What You Need to Know: The legendary SR-71 Blackbird, capable of reaching Mach 3.0, set speed records and flew high-risk reconnaissance missions during the Cold War. Despite its speed, the Swedish ...

The SR-71 Blackbird is a legendary plane, which had a long life that began in the 1960s and ended in the 1990s. The plane, considered the fastest ever to fly, was famously never shot down ...

The high altitude flight also helped; we are talking 85,000 feet after all. No SR-71 was ever shot down. In fact, the only airplane that got close enough to an SR-71 was not a Soviet fighter but a ...

Throughout all these missions, no SR-71 Blackbird has ever been shot down. Over the years, 32 SR-71 Blackbirds – as well as 13 similar-looking A-12 Oxcarts (a single-seat CIA precursor plane ...

In fact, neither enemy fighters nor enemy surface to air missiles (SAM) were ever able to shoot down or damage an SR-71. But the aircraft was never shot down also because it was hardly detected by ...

Shot down and burned half to death over Cambodia ... We're closing in on 20 years since the outrageous SR-71 Blackbird made its final flight in 1999, and many of its speed and altitude records ...

Speed like that makes it difficult to see and fire upon, and no SR-71 was ever shot down, making it a highly successful spy plane. The SR-71 was manufactured by Lockheed Aircraft Corporation and ...

The Lockheed SR-71, designed in secrecy in the late 1950s ... planes built to venture into enemy territory, without being shot down or even detected, in a time before satellites and drones.

too high and too fast to be shot down by an enemy fighter or a surface-to-air missile. Expensive to maintain and fly, the SR-71 was retired from the Air Force in 1990. Blackbird number 972 ...

He was 75 years old. Shul became an SR-71 pilot years after being shot down in the Vietnam War while flying a single engine propeller driven T-28 Trojan close-air support aircraft. Shul suffered ...

Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Lieutenant Colonel Ed Yeilding shot across ... of his Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird was calm, serene, and beautiful. Until he looked down.