The Blackbird
It’s 1957 - Eisenhower is sworn in for his second Presidential term, and 12 Angry Men (my favorite movie ever) is in theaters. Across the pond, in Liverpool, two young lads, Paul and John, only fifteen at the time, first meet at a church fete and decide to start a band. I’d like to think that 1957 was a year of art in human history.
As the Cold War enters the second decade, tensions and temperatures continued to rise between the Soviet Union and the United States. In the waning years of World War II, superpowers were defined by their ability to marshal and deploy metal and oil. This new age turned on a new key - information. Engineers at the Skunk Works division, center for Advanced Development Programs and highly classified research, at Lockheed Martin, presented a blueprint for a revolutionary strategic reconnaissance aircraft and marked the dawn of the Information Age. The project was codenamed ‘Archangel’.
Archangel had an ostensibly simple mission - fly over the Soviets, gathering as much intel (in aerial pictures) as possible without being shot down. No cannons, no bombs, no offensive capabilities. But outrunning a heat-seeking air-to-air or surface-to-air missile was (and is still) no joke. To do that, Archangel would have to reach speeds faster than the Russian MIGs, faster than a speeding bullet, and, ultimately, faster than sound. Faster than anything man had ever seen before. Faster than the speed at which I fall in love when a girl sings to Desperado. We’re talking a cruising speed of Mach three point fucking two.
The idea itself was brilliant on paper, but Skunk Works would have to work through a plethora of challenges. First, engineers would have to build a powerplant that could move from typical flight speeds to supersonic - enter liquid nitrogen and ram jets. Second, they would need the airframe to have a radar cross-section no larger than a big bird - enter a flattened fuselage. Third, the plane would need the ability to be refueled in mid-air - enter KC-10s. From tip to tail, engineers had to reinvent and rethink all aspects. And in the end, when aerospace engineers had pushed every law of design and engineering to its legal limit to build this marvel, thermodynamics 101 had them stumped. Anything that would fly that fast for long enough would, well, melt. How would they solve this?
The answer was titanium.
It’s 1962, and ‘Love Me Do’ is playing across the airwaves. The Liverpool boys are now in a band popularly known as ‘The Beatles’. Separately, the USSR is one of the largest titanium producers and exporters, with a diverse list of customers and end-users. A large portion of the Soviet exports is going towards building the burgeoning American pizza oven business. In late April 1962, Archangel A-12, a prototype aircraft, takes flight for the first time, paving the way for one of the most significant aircraft in human history. Over the next two years, A-12’s successor, the SR-71, undergoes final preparations for its maiden flight from Plant 42 - a USAF installation in California. If you are like the Soviets and haven’t been able to put two and two together, allow the CIA to help. Twenty-five years after Archangel, the CIA declassified their files to let the world know that the pizza ovens were in fact SR-71 spy planes and they couldn’t have done it without the tasty Soviet titanium. To be fair, they did use the titanium to bake, just not pizza.
1964 through 1998, the Blackbird was in service. According to a Smithsonian article, no other piece of spy-craft had a greater impact on the Cold War than did the SR-71. Finally 1999, in bright and sunny California again, the Blackbird had come a full circle and completed its last and final flight in an air show and hit the 80,000-foot ceiling. For perspective, if you looked up from the cockpit and through the 1.25-inch solid quartz canopy at 80,000 feet, you’d find that the sky is black, and then you’d realize that you’re actually staring into space. And if you looked down, you’d see the curvature of the Earth. The final flight made some onlookers tear up. No Blackbird was ever lost to enemy action, and no missile/interceptor could ever get anywhere near it. Hell, I’d tear up too. On March 6, 1990, the SR-71A 61-7972 was turned over to the Air and Space Museum in Washington Dulles where I clicked this picture and fulfilled a long-standing childhood wish of mine. 1990 also marked the 20th Anniversary of “Let It Be,” the twelfth and final album by The Beatles. Twenty years since Paul McCartney and John Lennon parted ways, but what they made lives on.
// An excerpt from Lockheed Martin’s website on how Skunk Works got its name:
When Kelly Johnson formed his team of engineers and manufacturing experts to rapidly and secretly complete the XP-80, the war effort was in full swing and there was no available space at the Lockheed facility for the project. Consequently, Johnson's organization operated out of a rented circus tent, and the adjacent manufacturing plant produced a strong odor that permeated throughout the tent.
Each member of Johnson’s team was cautioned that design and production of the new XP-80 fighter jet must be carried out in strict secrecy. No one was to discuss the project outside the small organization, and team members were warned to be careful of how they answered the phones.
An engineer named Irv Culver was a fan of Al Capp's newspaper comic strip, "Li'l Abner." In the comic, there was a running joke about a mysterious and malodorous place deep in the forest called the "Skonk Works," where a strong beverage was brewed from skunks, old shoes and other strange ingredients.
One day, Culver's phone rang and he answered it by saying "Skonk Works, inside man Culver speaking." Fellow employees quickly adopted the name for their mysterious division of Lockheed and eventually "Skonk Works" became "Skunk Works."
Blog - Rishabh Poddar | Edits - David Farnoush
(David thinks he missed his calling as an editor. I disagree.)
