SR-71 Blackbird: Faster than anything that hunted it

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum · Photography

Built in secret

The SR-71 came out of Lockheed’s Skunk Works, the secret design shop led by Kelly Johnson. It first flew on December 22, 1964. To survive the heat of flying at more than three times the speed of sound, its airframe was built largely of titanium. Only 32 were ever made.

Outrunning everything

It flew reconnaissance for the US Air Force from 1966 to 1990, with a short return between 1995 and 1998. Its only defense was speed and altitude, and it was enough: none of the 32 was ever lost to enemy fire. On July 28, 1976 it set an absolute speed record of 2,193.167 miles per hour and an altitude record of 85,069 feet.

The last record

The aircraft at the Udvar-Hazy Center, serial 61-7972, made one final record flight on March 6, 1990: Los Angeles to Washington in 1 hour, 4 minutes and 20 seconds, averaging 2,124 miles per hour. Its crew landed at Dulles and handed it over to the Smithsonian.

Up close

Today it rests in a hangar full of history, and people walk around it almost in silence. We photographed it the way it deserves to be seen: dark, sharp, almost alive. The black skin, the titanium that ran hot, the cockpit glass, the small details that made the impossible fly.