of evidence to support the Fish still existing is its unique contrail. Its pulsed at a specific interval, and as recently as within the last ten years, a photograph has been taken of the same type of contrail over the Atlantic ocean by a satellite, and displayed on one of Nick Cooks Television specials.. He implied it may be Aurora..
Pam

 

[lazarus]

The 'Doughnut on a rope' PDWE contrails... there is also the 'GASPIPE' (call sign) air traffic control conversations associated with some of those sightings, calling bizzare FL's and GS's out, or the North Sea sighting of the black delta taking gas from a KC-135. Theres alot of very strange stuff in the air. Burning swamp gas reflecting the planet Venus off a weather balloon!

 

[warchild]

According to the original convair designer who now works for lockheed ) they designed Fish to look like a UFO// Rounded everything.. This does not fit with the available three views or images and certainly not with the supplied propaganda.. But it does begin to match one other aircraft that has been speculated over for a very long time.. Project aurora is speculated to appear as something that is a blend of Fish and King Fish, and last reports on the King fish speculated about having ram/scram jets in combination with the J-58s. Of course this is all speculation and rumor, with the additional exaggeration or two thrown in to account for updates in technology to keep the tale current and the myth alive..

 

[lazarus]

The design evolved as the possibility to manage and reduce radar cross section became possible . In the B/W photo above, the boffins are setting up a KINGFISH RCS test article at Tonapah. Early on, from work done in Germany and the UK, the idea of directing radar energy away from the transmiting/recieving array was incorporated, and the engineers found that the faceted designs, though an aerodynamic nightmare, reduced the computational burden to a (just) manageable level, where as 'traditional' curved forms, were beyond the computatoinal capabilities of the day. Indeed, it was the late '70's before the state of the art and computing power progressed to the point that RCS could be calculated and managed with complex curved structures, though one derives superior RCS reduction with 'diamond' and 'W' faceted forms. From an aero-thermal and fabrication standpoint, the faceted forms amorleate the nightmares of fabricating structures from heat resistant materials- nickle and titainium alloys, boron, silicates,quartz and high temp phenolic's. The blunt, flat forms make it easier ( from impossible to merely difficult!) manage thermal distortion and heat re-radiation. Techniques like superplastic diffusion forming and stir welding used today for fabricating hard, high temp materials was still 30 years away; SPDF comming into use in the early '80's, and stir welding in the late 90's .
Sorry for Hi-jacking the thread... great conversation,though...

 

[warchild]

I wouldnt say hi-jacking, not exactly.. Its my perception and belief that the three planes are insepertably linked together.. The A-12 DID win the contest, but a U-2 had been shot down, causing an intelegence hole if i may call it that. there was a time when nothing was overflying russia. I can only imagine the horor this would be to the intellegence community. Speculating, I believe that work proceeded on the SR-71 ( RS-71 originally if it werent for a president transposing letters ) and it went black. In the mean time, work also possibly proceded on the Fish/KingFish, and kept in the shadows as a quick replacement for the sr-71 should anything have gone wrong. Gone wrong things did. The Russians ( according to the designer of the SU-27 whos name i cant remember or spell ) nknew about the SR-71 from almost its first overflight. They couldnt chase it and they couldnt shoot it down ( they did try ) so they just made notes of it all.. However, Time and ownership winning out, after thirty years of denial, the Americans finally admitted to the SR-71 and publicly retired it. Take the term retire with a grain of salt however.. Satallites cannot replace aircraft, because satallites are predictable. All you gotta do is cover what your doing under a sheet at the right time and no one would ever know,if it werent for aircraft, which are unpredictable. Part 2 in a brief second..

 

[warchild]

Having announced the retirement of the SR-71 the intelligence comunity would have been faced with a choice. Either create a new plane or, paint the sr-71 in new colors and send it up anyway as a "research" vehicle. Or they could have done both. Fish, or KingFish would have been waiting in the wings Leak a couple photos of a particularly unique contrail and let the world see a glimpse and the SR-71 is ready to go back to work with everyone thinking theres a whole new bird out there. I personally feel the SR-71 is still doing its job, and its able to do it thanks to the covert existence of the Fish and KingFish..

 

[dharris]

Thanks for all the additional information that is brought out on this thread. I am still learning new things and that helps us old folks! Any more info out there please add to this, don't worry about hi-jacking, this is great, thanks lazarus good info.