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A-12 Oxcart: The CIA Spy Plane Faster Than SR-71 Blackbird

CIA A-12 Spy Plane. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
CIA A-12 Spy Plane. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Key Points and Summary: The A-12 Oxcart, developed by Lockheed’s Skunk Works for the CIA in the 1960s, was a groundbreaking spy plane and predecessor to the SR-71 Blackbird.

-Designed to evade Soviet defenses at speeds of Mach 3.29 and altitudes above 80,000 feet, it featured a titanium airframe, advanced radar-reducing paint, and innovative Pratt & Whitney J58 engines. Ironically, the titanium was sourced secretly from the Soviet Union.

-Operational from 1967 to 1968, the A-12 conducted missions over Vietnam and North Korea.

-Although retired, its technological innovations paved the way for the legendary SR-71, solidifying its place in aviation history.

The A-12 Oxcart, CIA’s Super Spy Plane, Forerunner to the SR-71

The CIA and the Air Force teamed up in the 1950s with Clarence “Kelly” Johnson’s Lockheed Skunk Works to work on some of the most successful reconnaissance planes in the world. The CIA had contracted Johnson to build the first reconnaissance aircraft, the U-2.

Johnson designed the plane in less than 13 months, which was incredible. They began overflights of the Soviet Union in 1956, and the Russians were able to track the aircraft, even at the edge of space, at 80,000 feet. 

However, the Agency, the Air Force, and Johnson knew they needed a replacement, an aircraft much faster to better protect itself from the missiles they knew would be coming. Under the code name “Oxcart,” Johnson began work on the A-12. 

The level of secrecy was extremely high for two reasons. One reason was the advanced technology Lockheed was developing, while the second was that the United States secretly bought materials to build these jets from within the Soviet Union.

The US Builds Its Super-secret Plane With Help From the Soviets

CIA Historian David Robage, in his book, “Archangel: CIA’s Supersonic A-12 Reconnaissance Aircraft,” detailed some of the incredible exploits the US had to do to get the A-12 built. And about the men who flew it. 

The work and testing required secrecy. After flying the U-2 and then the A-12, the team moved the testing to a remote part of the desert in Nevada called Groom Lake, a dried-up lake bed. It was called “Area 51.”

A heat issue created a dilemma for Johnson in the design phase. Flying an aircraft for hours on end at Mach 3 would melt the steel and aluminum used in the production of the aircraft. The skin of the aircraft would heat up to over 800 degrees. Inside, the cockpit would heat up to 500 degrees. The pilots had to wear a special refrigerated space suit to keep from burning up. One solution worked: to make 90 percent of the aircraft with a titanium alloy.

Titanium was needed, but the US didn’t have much of a resource at the time. They decided to buy titanium from the world’s biggest supplier, the Soviet Union. 

Keeping the Soviets in the dark was tough, but the CIA used shell companies and third parties. The A-12 would fly over the Soviet Union and outrun fighters and missiles built with the titanium supplied by the Soviets. It was the opposite of the Lenin quote, “We will hang the last capitalist with the rope he sold us.” The irony.

What’s Faster, the SR-71 or the A-12? 

The SR-71 is known as the fastest military production aircraft. But what most people don’t realize is that the A-12 was faster. 

The Pratt & Whitney J58 engine fitted to the A-12 was the first USAF engine qualified to operate for extended time at speeds exceeding Mach 3 and altitudes above 80,000 feet. Later, the SR-71 used the same engine. 

This engine’s unique feature involves bleeding a measure of the high-pressure air from the compressor, bypassing the combustion chambers and turbine, and injecting this air into the front end of the afterburner. 

The combination of the air bleed-bypass system feeding air directly to the afterburner works like a ramjet. Because conventional aircraft fuel would be too volatile at such high temperatures, a new fuel called JP-7 was developed.

“A cesium-laced fuel additive to dramatically reduce the radar signature of the plane’s massive engine exhausts and afterburner plumes by creating an ionizing cloud behind the aircraft to help conceal its entire rear aspect from radar waves,” wrote The Drive in 2019.

Other Features

The aircraft was painted a deep shade of blue, almost black, because it was learned that this color dissipated heat faster than bare titanium. The A-12 was first flown in 1962, became operational in 1967, and flew for the CIA until late 1968. Its top speed was Mach 3.29, or 2,260 mph. 

The A-12 was a single-seat aircraft and flew reconnaissance missions over North Korea and Vietnam. When the program ceased with the CIA, the Air Force purchased 11 of the two-seat version named the SR-71.

Lockheed produced fifteen A-12s, three YF-12As, and thirty-one SR-71s. The 49 reconnaissance aircraft completed more than 7,300 flights, with 17,000 hours in the air. More than 2,400 hours had been above Mach 3.

The A-12 was a great leap in technology and a worthy predecessor to the SR-71.

A-12 Oxcart: A Story In Photos 

A-12 Oxcart

A-12 Oxcart. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

A-12 Oxcart

A-12 Oxcart. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

A-12

A-12 Oxcart. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

About the Author: 

Steve Balestrieri is a 19FortyFive National Security Columnist. He served as a US Army Special Forces NCO and Warrant Officer. In addition to writing for 19FortyFive, he covers the NFL for PatsFans.com and is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA). His work was regularly featured in other military publications.

Written By

Steve Balestrieri is a 1945 National Security Columnist. He has served as a US Special Forces NCO and Warrant Officer before injuries forced his early separation. In addition to writing for 1945, he covers the NFL for PatsFans.com and his work was regularly featured in the Millbury-Sutton Chronicle and Grafton News newspapers in Massachusetts.

5 Comments

5 Comments

  1. Elliot

    January 18, 2025 at 9:03 am

    Did you actually verify any of this information or did you just copy and paste from google. The oxcart was the name given to the plane by Lockheed when it was being developed at Area 51. The A12 and the SR71 are the exact same plane, they just added and took away depending where it was going changing the nomenclature. Seriously, try doing some actual research.

  2. RunningGaijin

    January 18, 2025 at 6:32 pm

    Lol. Ironic your comment is. Intelligent it is not.

  3. Duke

    January 19, 2025 at 5:03 am

    They are not “the same exact aircraft” by any stretch of the imagination, the SR weights 16,000 lbs more than the A12, therefore the A12 flew higher, almost 10,000 ft higher, and in the even thinner air of it’s service ceiling there’s slightly less drag hence it went slightly faster.
    The reason the SR71 officially holds the speed record is because the A12 was classified during its entire operational life, being classified there was never a chance for it to fly a speed course witnessed by officials from one of the agencies qualified to officially verify an aircrafts speed, the SR71, however, having been declassified by LBJ was free to run a witnessed and officially sanctioned speed course that could be verified by an appropriate agency.

  4. Jim

    January 19, 2025 at 1:20 pm

    Theoretically neither one was faster than the other. They both used the exact same nacelle and inlet and it was the inlet that gave the blackbird (any version) its speed. At 3 Mach the inlet produced more than half the thrust, 54% of the total thrust, propelling the aircraft. The exhaust nozzle produced 29% of the thrust and the ‘mighty’ J58 produced a measly 17% of the thrust.
    Fact: ALL versions of the Blackbird were limited in how fast they could be flown at by the Compressor Inlet Temperature – CIT – the temperature of the air being ingested into the J58 engine. The CIT could not be allowed to exceed 427 deg C or serious damage to the engine would result. The temperature of the air in the inlet was determined by the ambient temperature of the air through which the plane was flying (the ‘base’ temperature, about minus 67 deg F at 70,000 feet), and then this temperature increased as the air traveled through the sonic shockwaves as it was slowed down from 3 Mach to about 0.4 Mach in the inlet because the air could not be moving at supersonic speeds when ingested into the J58’s.
    So, if an A-12 and a SR-71 were flying side by side at the same altitude (the key here is they would both be flying in the same temperature air) and both pilots firewalled the throttles together they would both eventually reach the same speed at which the CIT hit 427 degrees C. I say ‘eventually’ because since the A-12 weighed thousands of pounds less than the SR-71 it would win the drag race and literally walk away from the SR-71.
    One specification that the A-12 could exceed the SR-71 at – it could fly thousands of feet higher. Why? Again, because it weighed less than the SR. Both aircraft used the same wing, and so since the lift generated by the wing at a given airspeed was the same, with the identical same wing the heavier SR could not reach as high an altitude. The CIA required that the A-12 reach 90,000 feet, thousands of feet above the highest an SR ever flew.

  5. Chris A Stratford

    January 20, 2025 at 12:55 am

    That last comment is exactly right. Once you get over 35000 ft the temperature is constant until you get above 80k ft and then it starts going up again. Compressor inlet temp is a function of ambient temperature and Mach number, it is also what limits speed. So am a-12 gets no speed advantage from going higher. I did hear a story that Daryl greenameyer flew an A-12 over 100k ft….

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