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| SR-71 (Picture I) |
Kimmo Huosionmaa
SR-71 was the fastest aircraft in the world, and it had the capacity to fly at speed over 3600 kilometers per hour. The program was also known as A-12 "Oxcart", and the name of this system was selected for covering the top-secret spy plane, by claiming that is new attack plane. This aircraft had extreme high speed, and some of them were lost in accidents. One of the reasons or the biggest reason for terminating this program was that the CIA afraid that the motor technology what was used in this plane got into hands of the communist block if one of those planes would get the motor damage during the mission.
There were explosives in those planes, that if it would go too low, the explosives were destroyed the motors and other important parts of that plane, and some of the destroyed planes were destroyed in the tests, where those self-destruction mechanisms were tested because CIA afraid that KGB might slip their agent in the service crew, and that person could remove the explosives. If the pilot of that plane could also want to take the plane to the hands of Soviets, that would be the catastrophic thing. And destroying the planes in those security screens is very expensive.
This is, of course, one reason for the price of that mission, but for the high costs of the airplanes were many other reasons Actually, SR-71 (A-12) were two planes, the airborne refueling plane, and the recon plane, and every one of those aircraft used unique fuels, and they had the unique ventilation system, what rises the costs of that program. Another means the plane, what was used in Air-Force, and another one means the planes, what was made for CIA, by using materials, what were brought by passing the bookkeeping, and also those planes had special numbers, what were not public. CIA used those planes for deep penetrating missions in the Soviet airspace. The funny thing about those planes is, that Titanium, what was used for them was bought from the Soviet Union. This information was delivered in some TV-document of that project.
Also, CIA is suspected to transfer money by this project for "black budget" aircraft and weapon projects, and this is why the costs of this program were extremely high. But there is a tale, that some of this fastest man-made aircraft had the capacity to carry bombs and missiles. The rumor claims that SAC planned to install nuclear weapons to the internal bomb bay of this plane. That's the reason, why the A-12 had the letter "A" in the name, but I don't know does the SR-71's attack version existed.
There are rumors that there were three types of this aircraft. YF-12, what was planned to be an ultra-fast jet fighter, A-12 what was or is an attack version and SR-71, what is the reconnaissance version of the worlds fastest aircraft. The YF-12 was code-name for this project sometimes, and the nuclear weapons could be the good reason for keeping persons out of the areas, where this plane kept for service and other purposes, but as we know, the SR-71 is real, but other variants of this plane are only rumors.
Maybe they were stored in AREA-51 or destroyed when the program was terminated. But as we know, there are many secrets in that place, and maybe this aircraft still flies in the top-secret world of intelligence, under the project, what code-name have not been mentioned. The reason, why the SR-71 was mentioned as "grey project", means that those aircraft were so expensive. The production of those planes outside the official bookkeeping was also making suspects, that there were many things, what somebody didn't want that was not known in public.
Picture I
https://www.microsiervos.com/img/SR71.jpg
