On March 6, 1990, Lt. Col. Ed Yeilding streaked across the California sky at 2,000 mph in the SR-71 Blackbird. It was 4:30 a.m., and the stars were brilliant below him. The view from his cockpit was serene and beautiful. But a sudden malfunction of the fuel pumps that fed the aircraft’s rear-most tank may have ended the mission right then. Yeilding began toggling the switches in and off, hoping the shock might shake the valves loose. Eventually, the malfunctioning fuel readings became a non-issue.
With all their hardware problems behind them, Yeilding and Major Joe Vida, the SR-71’s reconnaissance systems officer, went on to set four world speed records before touching down at Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia. The SR-71 was being delivered to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, but these airmen did not do anything in an ordinary way. Records set that still stand today include St. Louis to Cincinnati in eight minutes, 32 seconds; Kansas City to Washington, D.C., in 25 minutes, 59 seconds; Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., in 64 minutes, 20 seconds; and the United States west coast to east coast in 67 minutes, 54 seconds. The record-setting aircraft is now on display at the Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.
The SR-71 Blackbird was a design brainchild of engineers at Lockheed, who strived for a blistering speed and low radar detectability, forerunner of today’s stealth technology. Though technology of the early 1960s failed to make the SR-71 completely invisible to radar, it became an enormous step forward toward full-stealth aircraft such as the Lockheed F-117 and the Northrop B-2.
The Blackbird was not just an aircraft developed for speed, but one that would truly help shape how diplomacy and military strategy were exercised by the United States throughout the period of the Cold War. Intelligence gathering with high-resolution photography, interception of communications and electronic signals, was done by the unarmed SR-71. From military commanders to the White House, decision-makers relied upon intelligence obtained by the Blackbird. In many geopolitical crises from 1968 to 1989, there was the SR-71 overhead, taking vital information.
Operational missions for the SR-71 began in 1968 during the Vietnam War. The Museum’s Blackbird deployed to Japan’s Kadena Air Base in late September 1969 and flew its first mission over Vietnam October 4. Captain Bob Spencer piloted that mission; his reconnaissance systems officer was Captain Richard Sheffield. “We went right downtown on the first pass,” Sheffield recalled.
The Museum’s Blackbird flew around the world until 1983, when it was relocated to Lockheed’s test facility at Palmdale, California. It accumulated 2,795 hours on 900 flights, including 197 combat missions. Of those, it spent 652 hours above Mach 3. The last was on its final flight in 1990, when Yeilding and Vida flew it to the Smithsonian.
The SR-71 Blackbird is an engineering marvel of aviation. Its sleek, futuristic design and unrivaled speed still impress people who visit the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center today. “The SR-71 stops traffic, literally,” claims Michael W. Hankins, curator of U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps post-World War II aviation at the National Air and Space Museum. “Many of the people walking into the Museum come to a sudden halt when they first see the aircraft.”. Their chins drop and their eyes grow wide at the sight of this huge, futuristic, black knife of titanium. “”
Not only has the SR-71 Blackbird had the record of being the fastest aircraft ever built; its real importance lies in the fact that it really contributed to military intelligence and aviation technology. It stands to this day as a very visible icon of American ingenuity and technological muscle.