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 ...

Summary: The SR-71 Blackbird is renowned as the fastest aircraft ever, but its lesser-known predecessor, the YF-12, also holds a significant place in aviation history. Developed by Lockheed Martin ...

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 ...

The Blackbird family (A-12, YF-12, SR-71) was designed at the Burbank facility in the late 1950s/early 1960s and the aircraft were built there, so this flyby was a bit of a homecoming.

The SR-71 has been a famous plane ever since its first flight. In 1982, Popular Mechanics finally got the story from the engineer's point of view.

During the Cold War, the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane could fly higher and faster than any other – and 55 years after its first flight, it still does.

The SR-71 Blackbird spy plane could fly faster than Mach 3, more than 2,000 miles per hour. This allowed it to easily avoid surface-to-air missiles.

Over the years, 32 SR-71 Blackbirds – as well as 13 similar-looking A-12 Oxcarts (a single-seat CIA precursor plane developed by Lockheed Skunkworks as part of Project Archangel) and three YF-12 ...

The YF-12A, the earlier, single-seat version of the SR-71, first flew in August 1963 and the Blackbird in December 1964. It was still unsurpassed when it was retired in 1990, 24 years after it ...