There was a total of 31 SR-71s produced by the Skunk Works at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, serial #s 17950 through #17980. Two of these, #17956 and #17957 were B model trainers and the rest were A model operational birds although 950 through 955 were retained by Lockheed at Palmdale and Edwards AFB for testing and evaluation purposes. B model trainer #957 crashed on January 11, 1968, just north of Beale AFB due to double generator failure followed by dual engine flame out due to fuel cavitation. Student pilot Capt David Fruehauf and IP Lt Col Robert Sowers both ejected successfully. The loss of one of the two trainers created a serious problem when 956 was down for extended periods of maintenance.
YF-12A #09634 had suffered serious front fuselage damage during a landing accident on August 4, 1966, at Edwards AFB. The aft fuselage, wings and engine nacelles from this aircraft were mated to the front fuselage of the SR-71 static test article to create the C model SR-71, tail # 17981. This aircraft was very unpopular with both maintenace personnel and crew members because it didn’t fly like the regular SR-71s and it was a maintenance nightmare due to the differences in wiring, plumbing, etc. #981 made her first flight on March 14, 1969, and her last flight 556.4 flight hours later on April 11, 1976. She became a “Hangar Queen” and source of spare parts at Beale until September 1990, when she was disassembled and flown via C-5 Galaxy to Hill AFB, Utah.
My model is a combination of the 1/72 scale Testor’s Italeri kits of an SR-71A frontend and a YF-12A backend, pretty much the same concept as the full scale.
All Blackbirds have an assortment or red protective covers that are put in place when the planes are not being flown. I made the engine vent covers and cockpit window covers out of .020 sheet styrene, the forward fuselage covers from 3x5 card stock and the spikes were just painted red. I added brake lines to all three landing gear plus the second landing light to the nose gear and some other minute details. The camera windows on the bottom of the fuselage were filled in with bondo because the trainers do not carry cameras, (even though they have all the markings for them). Model Master flat black was used as a primer and then details were picked out with a silver Prisma Color pencil dipped in saliva to get it to adhere to the model. Regular water doesn’t work for some reason. Not too sanitary, but effective. A coat of MM clear gloss was applied and then the decals. The decals were a real nightmare because they were from a Micro Scale sheet that was over 20 years old and they broke up into a bunch of little pieces. It was jigsaw puzzle time putting them back together. I spent a total of about 40 hours on my Blackbird.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
More photos can be viewed at: www.bellevillercflyers.com/gallery/album109 .