Spy Planes

What You Need to Know: The YF-12 was a high-speed interceptor developed from the A-12, the predecessor of the SR-71 Blackbird. Designed during the Cold War to replace the F-106...

Summary and Key Points: In the mid-1980s, reports from the Los Angeles Times and Aviation Week suggested the existence of a top-secret U.S. aircraft project called “Aurora,” believed to be...

The Ukrainian Air Force managed an impressive feat by shooting down a key command and control Russian aircraft and severely damaging a spy plane.  Russian Spy Plane and Command and...

The U-2 Dragon Lady, one of the United States’ most important reconnaissance assets during the Cold War, is finally saying goodbye to its analog photography equipment, the Optical Bar Camera....

Here’s What You Need to Remember: The principal factor was cost. The SR-71 Blackbird remains one of the most legendary aircraft of all time. Over the span of its five-decade service, it...

Here’s What You Need To Know: In spite of the plane’s unparalleled service record, it was simply too expensive for the U.S. Air Force to continue to run after the...

The SR-71 Blackbird remains one of the most legendary aircraft of all time. Over the span of its five-decade service, it ran thousands of missions over sensitive areas, outrunning thousands of...

An overriding sense of urgency pervaded Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall’s twenty-five-minute address to the Air Force Association Air, Space and Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland.  “While America is still...

Key Point to Remember:  “It’s a really hard problem to develop an aircraft that takes off and accelerates through Mach 1 all the way to Mach 5 and beyond,” Kevin...

Here’s What You Need to Know: The Avro 730 had much in common with the American Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Had history turned out differently, the first Mach 3 spy plane of...

The iconic SR-71 Blackbird served for more than three decades in the U.S. Air Force. First flying in 1964, the spy plane saw deployment all over the world, but its...

The SR-71 Blackbird, created by Lockheed’s “Skunk Works” experimental division, represented the pinnacle of Cold War aircraft design. Springing from the earlier Lockheed A-12 designed in “Project Oxcart,” the SR-71...