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Blackbird flights

Reader comment on item: The Soviets' Six-Day War
in response to reader comment: SR-71A/YF-12A "Blackbird" speeds & years in service

Submitted by Mike DeCastro (United States), Jun 5, 2007 at 20:40

I don't know for certain about other flights except for the two during the YK War. And those two were kept deep black secrets by both Israel and the US until recently. So, the short answer is. probably. CIA, USAF, NRO, NSA, DIA all ran lots of deep black missions with the SR-71, many of which are still classified today and many will probabl.y always be classified.

The Blackbird was a brilliant aircraft. Kelly Johnson and his Skunk Works team outdid themselves with that bird. If you ever get to the Seattle Air Museum they have this gorgeous Blackbird that has a hypersonic piggyback drone on it. Those missions were few and super sensitive. The Blackbird would launch the drone and both the mother ship and drone would complete separate missions with the drone being recovered elsewhere. Details of those missions are still highly classified.


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Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".

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