Below left
top to bottom:
Lt Col Ed Yeilding
and his RSO, the
late Lt Col JT Vida,
congratulate
one another
after having
established the
current world
speed record
between the US
west and east
coasts in SR-71A
61-7972 — one
hour seven
minutes 53
seconds, landing
at Washington
DC’s Dulles
Airport. This
was done before
the aircraft’s
retirement to
the Smithsonian
National Air and
Space Museum,
which exhibits it
in the Udvar-Hazy
Center.
Lockheed Martin
via Tony Landis
Maj Gen Eldon
‘Al’ Joersz (front)
and Lt Col George
‘GT’ Morgan sit
in the cockpit
of SR-71 958 in
which on July 28,
1976, they set the
world absolute
speed record.
The two were
at the Museum
of Aviation at
Warner Robins,
Georgia for the
40th anniversary
of the historic
fl ight. USAF/
Tommie HortonRECORD-
BREAKER
On September 1, 1974, the rst SR-71
visit to the UK began, and in so doing
it established two new trans-Atlantic
speed records. The rst took it from
New York to London — arriving at
Farnborough for the airshow there —
in one hour 54 minutes 56 seconds;
when 972 returned to Beale from
Mildenhall 12 days later, it set a London
to Los Angeles record of three hours 47
minutes 39 seconds. Both stand to this
day. An absolute world speed record
for a manned, air-breathing aircraft was
set by 958 on July 28, 1976, while 972
carried out another record-breaking
run on its nal ight on March 6, 1990
by crossing the US from west to east
in just one hour seven minutes 53
seconds. These, too, still stand.An initial plan involving the SR-71
required the aircraft to depart from
Beale, cross the North Atlantic, y into
the Mediterranean, over y the warring
factions and recover into RAF Mildenhall,
UK. However, this had to be scrapped
after the British government refused
landing rights in what turned out to be
a futile attempt to curry favor with the
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC), in order to secure the
continued supply of Arab oil.
Hurriedly, an alternative plan was
devised and implemented whereby
two camera-equipped SR-71s plus
support sta and ground equipment
were positioned to Gri ss AFB, New
York. At 02.00hrs local on October 13,
1973, Maj Jim Shelton and his RSO Maj
Gary Coleman got airborne in 979 on
what would be the rst of nine non-
stop, round-robin missions codenamed
Giant Reach/Busy Pilot. Each sortie
took between nine hours 45 minutes
and 11 hours 22 minutes to complete.
They were incredibly demanding for
the crews — Shelton was required to
tank from no fewer than 12 KC-135Qs
located in six air refueling tracks. The
rst track, o the Gulf of St Lawrence,
was codenamed Old Barge East; the next
tanker cell was o the coast of Portugal
(Rota East). Returning again to speed
and altitude they made a high-Mach
dash through the Straits of Gibraltar and
let down for a third refueling, south of
Crete (Crete East). Due to their proximity
to the war zone and Libya, the US Navy
provided a combat air patrol (CAP) fromcarrier-based aircraft on station in the
Mediterranean.
The SR-71 resumed its climb and
acceleration to coast in over Port Said.
Coleman remembers, ‘There was no
indication of anything launched against
us, but everyone was painting us on their
radars as we made our turn inbound. The
DEF panel lit up like a pinball machine and
I said to Jim, ‘This should be interesting.’’
Shelton recalls, ‘We lost the lights [ECM
warning lights] as we went down south
of Cairo and we turned around and
came back across the battle area again,
making a big ‘X’ over the Sinai. I saw some
contrails below me, but I couldn’t tell if
they were Egyptian or Israeli ghters.’
In all, 979 spent 25 minutes over ‘denied
territory’. Entering Egyptian airspace at
11.03hrs GMT, it covered the Israeli battle
fronts with both Egypt and Syria before
coasting out and letting down for the
fourth refueling track (Crete West), which
was still being protected by the US Navy
CAP. The next hot leg was punctuated
by a fth refueling, again o Portugal
(Rota West).
Soon after completing his mid-ocean
refueling, Jim climbed and accelerated
979 back up for his nal high-speed run
across the western Atlantic towards New
York. Shelton completed a textbook sixth
air refueling (Old Barge West), before
nally landing back at Gri ss. More than
ve hours of the mission had been own
at Mach 3 or above. Their reconnaissance
‘take’ was of high quality and provided
intelligence and defense analysts with
much-needed information concerningFEATURE ARTICLE // ‘SKUNK WORKS’ AT 75
106 April 2018 //^ http://www.combataircraft.net
100-109 SR-71 Skunk C.indd 106 16/02/2018 10:13