Tag Archives: Lockheed Blackbird: Beyond the Secret Missions

In 1964 during the Vietnam War U.S. aviators were captured by the North Vietnamese. Paul F Crickmore shares the story of how two SR-71 Blackbirds generated tri-sonic booms to free captured US prisoners of war in his book Lockheed Blackbird: Beyond the Secret Missions (Revised Edition): On Jun. 10, 1970, …

In the Cold War era, Swedish JA-37 Jas Viggen fighter pilots were scrambled on 400-500 live Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) missions per year to intercept any unidentified aircraft approaching Swedish airspace. QRA targets came from both Warsaw and NATO nations Rolf Jonsson, a retired Swedish Air Force (Svenska Flygvapnet) fighter controller …