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Oxcart
CIA developed the highly secret A-12 OXCART as the U-2 spy plane’s successor, intended to meet the nation’s need for a very fast, very high-flying reconnaissance aircraft that could avoid Soviet air defenses.
CIA awarded the OXCART contract to Lockheed (builder of the U-2) in 1959. In meeting the A-12’s extreme speed and altitude requirements, Lockheed–led by legendary engineer Clarence “Kelly” Johnson–overcame numerous technical challenges with cutting-edge innovations in titanium fabrication, lubricants, jet engines, fuel, navigation, flight control, electronic countermeasures, radar stealthiness, and pilot life-support systems.
Five years after work began on the A-11, on Feb. 29, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson told reporters that the aircraft (by that time modified to the A-12 Oxcart production version with a reduced radar cross section) had attained speeds of over 2,000 mph and altitudes of more than 70,000 feet in tests at Edwards Air Force Base (AFB).
Noteworthy, according to Col. Richard H. Graham’s book The Complete Book of the SR-71 Blackbird: The Illustrated Profile of Every Aircraft, Crew, and Breakthrough of the World’s Fastest Stealth Jet, during the first three years of pre-operational testing, three A-12s crashed – two from mechanical malfunctions and one because of ground crew error. All pilots ejected safely.
A-12 crash in Utah and F-105 cover story
On May 24, 1963, A-12 number 926 involved in a subsonic engine test flight and piloted by Ken Collins, crashed fourteen miles south of Wendover, Utah. While testing an inertial navigation system, Collins flew into heavy clouds above thirty thousand feet and began noticing erroneous and confusing airspeed and altitude readings just before the A-12 pitched up, stalled, and went into an inverted spin. Unable to regain control, he ejected at around twenty-five thousand feet and was unhurt. A press cover story referred to the crashed aircraft as being a Republic F-105.
It was first thought that it was a pilot error but later confirmed that it was an inadequate pitot tube design that had caused the air data computer to fail.
Because his sortie was low altitude, Collins was not in his pressure suit, so it added to the credence that the crash was an F-105.
‘With an ironic twist of faith sometime after the loss of Article 123, an F-105 from Nellis was lost and members of the Oxcart (code word of A-12) program were involved in the search for the crash site,’ A-12 pilot Frank Murray recalls in Paul Crickmore‘s latest book “Lockheed Blackbird Beyond the Secret Missions.
A-12 pilot looking for crashed F-105
Frank Murray and Dr. Roger Anderson were airborne in a Cessna searching for the crashed F-105 when they located the crash near a small lake with the adjoining property of one of the brothels in the area known as Ash Meadow Ranch. The brothel provided a small dirt runway graded out to allow its customers the option of air travel into the facility.
‘We taxied into Ash Meadow Ranch and we explained that we were here looking for the crash site and we had located it,’ Murray explains.
‘By then it was lunchtime and the Madame got the cook to rustle up some lunch. There was some polite conversation with the Madame and my aviation curiosity got the better of me.
Brothel with Runway
‘I asked her what was the largest aircraft ever to use the landing strip.
‘She replied the largest was an Army C- 7A Caribou full of GIs from an army base in California! ‘Mind you” she added mischievously they weren’t looking for any downed airplanes!’
Murray concludes;
‘After lunch, the three of us said our goodbyes and departed for our lives back at our Ranch [“Groom Lake,” “The Ranch,” “Area 51,” and “Dreamland” are all names that have been associated with the Groom Lake facility in the Nevada desert]. ‘
I had heard when I was a girl growing up in California that brothels were legal in Nevada. These kinds of rumors were hard for me to believe, but I believe them now!
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: A1C SHERYL D. BARNETT and Kenji Thuloweit / U.S. Air Force and Central Intelligence Agency
