Countries throughout millennia have always had a need to spy on their foes to gather
as much information as possible.
While people on the ground were the tried and true method for centuries, with the creation
of the hot air balloon aerial reconnaissance finally took to the skies during the American
Civil War.
After the creation of the airplane, the utility of aircraft for reconnaissance was quickly
realized by countries around the world.
Over the next several decades, countries would continually try to improve on aircraft designs
to make them fly higher and faster.
It seemed like countries were continually getting better and better until the United
States unveiled an aircraft that beat them all and still holds world records today: the
SR-71 Blackbird.
The SR-71 Blackbird was the design of a little known and highly secretive black ops group
within Lockheed Martin called Skunk Works.
These scientists worked day and night during the height of the Cold War to develop an aircraft
that was impervious to anything the Soviet Union could throw at it to give American intelligence
unfettered, detailed access to the most sensitive places that satellites could not give the
detail required.
The SR-71 would set the bar for stealth aircraft by incorporating many design features that
would become standard in similar aircraft.
The design itself relied on a combination of alloys but was based upon titanium.
This drastically departed from airframes of the past that relied on steel to give them
strength.
The reason why designers had to do this was because of the extreme altitudes and speeds
the aircraft would operate at would actually melt a steel airframe.
The SR-71 could reach a mind-boggling 85,000 feet and operate at a screaming 2193 miles
per hour.
By comparison, the standard rifle cartridge used by American forces, the 5.56 mm round,
travels at around 2200 miles per hour depending on the amount of propellant used, making this
plane literally as fast as a speeding bullet.
American commanders employed the aircraft all around the world with the SR-71 flying
missions in Africa, the Middle East, and Vietnam, and preparing for one was actually like getting
ready for a space mission.
There were so many procedures and steps along the way that even one wrong move could mean
disaster.
And more often than not disaster struck with 20 of the 32 Blackbirds produced being lost
to accidents, though none were lost to enemy fire.
Despite all of its benefits, its one drawback-besides how extremely difficult it was to fly- was
its outdated camera systems.
Created in an era before data links, the SR-71 relied upon good old-fashioned film to capture
critical intelligence that they had to be developed back at base.
Beginning in the 1990s, advances in satellite, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, and camera technology
largely made the role of a supersonic aircraft like the SR-71 obsolete.
Therefore, beginning in 1990, the aircraft began its retirement out of service that was
completed right before the start of the new millennium.
While the SR-71 still holds the world records for speed and altitude, there were several
reconnaissance aircraft produced, with one still operating today, that came close to
matching the capabilities of this aircraft.
Even though the SR-71 is considered the pinnacle of spy aircraft technology, several others
come close to some of its remarkable achievements.
The closest contender would have to be its predecessor the A-12 OXCART.
The A-12 program began in 1956 as a way to develop the world’s first supersonic aircraft.
The reason why the United States wanted to do this was that the ubiquitous U-2 spy aircraft
currently employed by the CIA was becoming increasingly vulnerable to fire from the ground.
Several notable losses of U-2 aircraft, such as over the Soviet Union and over Cuba, cemented
the fear that current American technologies were being outpaced by the rapid advancement
of Soviet air-to-air missiles and RADARS.
Research and development for the aircraft were spearheaded by Lockheed Martin beginning
in 1957.
This project was also aided by the infamous Skunk Works design team that would later tweak
this aircraft into the infamous SR-71.
Because the SR-71 was developed from the A-12, most of the design features, like the airframe
and engines, remain the same.
However, what is different in their designs was the host of issues that had to be worked
through to get the first viable aircraft.
One of the main problems was working with the material itself.
The A-12 used titanium since it was half the weight of steel while still maintaining almost
all of its strength.
The rest of the airframe was made out of composite materials to deflect and absorb RADAR radiation
to make it appear smaller.
Working with titanium was difficult and an entirely new line of tools had to be created
from titanium to work on it.
Because of the incredibly high tolerances and new tools, production on an assembly line
was impossible, and at any given point over 2,400 different technicians worked on each
aircraft!
Another issue with titanium besides making new tools was trying to weld it.
Due to the chemical makeup of titanium, it is very susceptible to some substances including
chlorine.
During production at the facility in Burbank, California, it was found that welds made during
the summer would not hold up at all and deteriorated quickly.
However, welds made during the Burbank winters held indefinitely.
Engineers did some investigating and discovered that the City of Burbank put chlorine into
the water during the summer to kill algae.
This made the titanium weaker when it was welded forcing them to weld in the wintertime
until they could desalinate enough freshwater to work with.
Such unusual circumstances were one of the many problems that plagued production over
the next five years.
By the early 1960s, the A-12 was ready for operations.
It was an impressive aircraft that could reach Mach 3.35 and climb several thousand feet
higher than the SR-71 could.
The reason why it could climb just a little higher and move just slightly faster was because
of its limited photo-reconnaissance capability.
Sporting just three cameras the A-12 had limited space on board for the host of signals collection
that the CIA and military wanted.
Though limited in this capability, the newly designed cameras spearheaded a field of technology
never thought possible.
Operating at such extreme altitudes and temperatures created design problems that had never been
attempted before.
In the eventual 29 missions the A-12 flew, only on one of them did the cameras fail.
Such an impressive statistic proves how time and again this project made the impossible
possible.
Despite overcoming a host of design problems in both design and mission, the A-12 would
see only limited use and no missions for what it was designed to carry out.
The impetus for the A-12 was to carry out surveillance of high priority strategic weapon
systems like nuclear missiles deep inside the Soviet Union.
However, with the creation of more and more advanced RADAR systems, American military
leaders feared even this cutting edge system could still be tracked and possibly shot down.
Therefore, it was deemed too risky to carry out intelligence operations against the Soviets.
The A-12 did find its use in the Vietnam War.
Ever leery of increasing North Vietnamese capability and weapon positions, the vast
majority of the A-12 missions were flown in the skies over North Vietnam to gather information
on surface-to-air missile sites and other strategic positions.
The A-12 also flew several missions over North Korea during the highly contentious USS Pueblo
incident where an American surveillance ship was captured in international waters and its
crew held hostage for almost a year.
Here, the A-12 was the only asset deemed capable enough to carry out such a high stakes mission.
While the A-12 had a short operational career, its contributions and operational testing
did most of the leg work for developing the SR-71.
Without the hard work of the engineers and pilots who made this system a viable platform,
the SR-71 could have never been considered possible.
Even though the United States holds the world records for altitude and speed, that does
not mean other countries have not tried to replicate it.
In fact, the Soviet Union came close to producing an aircraft that was nearly as fast as the
SR-71 in their MiG-25 aircraft.
The impetus for the MiG-25 first came in the late 1950s.
Soviet leadership wanted a response to possible American bombing missions that would come
in incredibly fast, high flying bombers.
The purpose of the MiG-25 would be to intercept these bombers and shoot them down before they
could drop their payload on Soviet cities.
While the project for a high-flying American bomber known as the Valkyrie was eventually
scrapped, the Soviet military still saw plenty of utility in its design.
The Soviets encountered similar problems as the Americans in designing an aircraft that
could go extreme altitudes and speeds.
Instead of using titanium to solve the heat problem, the Soviets used primarily nickel
steel with several alloys and only some titanium.
The aircraft was also armed with four air-to-air missiles to take out enemy bombers it intercepted.
But while the original purpose of the aircraft was an interceptor, the Soviets soon realized
its value as a reconnaissance aircraft by the incredible amount of records it set.
From the time of its initial unveiling and until the introduction of the SR-71, the MiG-25
held an astonishing 29 world records for various speed and altitude benchmarks.
The MiG-25 became the first aircraft to go higher than 115,000 feet and reached a world
record 123,520 feet for a jet fighter.
The MiG-25 could also go an impressive 2.4 mach loaded and 2.9 mach unloaded.
Because of these impressive stats, Soviet leadership soon produced reconnaissance variants,
known as the MiG-25RB, of this interceptor aircraft in large numbers.
These aircraft were outfitted with a variety of cameras and sensors to take pictures and
collect electronic intelligence.
Electronic intelligence can be information like collecting what certain radio frequencies
are coming down certain bearings.
This can then be correlated to the known frequencies of enemy aircraft, RADARs, and missiles to
give Soviet leadership the disposition of aircraft and missile sites.
Because of this capability, the Soviets largely employed this aircraft in a supporting role
for its military.
By being able to evade all known ground fires and attack aircraft, the plane gave them a
significant advantage on the battlefield.
The MiG-25 does appear to have performed a number of spy missions with most of them happening
in the Middle East during the various conflicts with Israel and its neighbors.
A dedicated Russian squadron was stationed in Egypt to spy on the Israeli military.
Though RADARs and aircraft were able to track them, none were ever shot down.
The MiG-25 also reportedly carried out spy missions of SR-71 aircraft.
A common route for spying on the Soviet Union went through neutral Sweden and they reported
multiple instances where the Mig-25 was shadowing the SR-71.
While there is certainly much debate over whether or not the SR-71 could have ever been
shot down, it is unlikely given the inaccuracy of the MiG’s weapon systems and its inability
to hold a targeting solution.
While the MiG-25 was also developed into a bomber variant, the Soviets also designed
a two-seater prototype model.
This was odd considering that the aircraft was a single-seater, giving rise to the speculation
that the Soviets wanted to make this plane perform a similar role to the SR-71.
That is because they wanted junior pilots to be trained by senior pilots on the longer-range
flights.
This is all speculation of course since these missions were all top secret and the records
of which are probably buried deep in Russian state archives.
While there are certainly many more aircraft that were considered reconnaissance aircraft
and performed well at that role, these are by far the best spy aircraft.
For their speed and altitude, they could evade pretty much anything their foes could throw
at them.
While reconnaissance aircraft might be able to go long distances and climb to dizzying
altitudes, it was this elite group of three that could perform similar roles to modern
satellites before they could become available.