29 Secret Photos from Area 51’s A-12 Oxcart RCS Tests
Everybody knows about the SR-71 Blackbird, but it's predecessor, the smaller CIA designed A-12, actually flew even higher and faster.
Published 7 months ago in Wow
Everybody knows about the SR-71 Blackbird. It's quite possibly the most iconic plane ever made; flying so high and fast over Soviet Russia that neither missiles nor Russian jets could chase it down.
But its predecessor, the smaller CIA-designed A-12, actually flew even higher and faster, just at astronomically hight operating costs.
It makes sense that the United States wanted to keep its U-2 spy-plane replacement under wraps, and top-secret Radar Cross Section tests were performed at Area 51 around 1960.
The United States didn't declassify photos of the tests until a few years ago.
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