OXCART: The CIA's Secret Blackbird

While there are many threads here at ATS about the SR-71 Blackbird and it's amazing capibilities, the A-12 Blackbird's of the CIA are rarely discussed. It was the A-12 that started the famous Blackbird spyplane on it's corse into the history books. First concieve for the CIA under project OXCART in 1958, the single seat A-12 would become one of the most mysteriuos and secret spy planes of all times. Even today, few people know of it's existance. Through out it's flight carrier from 1962 until it was retired in June of 1968, the A-12 was based based at Groom Lake inside of Area 51. The only time it ever used a base other them Groom Lake was on one mission as part of BLACK SHEILD.

This version of the Blackbird has been retired for almost 40 years, and yet remains shrouded in secract and mystery. This aircraft also has the destintion of being the highest flying of the Blackbird series of aircraft.

What was it's real mission?

Why even now is it shrouded in Much greater secracy than Any Other member of the Blackbird Family of Spy Planes?

Tim

hey

I once found this site Roadrunners it holds some stuff that has been released to public about them

Good Link!

Thank you for your contrabution!

Tim

np mate. I have been interrested in them to for a while i know some more good sites but dont know the url's right know ill look them up for ya!

The Lockheed A-12 spawned a series of advanced airplanes that culminated in the SR-71. All variants were known as Blackbirds and all but a few reached the prototype stage. Only the first and last variants matured into operational systems.

The first A-12, Article 121, was trucked to the Area 51 test site in February 1962. The first flight took place two minths later. Over the next several months, the A-12 fleet grew as each airframe left the assembly line for the test site.

The first five articles all initially flew with J75 engines because the J58 was not yet available. Article 122 arrived in June but was not immediately used for flight-testing. Instead the airplane was raised, inverted, on a pylon for three months of radar cross-section measurement tests. Article 123 arrived in August and flew in October. It was destined to become the first A-12 to crash when it was lost in a non-fatal accident in May 1963. In November the TA-12 trainer, Article 124, arrived at the test site. It had a second cockpit, for an instructor pilot, behind and above the student cockpit. The TA-12 retained its J75 engines throughout its service life and never attained Mach 3 speeds. Article 125 arrived in December 1962.

Article 121 made its first sortie powered by two J58s in January 1963. Eventually the entire fleet, except for Article 123 and Article 124, were retrofitted. Over the course of the year eight more A-12 airframes joined the fleet.

In 1962 the A-12 airframes flew unpainted. The following year black paint was applied to the nose, chines, inlet spikes, and the leading and trailing edges of the wings to more effectively radiate heat. By 1964 the airplanes, with the exception of the TA-12, were painted entirely black. All subsequent variants adopted this paint scheme, thus earning the name “Blackbirds.”

Over the next several years Lockheed and CIA pilots conducted developmental and operational test and evaluation flights. The A-12 was cleared throughout its planned flight envelope and declared mission ready. A sortie on 20 November 1965 included a maximum endurance flight of six hours and 20 minutes, including Mach 3.2 cruise at altitudes approaching 90,000 feet. Test and training flights continued for the purposes of maintaining pilot proficiency, developing mission equipment and refining aircraft performance. Lockheed Test Pilot William Park performed a long-range sortie in December 1966, flying 10,200 miles non-stop in just over six hours.

The maximum design cruise speed was Mach 3.2, and was limited by structural temperature restrictions. The fastest known A-12 flight occurred on 8 May 1965 when Article 125 achieved Mach 3.29 (2,171 mph). This exceeded the official speed record of Mach 3.14 (2,070 mph) set by the YF-12A on 1 May 1965, but remained classified for many years due to OXCART security restrictions. Both speed records were shattered by the SR-71 on 28 July 1976 during an official speed run to Mach 3.32 (2,193 mph).

The Blackbirds typically operated between 70,000 and 85,000 feet. The YF-12A set an official altitude record of 80,257 feet on 1 may 1965. During Category II (Performance) testing in 1968, a USAF SR-71A (Article 2004) reached cruising altitudes of 86,700 feet and 89,650 feet. On 14 August 1965, an A-12 (Article 129) attained 90,000 feet during a test flight from Area 51.

In May 1967 three A-12 aircraft were deployed to Kadena, Okinawa, for Operation Black Shield. Over the next 12 months the aircraft were flown on 27 operational reconnaissance missions over Southeast Asia and North Korea, as well as numerous training and functional-check flights.

By this time the Air Force had a two-place variant of the Blackbird known as the SR-71. When it became apparent during the mid 1960s that two fleets of high performance aircraft would be conducting essentially identical missions for two agencies, the Bureau of the Budget began looking at ways to reduce operating costs. Ultimately President Lyndon B. Johnson accepted a recommendation to retire the A-12 aircraft following Operation Black Shield. By the end of the OXCART program there were seven remaining A-12 aircraft (five had been lost in crashes) and the single TA-12. By June 21, 1968, all had been placed into indoor storage at Lockheed’s Site 2 facility at AF Plant 42 in Palmdale, Calif.

The existence of the A-12 remained a closely guarded secret for many years, but it was nearly compromised on a few occasions. In May 1963, before any Blackbird variant had been revealed to the public, the third A-12 crashed near the town of Wendover (on the Utah-Nevada border. A cover story that the crash involved a Republic F-105 effectively deterred most public and news media scrutiny. The president's announcement unveiling the YF-12A, in February 1964, provided effective cover for any sighting of the A-12 by unauthorized persons. In 1965, the Air Force wanted to use the YF-12A to set official speed and altitude records, but the airplane was not considered ready. Plans to use an A-12 (Article 121 or 129 under the designation XSR-71 and with a borrowed SR-71 tail number) in place of the YF-12A were briefly considered and rejected. Occasional incidents in which A-12 aircraft diverted to alernate landing fields (such as Kirtland AFB, New Mexico) were easily hidden behind the cover of the SR-71 or YF-12A.

In 1976, the A-12 was to be moved into outdoor storage at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona. Although no announcement was to be made, a carefully crafted response was prepared for any inquiries from the public or media. The move was ultimately cancelled and the airplanes remained indoors at Site 2 until 1981 when they were towed outside to make room for U-2 operations. Only then did the A-12 enter the public eye as it was declassified and the first details of its incredble history emerged.

As for where they flew, almost ALL of the A-12 and SR-71 flight locations are still classified. Even Brian Schull, who wrote two books on flying the Blackbird barely mentioned where he flew them. He mentioned Libya after the F-111 raid, and a couple other places, but most of the flights he talked about just mentioned what happened during the flight, and not much about where they were.

I totally agree with you Brother !

Below is a good url article on the history of the plane designated Blackbird designed by skunkworks. I was fortunate enough to work on the side looking stuff at Kadena. Never got tired of watching the bird take off.

home.att.net...

I know for certain the Blackbird flew from Kadena over North Korea routinely. The Koreans were always trying to shoot it down with missile fire.