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00:01The SR-71 Blackbird.
00:05The world's fastest stealth spy plane.
00:15It flew faster than a rifle bullet.
00:21Three times the speed of sound.
00:25It looks like it's part spaceship, part airplane.
00:29And when you see it in the air, it's a piece of artwork.
00:34Even now, 50 years later,
00:37it's still the fastest and highest man has ever flown without rocket propulsion.
00:45The Blackbird is the iconic aircraft of high-speed supersonic cruise.
00:50It was a multi-million dollar gamble
00:53that stretched 60s aviation technology to the limits.
01:01Incredibly forward-thinking design on this.
01:04No high-powered, you know, computers, just rooms of people with slide rules and calculators.
01:09The thing that's special about the Blackbird was it was all miracles.
01:14Blackbird pilots risked their lives to fly at the edge of the possible.
01:19It was just breathtaking when we realized what we were going to be doing.
01:24These basically became sentinels, if you will, for the free world.
01:28Its greatest legacy?
01:30Helping maintain peace when the world was on the brink of nuclear war.
01:47January, 1966.
01:52Two ACE test pilots prepare for a critical experimental flight.
01:58The plane they're about to fly is an ultra-fast covert military jet.
02:03And it's just been modified to maximize performance.
02:08In the cockpit is a pilot with 4,000 flying hours under his belt, Bill Weaver.
02:15We took off about 11-something in the morning.
02:21We headed out on the program route.
02:25Everything was okay, routine.
02:30In the back seat is reconnaissance expert, Jim Zwayer.
02:34Copy that.
02:37Flying at Mach 3.2, Weaver banks into a turn.
02:41And without warning, one of his engines stalls.
02:56It's a very startling event.
02:59You could never prepare yourself for them.
03:01It was once described by one of the pilots as like being in a train wreck.
03:07At over 3,000 miles an hour, the unbalanced plane is impossible to control.
03:16It pitches into a catastrophically steep climb.
03:22I had to stick full left corner of the cockpit and no response to the airplane at all.
03:27I knew that we were just coming along for the ride when that happened.
03:33Inside two seconds, the plane starts to break up.
03:37The airplane just basically disintegrated around us.
03:42The quest to build the world's fastest spy plane is on the edge of disaster.
03:55The story of the SR-71 Blackbird begins nine years earlier, at the height of the Cold War.
04:04In 1957, the Soviet Union develops intercontinental ballistic missiles.
04:16The threat of a direct nuclear strike on U.S. cities makes gathering intelligence on the Soviet's nuclear arsenal a
04:24top priority.
04:27Well, in any conflict, knowledge is power.
04:31And we had to find out what the Soviet Union was doing, particularly with a missile program.
04:39We had a vital need to understand the capabilities of the Soviet military machine.
04:44But the Soviet Union was so vast that we could not gain this by using conventional aircraft.
04:56America needs specialist spy planes to fly reconnaissance missions deep into Soviet territory.
05:05Without being detected by radar and shot down by enemy jets.
05:20In late 1957, the CIA asks defence contractor Lockheed to come up with a new undetectable spy in the sky.
05:31They would call it Project Archangel, led by aviation genius Kelly Johnson.
05:40Kelly Johnson undoubtedly is the Leonardo da Vinci of aviation design.
05:47The difference in him and other airplane designers is he had a vision of the future and the art of
05:52the possible.
05:55I had a great relationship with him. I trusted him. He was almost a father figure to me.
06:07Johnson had worked for Lockheed since 1933.
06:12He'd put together a small maverick design team, just outside Los Angeles, nicknamed the Skunk Works.
06:22Johnson's team had designed several military planes, including a supersonic jet fighter, the iconic Lockheed F-104 Starfighter.
06:34By the late 50s, Skunk Works was at the top of its game.
06:41The factor that makes the Skunk Works different than other airplane design organisations is that they assume it can be
06:47done and then figure out how to do it.
06:52Back in 1955, Kelly Johnson had created America's first plane specifically designed for spying.
07:00The U-2 was a single engine jet plane that could fly at altitudes of 20,000 metres, which according
07:07to US intelligence, was 1500 metres above the reach of Soviet radar.
07:14The idea behind the U-2 was to fly so high that the very sophisticated Russian radars would not be
07:21able to detect it.
07:30In 1956, the U-2 flew its first operational mission over Soviet territory.
07:40It returned safely with valuable intelligence.
07:45But the onboard device the plane carried to detect radar waves delivered some bad news.
07:52Soviet radar had tracked its every move.
07:57From our estimates, if the U-2 were to fly above a certain altitude, it could not be detected.
08:03The problem is we were wrong.
08:07The Soviet radars were better than we thought they were.
08:14The only comfort was that the Soviets had no means of downing the U-2 at this altitude.
08:20Yet.
08:23The Skunk Works team knew it was only a matter of time before Russian missile technology would catch up with
08:30disastrous consequences.
08:32They would have to deliver the new undetectable spy in the sky.
08:37And fast.
08:46Fifty years after it was built, the SR-71 Blackbird still holds the record as the world's fastest manned plane
08:53using air-breathing engines.
08:57The amazing thing about the Blackbird is that it instills emotion in anyone, not just airplane enthusiasts.
09:06It looks like it's part spaceship, part airplane.
09:12And when you see it in the air, it's a piece of artwork.
09:19Even more extraordinary, it pioneered the idea of stealth technology, with a design that was almost impossible for enemy radar
09:27to detect.
09:32But reaching this pinnacle of aviation technology wasn't easy.
09:46In the spring of 1958, Skunk Works starts work on Project Archangel.
09:53The CIA's top secret plan to replace the vulnerable U-2 spy plane.
10:00Kelly Johnson knows the new design will have to fly much higher than its predecessor to evade advancing Soviet radar
10:07systems.
10:10And also much faster, to get out of trouble even if detected.
10:17As the missile threat evolved, speed now became very, very important.
10:22And so if you have a fast-moving target that may be also turning or maneuvering itself,
10:29it poses a very difficult challenge to an intercepting missile.
10:36But the CIA wants more.
10:38The order for a new super spy plane had come from President Eisenhower himself.
10:46And he wants it to be invisible to radar.
10:55Achieving radar invisibility seemed near impossible.
11:03When radio waves from a radar transmitter strike a plane's circular fuselage,
11:08they scatter in many directions,
11:11producing an obvious and distinctive radar signature.
11:17Reducing this signature will require nothing less than a radical rethink of aviation design.
11:25Yet, in 1958, the idea of such stealth technology is in its infancy.
11:33And delivering it, alongside high altitude and high speed,
11:37will test Skunk Works abilities to the limits.
11:45The Skunk Works team began looking at designs to meet these requirements of higher than 80,000 feet,
11:52faster than 2,000 miles per hour,
11:54as well as being reduced in radar cross-section.
12:05Over 11 months, Skunk Works engineers draft 10 designs,
12:10each prefaced with the letter A for Archangel.
12:21Some aim for a reduced radar signature,
12:25others to achieve speed or height.
12:29None manage all three.
12:33The front runner is the A-10.
12:36Capable of flying far higher than the U-2,
12:40and at over three times the speed of sound.
12:43Mach 3.2.
12:49But performance comes at a price.
12:52Its shape will make it highly visible to radar.
12:58In March 1959, things become critical at a meeting with the CIA's Head of Black Operations.
13:07Kelly Johnson argues that the A-10 is the best design,
13:11despite its radar visibility.
13:15Designed to fly so high and so fast,
13:18that even if detected,
13:20the Soviets will have no time to react.
13:24There was always a debate, from the time of the U-2 onwards,
13:28about which was the best way to defend a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft.
13:35The CIA knows the President isn't about to settle for speed over stealth.
13:43It looks like the end of the road for Project Archangel.
13:56On the brink of losing the contract, Skunk Works throw themselves at the radar visibility problem one last time.
14:07The M-Lab was trying to come up with an answer for that.
14:12We spent a lot of time and money trying to develop stealth.
14:17The challenge? To modify the plane's profile without compromising performance.
14:25Two months later, one of the engineers makes a breakthrough.
14:29He takes the existing design and adds elements from other Project Archangel designs that reduce radar signature.
14:40The result is a radical new, streamlined look.
14:47The new design has a flatter underbelly and sleeker lines.
14:54When radio waves encounter this plane,
14:58instead of bouncing back to enemy radar receivers,
15:01they should deflect harmlessly away, along the flattened fuselage.
15:08The result? An incredible 90% reduction in the radar cross-section.
15:15The radar cross-section was something like 10 metres.
15:19You know, that's a big eagle, or it's a very small airplane.
15:24Now, the new spy plane faces the ultimate test.
15:29Will it convince the CIA?
15:36Kelly Johnson tells the agency the new plane will fly eight kilometres higher than the U-2,
15:42at three times the speed of sound.
15:45And all the while presenting the radar profile of a large bird.
15:50On February 11th, 1960, the CIA approves a $96 million contract for Skunk Works,
15:58to build a dozen spy planes, now called the A-12.
16:07There is no time to waste.
16:10Because just three months into the project, disaster strikes.
16:20On May 1st, 1960, a U-2 spy plane is shot down by a missile in Soviet airspace.
16:33The pilot, Francis Gary Powers, survives.
16:38He is put on trial in Moscow, and paraded in front of the media,
16:43together with his once top-secret spy plane.
16:51It's an ominous sign of how fast Soviet technology is developing.
16:57Because Powers' plane had been downed by a state-of-the-art radar-guided surface-to-air missile,
17:03the Davina SA-2.
17:12We knew the U-2 was going to be very limited from that point on,
17:16in terms of random overflying anywhere in the country.
17:20So, in that sense, the technology of the other countries were catching up to us.
17:29More than ever, the United States needs a spy plane that can't be shot down.
17:37Skunk Works feels the pressure.
17:39Building a plane with the futuristic qualities they'd promised the CIA
17:43is a monumental challenge.
17:55The downing of a U-2 spy plane by the Soviets in 1960
18:00increases the pressure on Skunk Works to deliver its futuristic replacement.
18:06The new plane is supposed to cruise at a record-breaking Mach 3.
18:12But flying at three times the speed of sound throws up some fundamental problems.
18:19First, a conventional aluminium airframe is out of the question.
18:25Because at over 3,000 kilometres an hour, the friction created by air flow alone
18:31will heat the airframe to over 300 degrees Celsius.
18:36Skunk Works knows aluminium loses its strength at 150 degrees.
18:42Which, for a Mach 3 airplane, is barely breaking a sweat.
18:49There were places on the Blackbird that were 600, 700 degrees Fahrenheit.
18:55Your oven at home goes to 550 degrees Fahrenheit.
18:58And so you had to look for materials that could survive those kinds of temperatures.
19:06And that's not all.
19:08To reach high altitudes, an airframe has to be light.
19:12But to fly supersonic, it must also be robust.
19:17There is only one material that meets all the demands.
19:21Titanium.
19:23But the leading producer of the rare metal is the Soviet Union.
19:27The trick of how do you acquire the titanium and the volume necessary,
19:32while not giving away the fact that you were building something like the Blackbird,
19:36was a security challenge.
19:39The titanium is bought through dummy companies,
19:42so that the Soviets don't realise their customer is the CIA.
19:47But working with it is uncharted territory.
19:50So how do you machine it? How do you form it?
19:53How do you assemble it?
19:55A lot of that had to be created on the fly.
19:59Titanium is so hard that it damages standard machining equipment,
20:03forcing Skunk Works to develop new manufacturing processes.
20:13300 degree temperatures pose another problem.
20:17Metal expands when hot.
20:22To ensure the plane's panels fit together tightly when flying supersonic,
20:26they need to fit loosely while on the ground.
20:31No big deal.
20:33Except when it comes to the fuel tanks.
20:36There's no internal bladder tanks.
20:38There's no internal metal tanks.
20:40The skin of the airplane is the tank.
20:43As a result, it was a leaky airplane.
20:46You would see this aircraft sitting on the ground with a puddle of fuel under it.
20:54Traditional aviation fuel is highly volatile and liable to explode at the high temperatures generated in flight.
21:03So Skunk Works asks Shell to develop a brand new fuel.
21:07An exotic mix of hydrocarbons and lubricants with exceptionally low volatility.
21:13Which they call JP7.
21:16I've seen the crew chiefs throw cigarette butts and matches.
21:20It extinguishes. It won't catch on fire.
21:24This is just one of many ingenious solutions that Johnson's team devises to overcome a string of engineering challenges.
21:33Kelly wanted the simplest answer.
21:36One of his rules was one miracle per program.
21:39The thing that's special about the Blackbird was it was all miracles.
21:50By the spring of 1962, people in Arizona begin to see strange craft streaking through the skies near the top
21:59secret Area 51.
22:06It's the latest version of the Skunk Works A-12 spy plane.
22:12The sightings fuel talk of UFOs.
22:17And so you start seeing bar talk develop.
22:20You start seeing people reporting what's going on.
22:23In some cases, they're met by people in suits who take them away and tell them, don't talk about what
22:28you saw.
22:31Two years later, Skunk Works believe they've made an even better version of the plane.
22:36A two-seater.
22:39And in 1964, the government decides to scotch the rumors of UFOs and unveil it.
22:46The new spy plane, destined for the US Air Force, will be called Reconnaissance Strike RS-71.
23:00But the speech by President Johnson doesn't go as planned.
23:06I would like to announce the successful development of a major new strategic manned aircraft system.
23:13This system employs the new SR-71 aircraft and provides a long range...
23:18When President Johnson announced it, he got the designation backwards.
23:22It should have been RS-71, but he said SR-71.
23:27And it sounds better, and the name stuck.
23:29The Joint Chiefs of Staff...
23:31The Air Force decide it's easier to rename the aircraft than to correct the President's error.
23:38And of course, no one wished to contradict the President, so from that point on, SR-71 it was.
23:45Now, the entire world knows the SR-71 has put America back in the aerial spying game.
23:53It's time to put the SR-71 through its paces.
24:03December 22nd, 1964.
24:08A Blackbird completes its final flight checks at Lockheed's Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.
24:18It is the first official test flight of the SR-71.
24:24Test pilot Bob Gilliland has the dangerous privilege of being first in the cockpit.
24:31He has been handpicked by Kelly Johnson himself.
24:36One glance and you could see it was high and fast and big and long.
24:40There were a whole lot of guys around the world that would like to have been in my position,
24:45but I was in the one that Kelly wanted to do it with.
24:47And so that's a hell of a high honour for me, and perhaps my highest honour of all.
24:54Every test flight has what are called open items, unresolved technical issues.
25:02But on this day, Gilliland knew there were 383 of them.
25:12Initially, Kelly Johnson and Gilliland agree not to push the plane too hard.
25:17Kelly had said, it's considered a successful flight if we just take off, leave the landing gear down,
25:23fly around and come back in and land.
25:26But then he says to me, how do you feel about going supersonic on the first flight?
25:32So I said, I have great confidence in our escape system here, so it's okay with me.
25:43Gilliland's test flight breaks the sound barrier.
25:47Reaching speeds of 1,600 kilometres an hour.
25:53Cruising at 15,000 metres, over three kilometres higher than a commercial jetliner.
26:01But extreme performance demands extreme concentration.
26:08The tiniest error can spell disaster.
26:11The pilots referred to the Blackbird as being a three-second airplane.
26:15Every three seconds you had to look at the instruments and make sure everything was working the way it was
26:19supposed to.
26:22I got on down there from landing and Kelly says, how's your fuel state?
26:25I said, excellent.
26:26So he says, well, how about a flyby?
26:28So we did a flyby.
26:35The first flight is a great success.
26:39The Blackbird program is airborne.
26:45But the flight tests are about to face setback.
26:49And tragedy.
27:00In January 1966, a crucial test flight for the Blackbird SR-71 spy plane is about to run into trouble.
27:08On board are pilot Bill Weaver and reconnaissance specialist Jim Zwaya.
27:1624,000 metres up.
27:18After losing control at Mach 3, the plane starts to disintegrate.
27:42At Edwards Air Force Base, Weaver and Zwaya's Blackbird disappears from the tracking radar.
27:49Both crew members are presumed dead.
27:59Fellow test pilot Bob Gilliland is on the base when he hears the news.
28:04I found out it was Bill Weaver and his locker was near mine and there were two cigars.
28:15Gilliland takes one of his friend's cigars to smoke in his memory.
28:21I said, well, he may be dead and if he is, I'll get him another.
28:26I'll get him a whole box of cigars.
28:33But Bill Weaver isn't dead.
28:36He had been free falling from the very edge of space.
28:43I thought I was having a terrible dream, nightmare.
28:48And then I realised I wasn't dreaming, so I must be dead.
29:02And then I realised that I'm not dead and somehow I'm out of the aeroplane.
29:08I could feel myself falling.
29:11I could hear the rushing of air.
29:16Weaver doesn't know if his parachute is still attached.
29:23Until it springs open.
29:27Now his thoughts turn to his flying mate, Jim Zweiher.
29:31Jim Zweiher's parachute looked like it was about a quarter mile away.
29:36That was really a relief.
29:37I didn't think either one of us was going to survive,
29:40but to think that both of us had was tremendous relief.
29:46Weaver lands in New Mexico, 1,200 kilometres from the base.
29:52On the ground, he learns the sad news.
29:55His friend Jim has not survived after all.
30:02His neck broken.
30:03He had died the instant the plane disintegrated.
30:08To find out that he had died.
30:10It was really devastating.
30:12He was a wonderful guy.
30:13I believe he was one of the best.
30:17An investigation found that optimising the plane's performance
30:20had made it less stable.
30:23That led to a loss of control,
30:25which put the airframe under catastrophic strain.
30:31At the base, a call comes through to the accident investigation chief.
30:38He says,
30:39Yes, I will take a collect call from Mr. Bill Weaver.
30:43And then I heard that, and I knew he'd survive,
30:47so I was real thrilled at that.
30:49I told him I was going to get the Castro's best cigars I could find.
30:52I don't know, but naturally I would do anything for him.
30:57And he said he was going to get me expensive replacements,
31:01and I haven't gotten them yet.
31:03That was 1966.
31:13By 1967, Skunk Works finds solutions
31:16to all the Blackbird's design problems.
31:23The planes go fully operational from Beale Air Force Base, California.
31:34Now, America just needs the men to fly them.
31:49A new group of elite pilots is assembled to join the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing.
31:58They are the best of the best.
32:02None of us had ever seen the airplane.
32:05And you can't imagine what that felt like to see that airplane come in.
32:10It was just breathtaking when we'd realized what we were going to be doing.
32:25The Blackbird doesn't so much break records as shatter them.
32:30It can fly at three times the speed of sound.
32:35Faster than a rifle bullet.
32:38It was kind of a good feeling to know that any time you were flying,
32:41you were going higher and faster than any other person in the world.
32:47Its engines are the most powerful of the time,
32:50producing 160,000 horsepower.
32:54And swallowing 3,000 cubic metres of air every second.
33:00Equivalent to two million people inhaling at once.
33:05You've got so much power, it's smooth, it's quiet.
33:09It's just delightful.
33:10It can fly an astonishing 25 kilometres above the Earth,
33:15applying a navigation system that used the stars to work out its position.
33:20I mean, it's the world's biggest planetarium show.
33:25You can see the curvature of the Earth, you can see almost 350 miles in any direction.
33:32Unbelievable what you see at 80,000 feet or higher.
33:36Just fantastic.
33:38Ironically, the Blackbird will never see active service over the Soviet Union,
33:43the role for which it was designed.
33:46But within a year, it will be called to operate in the heat of battle.
33:53March 1968, Vietnam.
33:58A daunting theatre of war for the Blackbird's first combat mission.
34:03Its objective?
34:04To find an enemy Viet Cong site deep in the jungle.
34:08A supply area used to mount the siege of US Marines at Khe Sanh.
34:14The Blackbird delivers.
34:15Its high-resolution ground-mapping radar reveals the secret site,
34:21enabling B-52 bombers to attack, ending the siege.
34:31The Blackbird goes on to give the intelligence community critical photographic and ground-mapping data
34:37from all over the world.
34:40Then you come back, and the intelligence community is just on it like ants on sugar.
34:49Okay, what has changed?
34:51Have they brought in some new defensive system?
34:54Or what are we seeing here that's different from the last time we flew an area?
35:13The SR-71 then went on to become the nation's premier reconnaissance system for keeping track of international crises.
35:22Whether it was the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, watching the Soviet fleet and its movements.
35:30We had SR-71s deployed to the Far East operating out of Kadena.
35:36These basically became sentinels for the free world.
35:42Tremendous contributions of technical intelligence.
35:52But the Blackbird is no longer invisible.
35:56In 1968, it is tracked by enemy radar for the first time.
36:02And as surface-to-air missiles grow ever more effective, Blackbird crews will soon face a direct attack.
36:17August 26th, 1981.
36:20North Korea.
36:21The communist regime of Kim Il-sung is flexing its military muscles.
36:30Fearing an invasion of the democratic South, the West desperately needs intelligence.
36:37We had to understand what is happening with the North Korean order of battle.
36:42What is their intention?
36:43Where are their forces?
36:44What are they up to?
36:44What are they doing?
36:45And there was only one system that could furnish that information.
36:48And it was the SR-71.
36:5417 years after its first flight, the Blackbird is still the world's best spy plane.
37:00Now, it'll fly secret missions to locate the North Koreans' anti-aircraft missiles.
37:14Pilot Maury Rosenberg is tasked with flying over the DMZ, a demilitarized zone between North and South, but one known
37:23to be within reach of enemy missiles.
37:26Most of the missions were through the DMZ, where we would make anywhere from three to as many as four
37:31passes, east to west, west to east, etc.
37:34That's looking good. Looking real good.
37:37The plane carries equipment to warn of enemy radar activity.
37:41Nothing yet.
37:43Rosenberg and his reconnaissance specialist, Ed McKim, complete two passes without the monitor lighting up.
37:50This aircraft, though, even on a training flight, let alone an operational flight, you never really relax.
37:58You're always watching everything.
38:13Then, on their final run home, Ed McKim's monitor picks up an enemy radar lock signal.
38:21Oh, wait a minute, I got a trace here.
38:23What do you got, buddy?
38:24Yeah, just joking on there.
38:27It's what SR-71 crews call getting painted.
38:33We were on our last pass, and Ed was an old pro by now, so when the sight locked on,
38:39he was in a relatively calm voice, and he said,
38:41oh, they're looking at us, they're painting us.
38:43OK, yeah, we've been painted.
38:45OK, that's no problem, we do that all the time.
38:48They've been spotted.
38:51The North Koreans haven't fired on a spy plane yet, but they do sometimes fake a signal to make the
38:58crew think they're under missile attack.
39:00Yeah, wait a minute, I got something.
39:02And as we're progressing, he says, he said they've simulated a missile launch.
39:08Yeah, we have a launch, we have a simulated launch.
39:10Got to be simulated launch, simulated launch.
39:13Accustomed to fake launch signals, the crew aren't concerned.
39:18They only need to worry if the missile responds, which means it is in the air and on its way.
39:24OK, it's all good, it's all good.
39:27And I started taking a peek over the nose of the airplane, and then in a higher voice and a
39:33little higher pitch, I hear Ed said, oh my God, the missile answered.
39:39Missile is answered, missile is answered, we have a live missile.
39:42Live missile, copy that.
39:43Live missile climbing on your right-hand side.
39:46I don't see it.
39:47A radar-guided surface-to-air missile is racing through the air at 2,500 kilometers an hour.
39:54Still climbing.
39:55OK, I see a visual.
39:58About that time is when I actually had picked the missile up.
40:02I would guess that it was in the neighborhood of 40,000 to 50,000 feet already.
40:08And the next few seconds, I could tell it was rapidly climbing.
40:21August 1981, and in the midst of renewed hostilities, North Korea has fired a Soviet-made guided missile at a
40:29Blackbird spy plane.
40:31OK, I see a visual.
40:34Air crew Maury Rosenberg and Ed McKim have less than one minute to impact.
40:38It's climbing.
40:41The window to shoot the missile and the missile to get to us is less than about 50 seconds.
40:47All pilot Rosenberg can do is try to outmaneuver the missile.
40:52And Ed said, let's turn off track.
40:54And I said, OK, so we started to turn towards the left.
40:57Obviously, we didn't want to go right into North Korea.
41:00But he doesn't have the agility of a fighter jet.
41:04The ability is still climbing.
41:08Once I had a good visual and I could see it, and as we started to turn, I could see
41:12the missile didn't change course.
41:14The missile's out.
41:15You should go.
41:18The missile exploded.
41:23The Blackbird is saved by its speed.
41:26The enemy just don't have time to recalculate the target coordinates and redirect the missile.
41:33I saw the missile go by on the right side and explode.
41:36It's hard to judge distance at altitude because there's no reference.
41:41So I'm guessing that the missile was probably within a mile, a mile and a half of the aircraft.
41:46I was a little close.
41:50At Mach 3, that's equivalent to just two seconds from impact.
41:56I actually felt pretty relieved when we got on the ground that nothing and nothing else happened.
42:02Just as Kelly Johnson had predicted, even when it is detected, the Blackbird proves just too fast to catch.
42:09The Soviets even developed the MiG-25 jet fighter to bring it down.
42:15But not a single SR-71 is ever lost to enemy fire.
42:21An unmatched record.
42:23There was really no weapons system that we knew of that could touch the Blackbird.
42:31Nine years later, and the Blackbird is still the world's fastest spy plane.
42:36But now, a new technology is taking over its role.
42:41Satellites are considered to be the future of intelligence gathering.
42:52In March 1990, the Blackbird program is shut down.
42:59On its final flight before retirement, the Blackbird creates a speed record that is still unbroken.
43:07It flies from Los Angeles to Washington DC in just one hour, four minutes, and 20 seconds.
43:16It's a poignant moment for everyone in the program, and for some, difficult to comprehend.
43:22There were many of us, myself included, that believed that the retirement of the Blackbird was premature.
43:28Just months after the program was cancelled, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and the system that we really needed on hand
43:39immediately to find out what was going on was the Blackbird.
43:47Today, the Blackbird's stealth technologies live on.
43:51The B-2 stealth bomber and Lockheed's stealth ground-attack F-117A Nighthawk used the same kind of radar-defusing
44:00black paint as that pioneered on the SR-71.
44:05Five decades after it was built, the SR-71 Blackbird is still one of the world's most iconic planes.
44:14It has even appeared in Hollywood movies, like Transformers and X-Men.
44:19To this day, it's the fastest and highest-flying manned airplane that's not rocket-powered.
44:27The Blackbird was revolutionary because it was the first aircraft designed for sustained flight at 2,000 miles per hour.
44:36It was the first stealth airplane ever designed.
44:43Everything about the Blackbird was special because of what the engineers asked it to do.
44:54It has come to epitomize the perseverance, ingenuity and patriotism of the men and women who built it,
45:03and of those who flew it in the service of six presidents.
45:07It's an airplane that could make a statement.
45:11You know, you can't get us. We're here. We're watching you.
45:15The Blackbird proved what we can do when we rise to conquer an impossible challenge.
45:23I think one of the lessons of the SR-71 is you give men and women a task and give
45:30them the authority and the resources.
45:31It's amazing what you can create.
45:34But perhaps the Blackbird's greatest legacy is as the aircraft that helped maintain peace
45:41when the world was on the brink of nuclear war.
45:46It was the fastest airplane ever built. It helped win the Cold War.
45:50And that ought to be a pretty good little achievement.
46:01I think we...
46:04we need to be attracting more people in the world.
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