YF-12 enters production

Those of you unfarmiliar with the above designation, the YF-12 was to be a fighter version of the famous SR-71 Blackbird spyplane. Three prototypes were produced which were able to carry and successfully fire three AIM 47A air to air missiles. However it was believed that the Soviets did not posess a bomber whose performance necessitated such a high performance interceptor. My question is what if Robert McNamara and the pentagon decided otherwise and actually ordered the original 93 aircraft from Lockheed, or perhaps even proceeded with a bomber version of the plane as well. What would the soviet response be to the USAF fielding a fighter and possibly bomber that was virtually immune to all forms of air defense of the day? How long could the YF-12 fleet stay in service? Would the US sell any to allies? Would this affect the current debate over the F-22 production cuts?
 
Would the US sell any to allies?

At one point Lockheed did propose taking some A-12s out of storage, converting them to F-12s, and selling them to the Shah (F-14 won out).
 
It is unlikely that the US would have sold any of these aircraft to any of our allies for the reason that they required a lot of technological support and were expensive to operate. The SR-71 was never replaced and according to testimony to congress no aircraft or satellite has been able to provide the intelligence that it could provide.
 
The RAF may have acquired a limited number, to intercept Soviet aircraft in the Atlantic, as some RAF pilots were qualified to fly the SR-71, & reportedly flew several recon missions during the late 60's/early 70's...
(The RAF was offered the F-15 A & B as a Lightning replacement during the 1970's, but rejected this in favour of a modified MRCA, which ended up as the F.2/F.3 Tornado ).
 
I'm not convinced that anyone else would want them. The SR-71 was expensive and tempermental to run (part of this may have been the fact that the airframe underwent significant conformational changes during flight).

Similarly, once the Cold War was over, they'd probably be retired pretty fast. A high altitude, high speed fighter is awesome for intercepting nuclear missiles or launching nuclear cruise missiles of their own...but not a whole lot else.
 
In the very unlikely even that the USA would release them for export, (ala F-22) no-one else would have the infrastructure/finances to support them. They required special fuel, as well as aerial refuelling shortly after takeoff, and during the mission. They would be very impractical to use for patrolling airspace, and aside from reconisance, were incapable of performing any other role at all.

Had they been produced, the US would have most likely based them as a squadron on each coast, and one in Brittan, negating the need/desire for the poms to buy any themselves. They would have probably made great sport of bouncing them with their BAC Lightnings!
 
I've read a book by Ben Rich (I think?) who took over from Kelly Johnson and he posited that a mach 3 interceptor could cover huge amounts of airspace with small numbers of planes. At Mach 3 from 80,000ft the AIM47s would have phenomenal range.

I also think that if they entered service they could be used in specialised combat such as attaking AEW planes, tankers, flying command posts, TACMO nuke control planes and the like.
 

Bearcat

Banned
They required special fuel, as well as aerial refuelling shortly after takeoff, and during the mission.

Yeah, they leaked like sieves until they heated up.

All in all, its enormously expensive - both to procure and to operate - for only limited value.
 
At one point Lockheed did propose taking some A-12s out of storage, converting them to F-12s, and selling them to the Shah (F-14 won out).
Thank God.

At that point we had the Tomcat, so I don't think we really would have ever gone for this, the F-14 is a very good interceptor.
 
Dan Reilly The Great said:
YF-12 enters production
Those of you unfarmiliar with the above designation, the YF-12 was to be a fighter version of the famous SR-71 Blackbird spyplane. Three prototypes were produced which were able to carry and successfully fire three AIM 47A air to air missiles. However it was believed that the Soviets did not posess a bomber whose performance necessitated such a high performance interceptor. My question is what if Robert McNamara and the pentagon decided otherwise and actually ordered the original 93 aircraft from Lockheed, or perhaps even proceeded with a bomber version of the plane as well. What would the soviet response be to the USAF fielding a fighter and possibly bomber that was virtually immune to all forms of air defense of the day?

Some sort of early MiG-31?

Yeah, they leaked like sieves until they heated up.

All in all, its enormously expensive - both to procure and to operate - for only limited value.

Much of the problems with the SR-71 were because they basically were 30-ish prototypes, build by hand and each one completely different from the next.

If serial production of a Blackbird derived interceptor had started, much of those kinks would have been worked out.

Riain said:
I've read a book by Ben Rich (I think?) who took over from Kelly Johnson and he posited that a mach 3 interceptor could cover huge amounts of airspace with small numbers of planes. At Mach 3 from 80,000ft the AIM47s would have phenomenal range.
Do you mean 'Skunk Works' by Ben Rich?
Read that one too some time ago, very good IIRC.
 

burmafrd

Banned
The SR 71 was at the very limit of technology of its time. We really did not have the capability to make more then a limited number of them unless we wanted to spend a whole lot of money getting the kinks out- which also would have taken time as well. Just really not feasible until the late 70's and by then it was seen that speed itself was no longer the be all and end all. As the russians found out with the MIG 25.
 
Something like 31 Blackbirds were built, which is a bit more than your usual number of prototypes in the 60s.
 
Riain said:
Something like 31 Blackbirds were built, which is a bit more than your usual number of prototypes in the 60s.
But not totally unprecedented, especially for something as bleeding-edge as the SR-71. Certainly that's nowhere near series production.
 
Lockheed did offer a production run to the USAF so perhaps that says something about whether or not it could be produced in numbers.
 
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