The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird is the fastest and highest-flying jet aircraft in history and Duxford’s SR-71 Blackbird has flown higher than any other when it set the world record for sustained altitude flight in 1976, flying at 85,000 feet. Blackbird was developed in the 1960s during the Cold War as a high-flying reconnaissance jet. It is still considered by many as the most advanced aircraft of its type, flying at three times the speed of sound, faster than any weapon that could be fired at it.

So why was Blackbird grounded? Why were so few made? And what was it like to fly? We talk to curator Emily Charles and hear from two pilots who flew the Blackbird to learn all about this space-age icon.

Still the world's fastest jet

Emily Charles (EC): "This aircraft behind me is the fastest and the highest flying aircraft in the museum's collection, but not only that it is the fastest and the highest flying aircraft in history. In fact this SR-71 Blackbird behind me has flown higher than any other as in July 1976 it set the world record for sustained altitude flight flying at a whopping 85,000 feet.

"Blackbird was developed in the 1960s. The United States needed a new type of reconnaissance aircraft after US pilot Gary Powers was shot down in a U-2 spy plane over the soviet union in 1960 and caused a diplomatic incident. US forces had previously thought that the U-2 was incapable of being shot down because it flew so high it was out of the reach of surface-to-air missiles. The Gary Powers incident proved this to be wrong, so the need for a new aircraft which could fly higher and faster and indeed still take strategic reconnaissance photographs while not overflying the Soviet Union was needed.

"It was out of this need that the blackbird was born, an aircraft that could fly at three times the speed of sound, faster than any weapon that could be fired at it.

Interviewer: "I was always wondering if I could ask you about the sort of sensation of travelling at, you know, how does it feel at 35 miles a minute?"

Adelbert Carpenter: "Yes, and that's why part of it it took us a year to train. Changing your mindset so you're constantly thinking well ahead of the airplane was was a real change in life per se. And in the SR, I'll give you a couple things: one, you're in a spacesuit. So you're somewhat isolated from some of the sounds that you would have heard in a normal airplane, and your greatest sense of speed was actually on takeoff.

"You get to the end of the runway, after you release your brakes, and light the after burn, within 20 seconds you will have gone 4,500 feet. You're doing 240 miles an hour and you're lifting off in a fairly fast climb because you're going to pass through 20,000 feet in less than two minutes from the time you release the brakes. Now if you keep climbing all the way up to 80,000 feet which is about where you normally level off, it's going to take you 17 more minutes, but you're climbing and accelerating at the same time and you're going to burn a third of your fuel. But then you're going to steady out up there.

"Now once you're up there, think about it, you're three times the speed of sound so most the sound is behind you naturally. The ground is 16 miles below you but when you're at 80,000 feet doing 2100 miles an hour, yes you can see the ground moving, but it doesn't give you a real sense of speed."

EC: "The blackbird was developed at the top secret Lockheed Skunk Works in California. One of the scientists working on the project was Clarence Kelly Johnson, who was instrumental in coming up with the high-tech design. In fact it was so complicated an aircraft to produce that each aircraft cost $34 million to make. 

"A typical Blackbird intelligence mission would see the aircraft take off, speed up to three times the speed of sound, and then while flying incredibly high and incredibly fast take reconnaissance photography around the edges of the Soviet Union. Now it flew around the edges of the Soviet Union because after the U-2 incident the US government had pledged to stop carrying out overflights over Russian territory.

"Instead Blackbirds were positioned strategically in bases where they could fly around the very edges of the Soviet Union in a great height. Blackbirds like this one behind me were stationed in Okinawa in the South Pacific and in Mildenhall here in the UK."

Rich Graham (RG): "There's a big difference between an overt mission and covert. Ours were all overt. Covert missions was what the A12 was doing early on when the CIA was flying out of Okinawa. When the SR came along now you have an airplane it has Air Force markings, we have Geneva convention cards in our wallets, in our pressure suits...

"This is an overt mission. No Blackbird of any variety has ever been over the land mass of Russia or China. Never ever. We've been around the periphery in international waters but never been over the land mass."

EC: "This specific Blackbird carried out such strategic reconnaissance missions it was based in both Mildenhall and Okinawa from the late 1970s until 1990. Its last flight was in January 1990 following the cancellation of the Blackbird programme, and it was the last aircraft to leave Okinawa. Following retirement the aircraft remained in storage for 11 years until it was shipped to Duxford in 2001.

"Blackbird engines are remarkable because they are able to fly on continuous afterburner which is what is able to make the aircraft go so fast. Blackbird pilot Rich Graham explained that this is effectively like when you have a hose pipe and you pop your thumb over the end of the hose pipe and the water comes out much faster as a result."

RG: "The engines for the airplane are Pratt & Whitney J-58. One-of-a-kind engine. No other aircraft uses them. It's the only engine I know of in the world even today that is certified for 100 percent all the time continuous afterburner operation. Most engines, most jets like the T-38, F-4 and probably many others they have some kind of a time limitation they have to they can't be an after burner the entire time."

EC: "The Blackbird is predominantly made from titanium which is a metal that can withstand great heat and pressure. It's painted a black colour to help disrupt radar, but also as you may be able to see, there's a few gaps in between and that's because the aircraft expands as it is in flight as it gets very hot. When it lands on the ground after a flight it then contracts and as a result ground crews used to complain about how much oil and fuel the aircraft used to leak.

"The Blackbird was piloted by a crew of two: a pilot who who flew the aircraft and a backseater who was responsible for operating the camera that took strategic reconnaissance photographs. Blackbird pilot Rich Graham described the relationship between him and his fellow crewmen as being so close he  almost knew him better than his own wife."

RG: "First thing you do when you show up at Beale as a new fledgling SR pilot, you meet up with who your backseater is going to be. Mine came out of uh B-52H models. His name is Don Emmons. This is who you're going to mate up with for the rest of your life in the SR program. 

"Meanwhile at the same time you start your simulator training and this is where it becomes very, very demanding. You've got 12 missions, you get mission simulator mission number 1 through 12. For each of those 12 missions you get two practice rides and then a check ride. You weren't going to go anywhere other than training missions until you got 100 hours."

EC: "What we must remember about the Blackbird is that  it is over 50 years old. It was developed in the mid-1960s, an age that was before internet and computing. To think that an aircraft that looks so space-age and so futuristic is now half a century old is quite remarkable.

"What is also remarkable is the amount of money that was spent on the project. Each aircraft cost $34 million to produce. That typifies what US president Dwight D Eisenhower described as the military-industrial complex, the relationship between economy and the military that typified US policy during the cold war. 

"Since the end of the second world war and the advent of the atomic bomb, the United States and the Soviet Union had been involved in a technological conflict that saw them race to develop new and more exciting weaponry. The Blackbird was born out of this conflict and the idea that you needed to be aware of what the other side was doing, making sure that you could keep track and keep tabs on their activities.

"One of the interesting things about this Blackbird is it's been signed by some of the people who operated it and worked on it on the ground. Underneath its nose wheel are their signatures where they signed their names to record their experience with this aircraft.

"On the tail of this aircraft is a snake wrapped around a number one, which signifies the insignia  of the first attachment of the ninth strategic reconnaissance wing -  the unit this aircraft served with. The snake symbolises the habu that was famously the nickname given to the Blackbird. The habu was a poisonous snake native to Okinawa  
which was where Blackbirds operated in the south Pacific.

"The local population of Okinawa when the Blackbird arrived thought that the aircraft looked a bit like their indigenous snake and so started calling it the habu aircraft. Eventually the nickname stuck and even got applied to the pilots themselves who adopted it as part of their esprit de corps. Indeed only a pilot that had flown the Blackbird on an  operational mission could earn the habu patch aside of their elite status as a Blackbird pilot."

"Even though the Blackbird was the successor to the U-2 it ultimately became financially unsustainable to keep for the US government to keep operating them. Only 32 Blackbirds were produced, of which only 29 served in operational capacity, and at $34 million a unit this was a hugely expensive program to keep running.

"In the early 1990s following the end of the Cold War the US government began to reconsider the use of the Blackbird. Satellite technology had developed to such an extent in the 1980s that it could fulfil a similar role to the intelligence capacity fulfilled by the Blackbird, and indeed more economically friendly alternatives like satellites and like the U-2 were considered. So in 1990 the Blackbird program was formally retired for the first time. After much deliberation they were brought back briefly in 1995 before the program was ultimately cancelled in 1998.  

"The U-2 still remains in service in US forces in a limited way, and has seen action in more recent conflicts such as the war in Afghanistan.

"This Blackbird's last flight was in January 1990 following the cancellation of the Blackbird program. It flew from Okinawa and was the last aircraft to leave there back to its base in California where it was put into storage for 11 years until it was brought to Duxford in 2001.

"The Blackbird is so impressive because for over 50 years it has remained the fastest and highest flying manned aircraft. It looked space-age when it was developed in the 1960s and it still looks like a product of science fiction today. Indeed the Blackbird is flown by the X-Men in their comics, though they call it the X-Jet, and was the personal craft of Queen Amidala in Star Wars. It still looks futuristic to us today 50 years on."

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