While the SR-71 Blackbird would ultimately surpass its predecessor’s altitude and speed records, the YF-12 would retain its status as the heftiest, largest, and quickest manned interceptor to ever fly the skies.
Though 32 Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbirds" were built, 11 were lost in accidents – yet not a single aircraft was shot down by the enemy. But the flight suit needed to get into this hot rod in the sky was quite something.
The Lockheed Martin SR-71 Blackbird (or, as its aircrew members have dubbed it, the Habu, after a pit viper indigenous to Japan) is, without a doubt, one of the most legendary and iconic military aircraft of all time, by simple virtue of the fact that 58 years after its invention and 23 years after its official retirement (retired by the U.S. Air Force in 1998 and by NASA the
Fanboys of the Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird" are very quick to note that even after more than four decades the high-speed reconnaissance aircraft maintains a number of high-speed records. But if the developers at Hermeus have their say, those records will be broken by the Quarterhorse.