Name: Why Was This Plane Invulnerable: The SR-71 Blackbird Story
Uploaded: 2021-06-01T03:55:56.000Z
Duration: 8 min 25 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Thanks to SquareSpace for making this video possible and for helping launch my

new Mustard store. More on that after this video. In the midst of the Cold War,

two Mig-25s race to intercept a threat along the Soviet border. They're the

fastest interceptors ever built, and if they really push their engines, they can

reach an incredible Mach 3.2. But it's not enough. Because what they're chasing

can outrun and out-climb any threat. A plane engineered to be invulnerable.

The Cold War locked the United States and Soviet Union into a tense a struggle

for global influence and control. Both sides poured enormous resources into

military technologies. But getting an upper hand means knowing your opponent's

next move. And in the 1950s, little was known about facilities deep within the

Soviet Union. An extensive network of radar stations, surface-to-air missile

sites, and interceptor air bases kept the Americans away. Until 1956, when U-2

spy planes began flying over the Soviet Union. Neither fast nor stealthy, the U-2s had

one critical advantage. At 70,000 feet, they could fly above Soviet air defenses.

U.S. President Eisenhower was even assured, Soviet radars couldn't detect

the U-2 at such high altitudes. But it turns out, the Americans were wrong. The

Soviets had tracked the U-2 since day one, and it was only a matter of time before

they'd be able to shoot one down. Simply flying high wasn't enough. Even before

the U-2 began its surveillance missions, there were already plans underway to

replace it. Because true impunity over Soviet airspace would need a combination

of incredible speed, altitude, and stealth. And this led the Americans to explore

some pretty radical spy plane concepts, like a ramjet powered aircraft that

would be deployed from the bottom of a supersonic B-58. But in 1959 the CIA

chose Lockheed to develop the next generation of spy plane.

Meanwhile, the U-2 continued to fly over the Soviet Union. But not for very long,

because in the spring of 1960, a Soviet surface-to-air missile finally managed

to bring one down. The captured pilot and wreckage were paraded around the Soviet

Union used as proof of Western aggression. As tensions rose, now more

than ever the US needed a replacement for the U-2.

And what Lockheed developed, would be unlike any aircraft ever built. A plane

that nearly 60 years after its first flight, remains the fastest air-breathing

jet to ever fly. Lockheed's highly-classified spy plane would be

known as the A-12. Originally used by the CIA for reconnaissance, the A-12 was also

developed into an interceptor prototype, armed with air-to-air missiles, along

with a variant that could launch an unmanned reconnaissance drone. But it was

the SR-71 Blackbird, a variant developed for the Air Force that would go on to

serve for decades, while earlier versions were quickly retired. The Blackbird could

cruise at Mach 3.2 right near the edge of space, and do it for hours on end.

To achieve this, Lockheed's engineers had to innovate pretty much everything from

scratch. To sustain such incredible speeds the SR-71 and its predecessors

were powered by engines often described as turboramjets. Below Mach 2 they

functioned like conventional after-burning jet engines. But above that,

they behaved more like ramjets, as an inlet cone adjusted to bypass air around

the engine and directly into the afterburner. At mach 3.2 the SR-71's

exterior would heat up to beyond 500 degrees Fahrenheit, easily hot enough to

soften aircraft aluminum. Lockheed engineers used titanium for 92 percent

of the aircraft, and in the 1960s this required inventing entirely new

fabrication technologies. It's unusual shape did more than just spook UFO

enthusiasts, it helped reduce its radar signature as did its special black paint,

which earned the SR-71 its Blackbird name.

The A-12 and SR-71 were first deployed over North Korea and Vietnam, where they

were unsuccessfully targeted by over 800 surface-to-air missiles. But the spy

plane never flew into Soviet airspace. At least not officially, because another

shoot-down over the Soviet Union would be catastrophic.

So instead, the SR-71 flew along its borders, using its powerful side-looking

radar and cameras to peer hundreds of miles into Soviet territory. And that

frustrated the Soviets. In 1976, Viktor Belenko defected to the west, by escaping

the Soviet Union in his Mig-25. He described the frustration of trying to

intercept Blackbirds. The MiG's were Mach 3 capable, but only for a few

minutes at a time. Not for hours like the Blackbird. Nor could they climb to reach

the SR-71's incredible altitude. Even their enormous R40 missiles lacked the

guidance needed to strike the SR-71 head-on. For years, the Blackbirds were

practically invulnerable. They could out fly and out-climb any threat. But by the

1980s, Mig-31s were roaming the skies, equipped with sophisticated radar

and long-range R33 missiles. They posed a legitimate threat, as did a new

generation of Soviet surface-to-air missiles. But the greatest threat to the

Blackbird wasn't an enemy missile or jet. It was itself. No Blackbird was ever lost

on a mission, but more than a third of the 50 built were destroyed in accidents.

One literally disintegrated around its pilots. They were also enormously

expensive to operate. Each one siphoning about 300 million dollars a year out of

America's defense budget. A fleet of special aerial refuelers and a small army

of support and maintenance staff were needed just to keep these planes mission

ready. And advances in spy satellites aerial drones and the SR-71 s inability

to deliver surveillance data in real time, diminished some of the plane's

utility. Add to that, politics and infighting for defense budgets and by

the late 1980s, the SR-71's days were numbered.

They were officially retired in 1998, with two sent to NASA for testing. The

technology behind the A-12 and SR-71 is now well over fifty years old. Yet

somehow these incredible planes still speak to us. Not about the past, but

the future. Leaving us with a sense of wonder unlike any other in aviation

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