The SR-71 Blackbird may be among the most iconic airframes of the Cold War, but this incredibly fast design wasn’t always intended to serve only as a high-flying set of eyes. In fact, a variant of the ...

What You Need to Know: The YF-12 was a high-speed interceptor developed from the A-12, the predecessor of the SR-71 Blackbird. Designed during the Cold War to replace the F-106 Delta Dart, it boasted ...

Here’s What You Need to Remember: The U.S. Air Force’s order for 93 F-12B interceptor fighters was originally placed on hold for three long years, due largely to the ever-climbing costs of the war in ...

An aircraft unlike any other appeared suddenly on Feb. 29, 1964. President Lyndon Johnson announced the existence of the Lockheed “A-11,” a real aircraft with a purposely fake designation. The ...

For a brief shining moment, the U.S. Air Force lay on the verge of flying the fastest, arguably most badass fighter jet of all time. The jet, the YF-12A, was one of several proposed variants in the SR ...

Behemoth black jets flew from a secret airstrip along the Groom Dry Lake bed in the 1960s, catching commercial jetliner pilots off guard and sending out sonic booms that signaled the prowess of U.S.

President Johnson had hardly revealed the existence of Lockheed’s supersonic A11 last February before the plane and its mission were grounded in controversy. Across the U.S., aviation experts argued ...