success when the 1995 Department
of Defense appropriation bill made
available $100 million for what it called
a ‘modest (three-plane), SR-71 Blackbird
reconnaissance aircraft contingent’. Two
A-models (971 and 967) were activated
from storage, and the remaining SR-71B
two-seat pilot trainer was shared jointly
between NASA and the newly formed
SR-71 unit based at Edwards AFB,
designated Det 2. The reconnaissance
sensors were upgraded, and an ASARS-1
data transfer link installed. However, in
1997, when the White House insisted that
the Pentagon find savings in the defense
budget, several senior air force officers
who had presided over the original
shutdown seized their opportunity
and offered up the SR-71 for the axe.
On October 14, 1997, President Bill
Clinton line item-vetoed the program,
and this time all SR-71 flying stopped
permanently.During the course of its operational
career, the SR-71 program accumulated
53,490 flight hours, 11,675 of which
were at Mach 3 or above. This was
achieved during 17,300 sorties, including
3,551 operational missions. This
accomplishment wouldn’t have been
possible without the air refueling support
that it received, primarily from KC-135Q
tankers, during 25,862 aerial refuelings.
In total, 31 of these extremely complex
Mach 3-plus aircraft were constructed,
12 being written off in accidents (all but
one within the first eight years). None of
the SR-71’s air force crew members were
lost as a result of these incidents.
During the limited reactivation period,
Det 2 accumulated 365.7 flight hours in
150 training flights. On October 9, 1999,
during the Edwards AFB Open House,
NASA completed the final flight of any
SR-71, aircraft 980 having the honor of
the last sortie.launch after the fact’. All three missions
were conducted without the need for
the airborne spare, an outstanding
reflection on the professionalism of all
the support staff.The ASARS edge
It’s no exaggeration to say that ASARS-1
reinvigorated Senior Crown overnight.
Intelligence departments within the three
US armed forces requested updated
ASARS imagery of their targets, not just
within Europe but also in Cuba, North
Korea and the Soviet Far East. As a result,
the SR-71 was kept extremely busy right
up to the end of the Cold War.
However, one of the widely recognized
shortfalls of the jet’s immense
reconnaissance-gathering capabilities
was the time it took to disseminate the
intelligence to commanders in the field.
By the mid- to late 1980s, there already
existed the ability to use an electro-optical
system instead of film, the latter requiring
time-consuming processing once the
aircraft had landed. Transmitting digitized
imagery from ASARS-1 and the cameras
via a secure data down-link would have
given the platform a real-time/near-real-
time capability that would have been
unsurpassed. However, it didn’t happen
until it was too late.
The stampede to cash in on the ‘peace
dividend’ in the aftermath of the Cold War,
with its commensurate slash in defense
spending — together with an air force
chief of staff, Gen Larry Welch, a CINCSAC,
Gen John Chain (both Tactical Air Force
men through-and-through), plus several
other senior officers with long-standing
anti-Senior Crown views — colluded
to ensure that the program was living
on borrowed time. Herculean efforts
made by former ‘Habus’ in influential
positions to cut operational costs and
secure funding kept the program alive
for Fiscal Year (FY) 1989. But by the end of
that fiscal the money had dried up, and
on October 1, 1989, all SR-71 operations
were suspended. Finally, on November 22,
despite the misgivings of 40 members of
Congress, including the chairman of the
Senate Committee on Armed Services,
Senior Crown was terminated. NASA
continued to use three aircraft for a variety
of high-speed, high-altitude experiments
until 1999; three others went into air force
storage at Palmdale’s Site 7. The other 13
remaining airframes were placed on loan
to museums.
Efforts to reactive the program
continued and were met with limitedA fantastic aerial
view of SR-71A
967 during the
brief reactivation
at Edwards AFB
before flying
was halted
permanently
in late 1997.
Ted Carlson/
Fotodynamicshttp://www.combataircraft.net // April 2018 109
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