Aircraft of the month - A12

The A-12 was the product of Project Oxcart, a secret military program to
develop a high-speed, high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. First flown in
1962, the A-12 was built by Lockheed’s Advanced Development Projects
office, now known as Skunk Works. The A-12 was capable of performing
sensitive intelligence-gathering missions while flying at speeds over
Mach 3, or three times the speed of sound. The Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) used A-12s for surveillance missions until 1968. Later versions,
known as the SR-71 Blackbird, served in reconnaissance and test missions
for the U.S. Air Force and NASA through the 1990s.
Flown by CIA pilots, the A-12 was used for strategic reconnaissance over
North Vietnam between May 1967 and March 1968. Its primary objective
was to look for suspected surface-to-surface missile (SSM) sites. Evidence
of SSM facilities was never found, but the A-12 did determine the location of many surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites and other strategically important
targets. In total, A-12s were flown on 24 missions over Hanoi and the port city of
Haiphong.
SAMs were fired at the A-12s on two occasions. Other than some minor
shrapnel damage to one aircraft, the A-12s survived unscathed.
The A-12 on display, code-named Article 122, served as a radar-test example early
in 1962 at the secluded test site known as Area 51, near Groom Lake, Nevada. A
special radar signature, lowering paint covered the mostly titanium airframe, also incorporated radar-absorbing materials. Massive Pratt and Whitney J58 turbo-ramjet
engines powered the plane. These engines were used only in the A-12 and
the SR-71 Blackbird.
The adjacent yellow starter cart used a connecting drive shaft to spin the
engines at up to 3,200 revolutions per minute and initiate the ignition cycle
of the turbo-ramjet engines. The cart uses two Buick 401 cubic-inch “Wildcat”
V-8 automobile engines of 350 horsepower, similar to those used in American
“muscle cars” and racing cars of the era.