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The Blackbird
What aviation geek doesn’t love speed, new technologies, advanced manufacturing methods, and the mysteries of a secret government program? Many aircraft embody these features, but none come close to the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.
It could fly over Vietnam in eight minutes, its electronic counter measures were so advanced that they are still in use today on other airplanes and remain top-secret, had tires filled with nitrogen, and was made from one of the most expensive metals on earth. And, it’s still the world’s fastest plane.
For speed, innovation and secrecy, no aircraft of its era came close to the SR-71 Blackbird.
My father was a double agent
In the 1980’s my Dad Col. Richard “Butch” Sheffield was the Chief of Reconnaissance at the Pentagon. The following is a short story he wrote about being a “double agent.” Dad was a SR-71 RSO 1965-1973.
‘One day while running the Air Forces Reconnaissance (Recce.) Division, a person from Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) came to see me. He told me that one of the SR-71 crew chiefs had been in a city in the Far East on vacation and had been approached by a Russian Spy. The Russian wanted information on the SR-71.
‘The crew chief did what he was supposed to do; report the contact to his unit when he got home. The DIA had decided to feed false information to the spy through the crew chief, but to make the crew chief creditable to the spy; they wanted some classified information about the SR-71 to give the chief to give to the spy.
Feeding false SR-71 information to a Soviet Spy
‘They were asking me to give them some classified information on the SR-71 that we could provide, but would not hurt the program very much.
‘Every page in the SR-71 handbook was classified, Secret, Senior Crown Data. I selected a page that had no useable data on it and gave it to the DIA representative.’
Sheffield concludes;
‘This caused me some problems years later when taking a lie detector test from the CIA. They asked, have you ever given classified data to the enemy? When I answered yes, you should have seen them react.’
People spying on the SR-71 program happened more often than you would think. My father’s passing information caused him problems with lie detector tests for the next 20 years. I don’t know how often the CIA tested my Dad… but they did.
They also bugged his home phone. Only in the last couple of years, when they realized that my father had passed away, did the clicking noise on my mother‘s phone go away.
My father retired as a Director of the Skunk Works in 1999.
Be sure to check out Linda Sheffield Miller (Col Richard (Butch) Sheffield’s daughter, Col. Sheffield was an SR-71 Reconnaissance Systems Officer) Twitter X Page Habubrats SR-71, Instagram Page SR71Habubrats and Facebook Page Born into the Wilde Blue Yonder Habubrats for awesome Blackbird’s photos and stories.
Photo credit: U.S. Air Force and Linda Sheffield Miller
