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SR-71 Blackbird - Anatomy
In 1957 the CIA initiated project Gusto. Its goal was to develop U2’s replacement. Enter General Dynamics Convair Division and Lockheed Martin Skunk Works.
General dynamics approach used two airplanes. The first being the B-58B and the second, the First Invisible Supper Hustler or FISH.
The idea was to have B-58B carry FISH up to launch altitude, but eventually General Dynamics failed to sell its B-58B prototype to the United States Airforce, imposing a major review to the project.
Because FISH was initially meant to be carried by another airplane, they quickly had to change this concept, to which they nicknamed KingFISH.
On Lockheed side, many designs were studied such as the Arrow 1, Archangel 1 and Archangel 2.
On November 25th, 1958, both companies received compensation to continue refining its prototype airplanes. For the next year, Lockheed would spend most of its time refining no less than 10 of its major designs, A-3 to A-12.
One pattern stood out from all models and that was the design trend of the delta wing as portraited on A-10 model and later established on the finalized version A-12.
The competition for the CIA secret airplane development came to an end on August 29, 1959 when Lockheed received an official notification for its winning design, the A-12. A $4.5 million-dollar advance award was given to continue development of the plane.
Eventually the Air Force saw a potential in developing an interceptor variant of A-12, becoming AF-12 under the project codename “Kedlock”.
Sources
Haynes Owners Workshop manual - Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird
The Complete Book of the SR-71 Blackbird
Attribution
By Source, Fair use, en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...
By Jonathan Cutrer from San Angelo, Texas, United States - SR-71 Blackbird Cockpit Windows, CC BY 2.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
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