Highly classified programs within the Department of Defense (DOD) are financed under a special funding category called the “black world.” The objective is to protect the black world money from public scrutiny and provide programs with a relatively stabilized funding level so that they do not have to struggle or compete with the rest of the DOD budget. Black world funding also permits a high-risk, technologically advanced program to emerge from the research-and-test phase into the development-and-prototype stage without the problems and scrutiny that plague the DOD “white world” programs. Originally, the SR-71 program’s funding was contained in the black world. The air staff office responsible for the SR-71’s black world funding was located in the research and development directorate (office symbol RDPJ).
In the mid-1970s, SR-71 funding was moved out of the black world and into the white world. For the first time, the SR-71 program had to compete for its funding along with the rest of the DOD budget. When SR-71 funds entered the white world, responsibility for the program transferred from RDPJ to another office in the basement of the Pentagon called XOORZ. The office was staffed with former SR-71 pilots and RSOs and became the Blackbird’s only advocate and spokesperson responsible for funding its annual budget.
Through every annual budget cycle, XOORZ Habus had to justify, defend, and argue the SR-71’s requirements against the needs of the Air Force. They were also competing against SAC’s need to conclude its greatest modernization and upgrade program of all time. At the same time, the Air Force was trying to increase its conventional war fighting capability, and the national intelligence community was placing an increased reliance on satellite programs. Each budget cycle was an annual frenzy, full of sharks and pitfalls.
The mainstream of SAC—and logically its highest funding priorities—were two legs of the nuclear triad: nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and B-52 bombers. Shortly after SR-71 funding entered the white world, SAC’s nuclear ICBMs and B-52s were beginning to age. They were in need of expensive upgrades and replacements. New ICBMs and the B-1 bomber were trying to make their entry into SAC’s inventory during the late 1970s and early 1980s. They received high priority on SAC’s funding list. Competition for funding programs was getting tough.
It was obvious SAC’s interest in the SR-71 was waning; it had higher priority programs to fund. The intelligence community, believing overhead satellites were the way of the future, became more vocal in comparing the SR-71’s high operating costs to that of satellites. During my four years at the Pentagon (1982–1986), I became increasingly aware that defending and justifying the SR-71 budget was becoming difficult. Support for the SR-71 within the intelligence community, DOD, Air Force, and SAC was slowly disappearing.
I believe the SR-71 program would have been better served if it had been under the control of an intelligence organization like the CIA, DIA, or the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). At the very least, an intelligence agency would have been more receptive than SAC to upgrading SR-71s with state-of-the-art intelligence sensors, enabling them to compete well into the twenty-first century. The SR-71 never had a legitimate place in SAC. In one respect, SAC’s lack of support for the SR-71 program was understandable. SAC had to pay the bill for the program and derived very little payback. Our reconnaissance data was primarily used by other intelligence agencies, rather than SAC.
One of the more subtle (albeit, highly important) reasons the SR-71 program was increasingly under the gun was its decreasing general officer sponsorship. The first seven 9th SRW commanders (January 1966 to September 1977) were all SR-71 pilots and continued in their Air Force careers to become general officers. As they moved on to greater responsibilities within the Air Force, they still supported the SR-71 program because they understood its capabilities. Just like the “fighter mafia” within the Air Force that promotes new and better-manned fighter aircraft, the SR-71 had its sponsors and supporters early on. Former SR-71 pilots, including Generals Bill Campbell, Doug Nelson, Charlie Minter, Bill Hayes, Pat Halloran, John Storrie, and Mel Vojvodich, and Colonels Willie Lawson and Ken Collins, retired during the 1980s and left a major void in SR-71 support throughout the Air Force.
The most noted advocate of all was General Jerome “Jerry” F. O’Malley, who flew the very first SR-71 operational sortie from Okinawa in March 1968 and later became a 9th Wing commander. General O’Malley was the vice chief of staff of the Air Force until October 1983. He became the four-star commander of Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) and finally took over the highly coveted job as commander of Tactical Air Command (TAC). Since he had completed all the necessary requisites, there was no doubt among senior Pentagon officers that General O’Malley was destined to become the next chief of staff of the Air Force, replacing General Gabriel. Sadly, while flying to attend a speaking engagement in Pennsylvania, General O’Malley and his wife were killed in a tragic T-39 crash on 20 April 1986. The Air Force lost one of its greatest leaders of all time and the SR-71 program its greatest supporter.
I’m not suggesting all these former Habus were out actively campaigning on behalf of the SR-71, but I can state with reasonable assurance other general officers who wanted to see the SR-71 program canceled remained silent as long as these former Habus were in positions of power and influence. By 1986, practically all the SR-71 general officers had retired, and the program was left with very little internal support. It was just a matter of time before a new generation of generals would scrutinize the SR-71 program closely, looking for a means to fund their own pet programs.
Over the years, our customers were also our vocal advocates. These included the CIA, DIA, NSA, foreign technology division (FTD), military departments, theater commanders at PACAF and USAFE, and several foreign countries. Many of these agencies were instrumental in keeping the program strong during its early years but later favored satellites and other technical means of gathering intelligence. Surprisingly, during the late 1980s, the U.S. Navy was the SR-71’s greatest advocate. Satellites could not match the Blackbird’s ability to locate nuclear submarines for the Navy in certain regions of Europe. Whenever the Navy lost track of a Soviet submarine carrying nuclear ballistic missiles, it called on the SR-71 to fly over the Barents and Baltic Seas in hopes of locating the sub. Each branch of the military service was so protective of its individual roles and missions, it seemed ironic that the SR-71 program’s chief advocate became the U.S. Navy.
The commander in chief of SAC was directly responsible for funding SAC’s primary needs: conventional and nuclear B-52s, the B-1 bombers, and ICBM upgrades. SAC saw the SR-71’s annual budget of approximately three hundred million dollars as an easy place to make some trades. Consequently, from 1986 to 1990, what little support there was for the SR-71 program at SAC headquarters soon turned negative. During this same time frame, the chief of staff of the Air Force was not an advocate of the SR-71. Basically, if it didn’t carry bombs or shoot missiles, he didn’t want to hear of it. With the lack of support for the SR-71 program at such significant levels, the end was getting near.
One of the primary reasons the senior Air Force leadership gave for closing down the SR-71 program was that the aging aircraft were becoming more and more difficult to maintain. Nothing could have been further from the truth. After DAFICS was installed, aircraft reliability and maintainability increased dramatically. The supply system had sufficient spare parts and more spare J58 engines than ever in the history of the program. The aircraft were running better than they ever had; like a good bottle of wine, or as my wife often reminds me, “Like an older woman, the SR-71 fleet got better with time!”
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the buzz words running around the intelligence community spoke to having a reconnaissance system capable of transmitting real-time imagery directly to the theater commanders. Real-time imagery is possible with electro-optical cameras and other sensors. However, when an all-weather, day or night, radar imaging sensor is used, it requires a slight delay to process the digital imagery and transmit it directly to a theater commander. In the intelligence world, this short delay produced so-called “near real-time” imagery.
Habus realized early on that a major drawback of the SR-71 was its lack of real-time capability. Returning to land, downloading the sensors, processing the data, and finally disseminating it to the user all took time. Photographic imagery was ready in about four hours after the SR-71 landed. A dedicated courier aircraft flew the pictures directly to the user. It was still a time-consuming process. ELINT could be sent out quickly via secure electronic communications directly to the user.
Satellites were being developed with the ability to receive and transmit secure digital images anywhere in the world. In the late 1970s, a program called “Senior King” was developed for the SR-71. It would have modified the aircraft with computers, digital processors, and a conformal antenna along the top of the fuselage, enabling it to uplink, via satellites, its near real-time digital imagery to a theater commander. This technology was a key opportunity to obtain the flexibility the SR-71 program needed to compete with and augment satellites. Unfortunately, SAC did not think the Senior King modification—at a cost of ten million dollars per aircraft—was justified, and the program was never funded. This short-sightedness on the part of SAC and the Air Force in the late 1970s was the very beginning of the SR-71’s struggle to compete in a new era of worldwide intelligence-gathering capabilities.
Between 1987 and 1988, two former Habus working in XOORZ developed numerous funding proposals for both SAC and the Air Force, showing various plans to retain the SR-71 in the inventory. It was a gamble, but if they could sway the senior leadership that a reduced number of SR-71s, flying at a lower sortie rate, could cover the globe at a cheaper cost, they might be able to fend off those who wanted the program completely terminated. One of the proposals had two aircraft stationed at Det 1 and Det 4, and three at Beale, including the B model, for a cost of $155 million a year.
Another proposal they developed had five SR-71s flying at Beale and the two dets closed down to caretaker status. The idea was for SR-71s to deploy from Beale to a forward operating location and fly operational sorties when hot spots developed around the world. The cost for the proposal was somewhere around one hundred million dollars a year. The chief of staff of the Air Force, General Welch, wouldn’t hear of it and didn’t want anything short of complete termination of the program. The reduced options for the SR-71 withered in the halls of the Pentagon.
Around the same time, SAC headquarters came out with its operational plan (OPLAN) for the shutdown of the SR-71s at both dets and at Beale. The plan had lots of guidance but offered little help in execution. Throughout 1987 and 1988, Habu emotions were running extremely high, as no one wanted to move a muscle to help terminate the program. Weekly, there were new rumors that the program might still survive in some capacity. The last thing anyone wanted to do was to go too far into closing down the program such that it couldn’t be revived. Every Habu knew that at some point during the program’s termination it would eventually reach that point of no return. Consequently, we delayed until the last possible moment every step we took in closing down the program, hoping for a reprieve.
In the end, funds never materialized to continue the SR-71 program, and we finally had to plan for the future. At Beale, Det 1, and Det 4, talk began to revolve around reassignments for personnel and what to do with the aircraft’s assets and facilities. Confusion reigned. Practically every day, some office at SAC headquarters phoned to ask me (as the 9th Wing commander) why certain steps of the OPLAN were not being taken at Beale or the dets. Colonel (Ret.) John Manzi discusses the deep emotion during the final days:
Even as we celebrated SR-71 milestones and anniversaries, the Blackbird program was dying a slow and painful death. From 1988 through 1990, the squadron suffered budget cuts which grounded aircraft, the crews, and severely restricted flying hours. Through two complete budget cycles our hopes of saving the program were alternately raised and dashed by rumors from Washington. The final blow came late one evening when Congress sacrificed the program in the name of budgetary compromise. Numbed from the constant cycling of emotion, I actually felt relief when the axe finally fell on the program.
Even as the program was approaching its scheduled closing day of 30 September 1989 (end of the fiscal year), there was still hope among ardent SR-71 supporters that the program would remain alive in some fashion. During the summer of 1989, the SR-71 participated in the Paris Air Show and the Oshkosh air show. While awaiting a final decision, Habus continued to fly proficiency sorties between 1 October 1989 and 22 January 1990 and operational sorties right up to the bitter end, the last one occurring on 7 November 1989 with pilot Lt. Col. Tom McCleary and RSO Lt. Col. Stan Gudmundson. It was flown twenty years, seven months, and seventeen days after the first SR-71 operational sortie.
After months of turmoil filled with constant rumors and agnonizing speculation, SAC established a date for the final SR-71 flight: 26 January 1990. It was only fitting that the last 1st SRS commander, Lt. Col. Rod Dyckman, and his RSO, Lt. Col. Tom Bergam, flew aircraft 960 on the last SR-71 sortie. Although retired from the Air Force at the time, I was there for the highly emotional and somber event. Rod flew beautiful passes over the field that day at Beale. As I stood among the crowd to watch the aircraft fly by, I found it hard to believe that the skies over Beale would never again be graced by its presence. For so many years, the SR-71s were part of Beale’s landscape, and suddenly it felt uncanny that this was to be the last flight. Finally, Rod brought 960 to a halt in front of the flightline crowd, and the reality of the occasion set in. While it seems incongruous that one of the prime architects of the dissolution of the SR-71 program would attend, Gen. John T. Chain (CINCSAC) made an appearance at the final ceremonies.
Over the years, SR-71 crews set many flying records. To those who were fortunate enough to set the official records, we owe a debt of gratitude. However, there’s not a speed or altitude record on the books that most Habus have not surpassed at one time or another. Some of those unofficial records will remain with each and every Habu forever. The following list of lifetime achievements includes all of the Blackbird family (A-12, YF-12, and SR-71):
Total operational sorties: 3,551
Total hours: 11,008 operational; 53,490 total
Mach 3+ time: 2,752 hours operational; 11,675 hours total
Total sorties: 17,300
Total persons to Mach 3: 389 (284 crew members and 105 VIPs)
Crew members over three hundred hours: 163
Crew members over six hundred hours: 69
Crew members over nine hundred hours: 18
Crew members over one thousand hours: 8
Total number of operational SR-71 pilots: 93
Total number of operational SR-71 RSOs: 89
Most SR-71 flying time: Lieutenant Colonel Joseph “J. T.” Vida with 1,492.7 hours
New York to London: 1 hour, 54 minutes, 56.4 seconds
Los Angeles to Washington, D.C.: 1 hour, 4 minutes, 20 seconds
World speed record, 100-kilometer course: 2,092 miles per hour
World altitude record: 85,068.997 feet
World record straight, 15- and 25-kilometer course: 2,193 miles per hour
On 6 March 1990, nearly two months after the SR-71 was officially retired from the Air Force, an SR-71 (972) set four speed records while being delivered to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum at Dulles International Airport, Washington, D.C. The Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General Welch, had canceled at least one potential record-breaking flight, presumably not wanting any favorable publicity concerning the SR-71. The flight was finally pushed through by certain Lockheed executives, U.S. Senators supporting the SR-71, and a small cadre of lower ranking but influential Air Force officers. Had it not been for the initiative of these officers, the media would not have been informed about the record-breaking event.
To show how wide the rift was between senior Air Force commanders and supporters of the SR-71 program, no senior Air Force officers attended the event other than a former Habu, Brig. Gen. Harold B. “Buck” Adams. Dignitaries greeting the SR-71’s arrival at Dulles were Ben Rich of the Lockheed Skunk Works; Dr. Martin Harwit, director of the National Air and Space Museum; Senator John Warner of Virginia; and Lynn Helms, former director of the CIA.
The aircraft was flown by Lt. Col. Ed Yeilding (pilot) and Lt. Col. J. T. Vida (RSO), who were assigned to the Palmdale, Plant 42, flight test center. The record-setting flight covered 1,998 nautical miles in sixty-four minutes, twenty seconds, at a speed of 2,176 miles per hour. The record-setting aircraft is now proudly displayed at the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles airport.
The day after the speed run, Senator John Glenn thought he closed the final chapter on the SR-71 by making a speech on the floor of the Senate. His words were profound and to the point. He chastised the Department of Defense for lacking the moral leadership to utilize the aircraft at its full potential:
While it is undoubtedly true that the SR-71 fleet was not being utilized to its fullest potential, I believe that this shortcoming could have easily been redressed by the Department of Defense and by no means warranted program termination. In view of the high costs of other Air Force programs, the costs of this program and its benefits were both affordable and reasonable. . . . The SR-71 provides coverage on demand with little or no warning to the reconnaissance target—it is a highly flexible system . . . the SR-71 is able to penetrate hostile territory with comparatively little vulnerability to attack, unlike other reconnaissance platforms.
While opponents of the SR-71 have argued that national technical means are capable of performing the same mission, these systems are less flexible and survivable than the SR-71. . . . In retiring the SR-71, the United States has essentially removed itself from the strategic aerial reconnaissance business. Intelligence systems such as the SR-71 are the eyes and ears for our nation’s defense and are therefore true force multipliers.
Mr. President, the termination of the SR-71 was a grave mistake and could place our nation at a serious disadvantage in the event of a future crisis. Yesterday’s historic transcontinental flight was a sad memorial to our shortsighted policy in strategic aerial reconnaissance.
Another reason the Air Force gave for retiring the SR-71 was that new satellites were more capable of doing the job. Time has proven that wrong. If SR-71s had been flying when Desert Storm kicked off, there is no doubt the planes would have continued flying. After Desert Storm, General Norman Schwarzkopf and others openly criticized intelligence-handling during the Persian Gulf Crisis. They complained that the existing satellites, including the newest Lacrosse radar satellites, did not provide enough definition for accurate battle damage assessment. Desert Storm pilots were sent into combat with target photographs over twenty-four hours old. We had more current photographs in Vietnam.
The synoptic coverage (displaying conditions as they exist simultaneously over a broad area) provided by an SR-71 is far superior to satellite reconnaissance. Broad area coverage from different approach angles in a relatively short time span produces considerably better intelligence than a predictable single satellite pass every ninety minutes. The SR-71 remains the only reconnaissance platform that can penetrate hostile territory, accomplish wide-area synoptic coverage, and still survive.
When the program was finally closed down in 1990, NASA saw an excellent opportunity. It was looking for a high-speed aircraft to use in testing future supersonic and hypersonic engines and aircraft. NASA borrowed from the Air Force two SR-71A models, the SR-71B trainer, and the SR-71 simulator, and set up operations at Edwards AFB, California. Even with the small fleet of three Blackbirds, it ensured that sole-source vendors who produced the highly specialized consumables, such as the oil, hydraulic fluid, JP-7, and tires, remained in operation.
After hearing Desert Storm debriefings from General Schwarzkopf and others, U.S. Senators Glenn, Byrd, Stevens, and Nunn, who sat on influential committees in Congress, realized there were major shortfalls in the United States’ ability to gather timely intelligence from around the world. Something was needed to fill a gap in gathering intelligence on rogue nations that appeared hostile to the United States’ interests. In 1995, Congress directed the Air Force to reactivate three SR-71s and appropriated one hundred million dollars to do so. To the Air Force leadership, being directed by congressional language to bring back retired Blackbirds was like having their worst nightmare come true.
As it turned out, the Air Force considered NASA’s B model trainer as one of the three aircraft and thus brought only two SR-71 reconnaissance planes back into service. Since NASA already had the SR-71 simulator at Edwards AFB and the infrastructure to support its SR-71 operation, it was decided that Edwards AFB (rather than Beale) would be the location for the Air Force to train and fly its SR-71s. The Air Force SR-71 unit at Edwards was called Det 2 and worked closely with NASA in all its flying activities. NASA and Det 2 shared the B model trainer. Three former SR-71 pilots and RSOs left their current Air Force jobs and returned to fly the SR-71 in 1995.
Don Emmons, who had the unpleasant job of dismantling the Blackbird fleet in 1990, was hired as a contractor to help put it all back together again. Emmons was the sole person who knew where all the SR-71’s assets were located. He and others knew instinctively that it was necessary to upgrade the two Blackbirds if they were going to compete with other reconnaissance assets, so they modified the two planes with a common data link (CDL). The CDL provided real-time imagery within three hundred nautical miles of a ground station and near real-time imagery outside of three hundred nautical miles with onboard recorders.
Using Lockheed maintenance, civilian contractors, and Air Force operations personnel, the unit was soon operational, ready for deployment anywhere around the world. Despite the wishes of Congress, the Air Force had the upper hand in whether the Blackbirds would ever fly operational missions or not; unfortunately, they never did. In 1997, the Air Force finally found a way to get rid of its nightmare when the White House was looking at the Pentagon for items to eliminate from the budget. The Air Force offered up the SR-71 program, and in October 1997, President Clinton line item–vetoed the SR-71 program. From that day on, all Air Force flights in the Blackbirds ceased. Once again, Don Emmons was put in charge of dismantling the SR-71s, and on 9 October 1999, he was the last man to walk out the door at Det 2. During the reactivation, Det 2 flew 150 training sorties and 365.7 hours with its three SR-71s without incident.