Eventually, the Air Force determined that Lockheed would need to install a beta (yaw) indicator because the dynamically variable inlets, as well as the associated bypass doors, were not remaining in sync. It wasn’t exactly what one might call an easy-to-fly aircraft, and the test pilots reported trim and control issues.Ī team of Air Force test pilots then conducted a total of sixteen flights over the course of several weeks to determine the issues. Gilliland at the controls and Lockheed test pilot Steve Belgeau as Reconnaissance Systems Officer. This resulted in the one and only SR-71C, which went on to make its first flight on March 14, 1969, with Blackbird Chief Project Pilot Robert J. Without a backup trainer, Lockheed engineers at the Palmdale “Skunk Works” facility in California were able to mate the static prototype with the damaged FY-12A. It wasn’t actually planned either, but the decision to build the “ Frankenstein” aircraft came about when one of the only two SR-71B two-seated trainers crashed in early January. It was a unique aircraft – in part because the forward airframe wasn’t actually meant to fly, and was actually built for static (ground) testing only – and it earned the nickname “The Bastard.” While some thirty-two SR-71s were produced, there was the truly one-of-a-kind SR-71C, a hybrid that was composed of the rear fuselage of the first YF-12A, which had been damaged in a landing accident, along with the forward fuselage from an SR-71 engineering prototype. (Subscribe to 19FortyFive‘s New YouTube Channel here.) Developed in secret in the late 1950s, it was able to cruise at 80,000 feet above the earth and still outfly any missile that could be launched at it. Why did the US Air Force create this? The Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird” was quite an aircraft – it was designed to enter hostile airspace, take reconnaissance photographs from truly extreme heights and then be on its way before an enemy had a chance to even take a shot at it. The SR-71C was a truly strange spy plane for many different reasons.
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