Little is known about the top-secret program developing the technology needed to bring the hypersonic plane to life, but we do know that it has a name: Project Mayhem. The American savior might not be a missile, but an aircraft: the near-mythical Lockheed Martin SR-72 bomber. And while America’s hypersonic missile programs are lagging, the legacy of the SR-71 seems to have inspired a secret plan for the Air Force to win the hypersonic arms race in another fashion. Today, stealth is the leading strategy for bypassing enemy air defenses, but as hypersonic missiles enter service in Russia and China, speed is seeing a resurgence in importance for the first time in almost four decades. According to some particularly laudatory legends, the aircraft saw threats from more than 4,000 missiles during its three decades of service, and not a single one made contact. The story of the SR-71’s improbable escape over Libya affirmed speed as a critical defensive tool. A sonic boom bellowed to the ground as the plane reached safety, an audible calling card of what remains the fastest jet-powered aircraft known to fly for any nation. As it swung away from Libya, the plane’s speed indicator read Mach 3.5, faster than a bullet fired by an M-16. The SR-71 climbed above 70,000 feet, fleeing the rockets that might catch it from below. More missile indicators lit up the cockpit. Shul’s ground speed indicator ticked past Mach 3.31, faster than 2,500 miles per hour. As the Blackbird accelerated, it tore past its safety limits, its two J-58 jet engines swallowing 100,000 cubic feet of air per second. The jet was already screaming at its apparent maximum speed, Mach 3.2, but Shul pushed the SR-71 even harder, trying to beat the missiles to the turn in the flight path that would take the plane out of Libya and into safety. The Blackbird’s top speed, Mach 3.2, set new records for jet engine aircraft, but on a pre-established flight path against Libyan surface-to-air missiles-thought to be Soviet-designed SA-2s and SA-4s capable of Mach 5 speeds-it would need to push past its limits.Īccording to Major Brian Shul, the pilot of the SR-71, Libyan missiles shot into the sky as soon as the Blackbird crossed the line of death.
Lockheed Martin developed the SR-71 as a “black project” under supreme secrecy, and it was engineered around a simple concept: Nothing could shoot you down if it couldn’t catch you.
There was one aircraft capable of making such a daring flight: Pilots called it the Habu, the pit viper, but most of the world called it the SR-71 Blackbird. Because so little time had elapsed between this mission and the previous one, the line of death would be primed for another incursion. The following day, April 15, the Air Force assigned another jet to fly into Libyan airspace and assess the damage for U.S.
Now the threat had substance, and the Americans had to cross the line again. Muammar al-Qaddafi, Libya’s despotic leader, had established a “line of death” across the Gulf of Sidra, a hornet’s nest of air defense systems that would aim to shoot down anything that dared to cross it. The aircraft had participated in a retaliatory airstrike against Libyan terrorists who had attacked American servicemembers, and while the Air Force called the airstrike a success, they hadn’t expected to lose the F-111 or its crew of two. Air Force lost an F-111 supersonic jet in Libyan airspace.
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