Moldmaker

The A-11 was a "non-anti-radar" version after all... or was it?

Great book btw.

Old SStroker

"A" was for Archangel, the highest "flying" angel. It took 11 designs before they got it right. The 12 had some composite panels. The birds weren't black until near the end of the CIA program. Natural titanium has a nice look.

Here's a slide show link:

http://area51specialprojects.com/lockheed_photos.html

Here's a lot of the story:

http://area51specialprojects.com/oxcart.html

Moldmaker

You definitely got me thinking about Miller's book on this one Old SStroker. Here's the quote from page 122,

From Kelly Johnson's "Archangel Log",

Plans going forward for surfacing of the AF-12 program. I worked on the draft to be used by President Johnson and
proposed the terminology 'A-11' as it was the non-anti-radar version.

Old SStroker

My initial take was because the 11 had Ti vertical tail surfaces but the 12 had composite which gave a much lower radar signature, he called the 11 the non-anti-radar version. Additionally didn't they use some either radar reflective or maybe radar absorbing material (RAM) on the SR-71? That might also be what he referred to. Also, a Fighter/Interceptor may have less need to be steathy. I might be confused, however.

This was in 1962 or so! "Stealth" wasn't even in the aircraft vocabulary then. "Anti-radar" is actually more descriptive, I think, but more difficult to say. Hey, all of the blackbird stuff was done with pencil and paper, slide rules and Marchant mechanical calculators. Of course that's how cams were designed also. It took weeks of calculation to do a new profile. We've come a long way, baby!

The AF-12 only made it to YF-12, Y being prototype designation. What I think cool was the AIM-54 missle developed for the YF was ready before the airplane, but was never used until the F-14 Tomcat, quite a few years later.