Combat aircraft

In anticipation of the Oxcart

deactivation, three SR-71s and four crews

had been positioned to Kadena AB in

March, in readiness for Senior Crown

taking on the tasks previously conducted

by the A-12. At this stage the SR-71 unit at

Kadena was designated OL-8 (Operating

Location 8) of the 9th SRW — this

designation changed on three further

occasions, becoming Detachment 1

(Det 1) in August 1974. On this inaugural

deployment the aircraft was christened

‘Habu’ by its crews, after the poisonous

pit viper indigenous to Okinawa.

Recce ‘silver bullet’

The SR-71 was an extremely high-value,

national intelligence-gathering asset. Its

operations were meticulously planned

by SR-71 specialists at the Strategic

Reconnaissance Center (SRC), located in

Building 500 at O utt AFB, Nebraska, in

response to taskings by the Joint Chiefs

of Sta (JCS). This was initially in support

of the SAC single integrated operational

plan (SIOP, the war plan for a nuclear

con agration) but was also in response

to requests from the Defense Intelligence

Agency (DIA), the commander-in-chief

Paci c (CINCPAC), Seventh Air Force,

Military Assistance Command Vietnam

and commander United States Air Forces

in Korea (COMUSKOREA). Later in the

program, it also managed requests from

the US Army, US Navy and C-in-C United

States Air Forces Europe (CINCUSAFE).

Senior o cers at the SRC participated

in twice-daily meetings, one at 07.30hrs,

the other at 15.30hrs, to review all

current SAC mission tasking, planning

and weather. Once the SRC had

completed the mission planning process,

details were forwarded to the JCS for

 nal approval.

In the fi rst of a series of features marking 75 years of Lockheed’s ‘Skunk Works’,

Combat Aircraft looks at the incomparable SR-71, which successfully completed

its fi rst operational sortie 50 years ago this year. REPORT Paul Crickmore

Below: An

unidentifi ed A-12

lines up on the

runway at Groom

Lake, Nevada,

closely followed

by an F-101B

Voodoo chase

aircraft. A second

A-12 can just be

seen undergoing

pre-fl ight checks

the other side of

the ‘blast wall’.

Lockheed Martin

With the Vietnam War hemorrhaging

billions of dollars from the US economy,

a November 1965 memo from the

Bureau of Budget (BoB) expressed serious

concerns at the costs of simultaneously

operating a ‘covert’ CIA A-12 and an ‘overt’

USAF SR-71 program. Three alternative

arrangements were proposed, and  nally

a decision taken by President Johnson

to terminate the Oxcart program on

January 1, 1968 was fully implemented

six months later.

In total, Oxcart successfully completed

just 29 operational missions, but in so

doing it validated the concept of ultra-

high altitude, tri-sonic reconnaissance

gathering. As for the CIA, the decision

spelled the end of its foray into such

a world. Instead, the Corona satellite

program was  nally providing usable

material from behind both the Iron and

Bamboo Curtains.

http://www.combataircraft.net // April 2018 101

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