The Blackbird?.....

I saw a tv show about the Blackbird last night, and it was very interesting. But what I was wondering, is why did the U.S. stop producing them? Do we still use them in wars?

Here is a quote from the SR-71 page on ATS:

Official reports said the supersonic spyplane was being retired to save the $200-300 million annual cost to operate the fleet in favor of advanced satellite systems. However, background research and reports suggest that it was no longer the zenith of the reconnaissance community. Reports of a highly-advanced hypersonic spyplane were growing every year. It wasn't until 1 July, 1994 when the Senate Appropriation's Committee added $100 million in funding to bring the three SR-71s back into operation that rumor speculated the hypersonic spyplane may be suffering problems.

(I'm sure Zion will come in and provide some more information in the short future... )

We don't really need them anymore.

It's called satellites!!
This is the 21st century man.

Maybe if the NSA would let the military use Echelon we would've won the war a lot faster

I saw one at the USS ALabama in Mobile.
Oh well,
Tassadar

Also the SR-70 can be hit by Russian air to air missile.

Cause I was thinking that the SR-71 didn't have to be used for ONLY spying missions, make a bunch of them and add some missiles to them, and you can have some lightening strike attacks on any target.....

Actually in the 60s the CIA tried to put missiles on the A-12(SR-71), but it never worked out. They wanted to change the jet into a interecptor.

The military discontinued using the blackbird because they were simply, " too expensive to use". Also, the USAF around the same year the blackbird was retired already had a much better spy plane under their wing as it was. Possibly one of the planes from the aurora project? This is from simple studies at my work bench

~peace.

Theoratically it can, yes. But dusing a normal mission, it didn't really had to penetrate Russian airspace. It had a side looking earth penetrating sophisticated radar. Which enabled the SR-71 to look into enemy airspace for hundres of milies without actually having to fly over enemy airspace.

Like mentioned before, too exspensive, satellites took over many of the SR-71's tasks, (possible)Aurora project, UAV's(don't forget them!) and the cold war is over.

The U-2/TR-1 is now the USAF main spy plane, when satellites aren't able to make pictures. And the SR-71 didn't have enough support in the US senate, not many were eager to keep it in the air, what a shame!

Aside from being very expensive to operate and maintain these airplanes did not prove to be very dependable. Out of 50 airframes of all types ranging from A-12 to SR-71C 20 (40%) were lost in accidents. Not very impressive for an aircraft that may worth it's weight in gold, I'd say.

More facts about SR-71 www.sr-71.org...

[Edited on 5-8-2003 by Russky]

Not sure which one you saw but I did enjoy a show dedicated to the sr-71 I watched about 1mo. ago. It had the old pilots talking about their experiences flying it and what all it could do. It was interesting to learn just how incredible that jet was. In fact from what they were saying it is the only U.S. Military Jet never to be shot down by enemy fire by simply out running any missle shot at them. Also I noticed that even though they were discussing every aspect of it's abilities there were a few times when the pilot would talk his way around certain details, obviously still classified, but still give the general idea. But by todays technology and achievments in aviation the SR-71 is just not cost effective. Like others have noted with satalite imaging efficiency to what it is today is a big dent in the SR-71 program. Plus since it's made to be flying at the top of our atmosphere the pressure when it's on the ground means that it leaks likes crazy. In my opinion though it is still pretty impressive though.

It is an old plane that is expensive to operate. It has to be refueled immediately after take off. Would it be retired without a replacement? Very unlikely. Satellites? Nah, those depend on weather. See Aurora threads for the replacement.

The SR71 blackbird was a little arachic unfortunatly but still a dam good aircraft, it was retired for the reasons of money (or so we are told...) but the Mach 3+ projects are still going ie Auara. I have heard that they might be putting a cannon onto this craft for just that reason. Probably the reason for not putting missiles on them is that the casing for the warhead would be to expensive as the heat shealding would have to be immense. Remember the SR71 used to leak like a sive when it was on the ground and they had to desing a less volitile fule so that it wouldn't blow up on the ground! so any warhead at that speed would probably streatch also.

The SR-71 was a hell of a plane, it lasted for more then 25 years. Iwould have loved to see it continue flying, but I guess after all that time they finally developed a sucessor to the Ledgendary Blackbird.
I guess it's up to us to try to find this new plane.

Tim