Looking less like a warplane and more like a sky monster, legendary aircraft designer Kelly Johnson sent an unsolicited pitch to the United States Air Force for a new long-range strategic bomber. Johnson designed the Mach 3 A-12 spy plane for the CIA, which itself was the precursor to the legendary SR-71 Blackbird. Johnson’s concept was to take the A-12 and convert it into a supersonic strategic bomber. 

RB-12 was conceived by Johnson in the late 1950s. Interestingly, this was an age of extreme flowering of innovative aerospace designs and concepts. Enduring aircraft, such as the B-52 Stratofortress, which still prowls the unfriendly skies today, came to life during this period. The Cold War was a key driver. Both inside the United States and the Soviet Union, aircraft designs were becoming increasingly radical and lethal. 

America’s vaunted B-52s were the primary long-range strategic bombers for the country. 

Yet, the Pentagon wanted to either replace them with a more advanced system or, more probably, augment their capabilities with another long-range bomber. During this era, though, anti-aircraft technology was catching up with the innovative designs of warplanes. This was the period before stealth warplanes were actualized. 

So, Kelly Johnson thought speed would be any strategic bomber’s best friend. 

By traveling at Mach 3, it was assumed that the RB-12 would simply outrun any Soviet air defense system. 

The Design

North American Aviation was the defense contractor that designed the RB-12. This was the same firm that developed the XB-70 Valkyrie, another Mach 3 capable bomber. RB-12 would have been a sleek, delta-winged craft that was optimized for high-speed, high-altitude flight. Some of the features included cruising at Mach 3, meaning this bird could cover vast distances in a short time. 

What’s more, the RB-12 would have operated at altitudes around 70,000 feet or higher. Again, this would have placed the warplane out of reach of Soviet surface-to-air missile defenses. And the payload that the bird was to carry would have been massive. Each iteration of the RB-12 had a different specific weight listed for payload, but each one was huge. 

Specifically, the RB-12 was meant to carry a range of nuclear bombs, such as gravity bombs or advanced cruise missiles. 

This plane could have revolutionized the U.S. Air Force’s strategic bomber fleet for at least a couple of decades during the Cold War. But the technological hurdles for the bird, sadly, were too great. Developing such a plane would not have been cheap. Especially when considering that the Air Force already had the B-52 and was working on the B-1 Lancer.

Ultimately, the RB-12 seemed redundant in the age of missile systems of increasing complexity. Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) as well as Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs), could deliver nuclear payloads with far less risk to personnel and potentially greater effectiveness than the proposed RB-12.

What Might Have Been

Although the bird never took wing, the design and thought process of the RB-12 influenced future warplanes. Further, the attempt to make the RB-12 a reality shaped the thinking of many high-ranking people, both within the U.S. government and in the private sector. The discussions and investment of time and thought into the RB-12 project contributed to the evolution of technologies related to stealth, materials science, and propulsion.

Kelly Johnson’s RB-12 concept remains a fascinating “What If?” scenario in U.S. military aviation history. The RB-12 embodied the country’s technological optimism and the relentless push towards military superiority during one of the tenser periods of global history, the Cold War. 

We can all take a moment to ponder what the U.S. arsenal had looked like, and what kind of capabilities might we have had if the RB-12 had gone forward. What we find is that America, still today, needs a fast, long-range bomber. 

The RB-12 was a great basis for this technology. 

Brandon J. Weichert, a National Interest national security analyst, is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, the Asia Times, and The-Pipeline. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His next book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is available for purchase wherever books are sold. Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

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