Guy Norris/PALMDALE
LOCKHEED MARTIN is confident that it will be funded to refurbish a third SR-71 Blackbird for the US Air Force in 1996, following the successful reconditioning of the first aircraft, which was formally handed over on 28 June.
Lockheed Martin "Skunk Works" SR-71 programme manager, Justin Murphy says: "Congress has told us that funds are to be put in the fiscal year 1996 budget to re-activate the third aircraft. We feel pretty confident that it will happen." He adds that the third SR-71, which is stored inside the Skunk Works, could be returned to service within four months of refurbishment starting.
Lockheed Martin began working on the current $30 million SR-71 contract in January.
Despite being handed over to the USAF's 9th Reconnaissance Wing, the first SR-71 will remain at the Skunk Works in Palmdale, California, until 1 September, when the two Blackbirds contracted for refurbishment will be ferried to nearby Edwards AFB.
The aircraft will then be used for reconnaissance missions on detachment from Edwards, rather than being based at the 9th's headquarters at Beale AFB, California.
The second SR-71 will be fitted with a Unisys air-to-ground datalink which provides "...a common link with the U-2", says Murphy. The first aircraft will also be retrofitted with the datalink, which accepts digital inputs from the Loral advanced synthetic- aperture radar system (ASARS-1), and digital and analogue electronic-intelligence inputs from the electromagnetic reconnaissance system. Reconnaissance information can be downlinked in real time, recorded for later playback and downlink, or downloaded to the ground.
The first refurbished SR-71 was flown to Mach 0.94 on an initial test flight on 26 April and, during a second high-speed test on 23 May, it achieved a speed of Mach 3.3 - 1,890kt (3,500km/h) - at 81,000ft (24,700m). This is just 13.5kt short of the absolute speed record established by the type in July 1976. The second SR-71 is due to have its first flight in early August.
Source: Flight International