Lockheed A-11, A-12, M-12, YF-12, & SR-71 Blackbirds

[GTX]

and finally, a whiff example by AeroplaneDriver - his Lockheed F-13A Raven:



Regards,

Greg

[Mossie]

Found some gorgeous CGI of the Convair Kingfish by Jozef Gatial.  It was the competitor to the A-12 so I thought it would fit in here rather than creating a new thread for a project bird.  More pics on this Korean site, with some English narrative:
http://kr.blog.yahoo.com/shinecommerce/17592.html?p=1&t=3



Quite a menacing looking beast in it's own right & so different from the SR-71, I don't know which I prefer!   Somebody mentioned a titanium Backfire earlier???  Maybe, but not built by the Soviets!

[Madoc]

Folks,

Some things to consider about the A-12 / SR-71 aircraft is the fact that lots about it is still highly classified and that there's been some very deliberate misinformation / deception put out about it over the years.  I can't remember if it was Ben Rich or one of the other Lockheed guys who worked on the program but that right there was a huge source of disinformation.  According to those tales, Titanium was nearly impossible to work with, was easily corroded and next to impossible to weld.  In reality, that's anything but the case.  However, since Rich was pretty effective in spreading that falsehood you gotta wonder what else in his book he was making up as well.

As to the A-12 going in to service, that would've been some kinda trick.  The Blackbird always operated right at the edge of technologies limits and it took herculean efforts to keep the machine up and running.  Every flight was essentially a record breaker and that's not something which bodes well for an operational machine.  Recon missions are one thing, having a interceptor force comprised of A-12's is something else and again.

Not that it couldn't be done but it'd be hugely expensive to do.  And thus you'd really have to question the utility of it.

Now, if some bright lads came up with technological advances that made operating at Mach 3 speeds as routine as Mach 1 speeds then that'd be different.  Back in the 60's though, the tech just wasn't there.

As to ICBMs, those things are wonderful but pretty dumb weapons.  They're ballistic and thus their path can be pretty accurately predicted and countered.  Hell, both the US and the Soviets fielded anti-ballistic missile systems back in the days of vacuum tubes and transistors.

Bombers, in particular manned bombers, can alter their flight path and can adapt to changing conditions far better and far more quickly than ballistic projectiles.  So, I think that if the US elected to field a force of A-12 birds as interceptors then that'd mean we'd have invested more heavily in manned penetrating bombers than otherwise.  Think B-70's coming into squadron service here and doing so in vast numbers.

The "TBOverse" explains this concept in some detail.

Anyway, as much as I like the A-12 and as many studies and proposals as Kelly Johnson came up with for new A-12 / SR-71 missions, I don't think the design had the operational efficiency to be worth the expense back then.

Madoc

[Hobbes]

According to those tales, Titanium was nearly impossible to work with, was easily corroded and next to impossible to weld. 

That's interesting. I've heard those claims about titanium in various places (including a discussion of Russian submarine construction, iirc the Alfa class which was reported to have numerous problems ude to their titanium hulls).

As to ICBMs, those things are wonderful but pretty dumb weapons.  They're ballistic and thus their path can be pretty accurately predicted and countered.  Hell, both the US and the Soviets fielded anti-ballistic missile systems back in the days of vacuum tubes and transistors.

To be fair, the old ABM systems relied on nuclear charges so the missile would only have to get in the general vicinity of the incoming ICBM. The effort going into TBM today shows that actually intercepting a ballistic missile is a bit more difficult.

[Mossie]

I would have thought that titanium would have been initially difficult to work because it had never been done before substantially before high-mach aircraft were being developed.  Titanium is now a well known metal, but that's because the work was done developing aircraft & other vehicles like the SR-71.

[Hobbes]

There are some real challenges in working with titanium: its high melting point makes welding more difficult, composite welds (to other materials) are difficult and its high tensile strength means that pressing is hard to do without damaging the material.   

[GTX]

Mind you, if you know what your doing welding Titanium isn't an insurmountable problem (my company does it daily on Aerospace products).

Getting back to the tread though, those Convair Kingfish CGIs look great - a real brutish, powerful look rather than the somewhat graceful SR-71.

regards,

Greg

[Cobra]

That was What Inspired my Q!!!!!!! Thinking about doing a 'Gerry Anderson' Style SR-71 with AAMs! how's that Sound??

[ChrisF]

looks crazy i like it !! Looking foward to the backstory too....

[seadude]

I love the whole series of Blackbird planes. It's what got me into researching stealth aircraft and technology back in the 80's.
Anyway, I have a 1/72 Testor YF-12 at home that I'll probably build into an operational RB-12 or B-12 or whatever designation there was?
For more info. on the YF-12, try reading "Lockheed Skunk Works" by Steve Pace, Chapter 14. There's some good info. there on the actual missile firing tests that were done.

[Mossie]

Dunc, rather than twin side by side, how about an over & under configuration?  Kind of like the Short Sperrin, only a little bit quicker!

[Mossie]

I guess I had the early Avro 730 in mind when I suggested it.  SEAD based on that AF-12 proposal would be good, although I really like the idea of high speed growler.

[KJ_Lesnick]

What I'm wondering about the AF-12 drawing is with the foldable finned AIM-47B's... why didn't they just stuff two more AIM-47B's in the middle (right behind the landing gear area) -- it looks like it would fit.  The YF-12A had a center missile bay behind the gear in roughly the area I described.


KJ Lesnick

[Sauragnmon]

The A designation leads me to think of an attack aircraft, I wonder what it might be like to have a Blackbird carrying a moderate payload of, say, SDB's at insane speed for high-speed deep-striking flights - they've done a whole number of flights over Russia and other locations, so it's not as if they don't have the flight range to do the hit against enemy industry or infrastructure or long range assets - Blackbird flies in, takes out a few enemy bomber runways, boogies on outta the playground, end of story.

[GTX]

The A designation leads me to think of an attack aircraft, I wonder what it might be like to have a Blackbird carrying a moderate payload of, say, SDB's at insane speed for high-speed deep-striking flights - they've done a whole number of flights over Russia and other locations, so it's not as if they don't have the flight range to do the hit against enemy industry or infrastructure or long range assets - Blackbird flies in, takes out a few enemy bomber runways, boogies on outta the playground, end of story.

Look up B-71

Regards,

Greg