The Oxcart
The A-11 was a long-range, high-altitude aircraft that Lockheed started designing in 1959. It was a project from the Cold War. The project team was led by Lockheed’s Vice President for Advanced Development Projects, Clarence “Kelly” Johnson. He had previously led the development of the U-2 spy plane. On February 29, 1964, five years after the A-11’s development got underway, President Lyndon Johnson informed reporters that the aircraft, which was by then modified to the A-12 Oxcart production version with a reduced radar cross-section, had achieved over 2,000 mph and over 70,000 feet of altitude in tests conducted at Edwards Air Force Base (AFB).
In particular, three A-12s crashed during the first three years of pre-operational testing—two due to mechanical issues and one due to ground crew error—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. Every pilot safely ejected.
The A-12 crash in Utah and the F-105 crash cover story
Piloted by Ken Collins, A-12 number 926 crashed fourteen miles south of Wendover, Utah, on May 24, 1963, while involved in a subsonic engine test flight. Collins flew into dense clouds above thirty thousand feet while testing an inertial navigation system. Shortly before the A-12 pitched up, stalled, and fell into an inverted spin, Collins started to notice inaccurate and perplexing airspeed and altitude readings. Unable to regain control, he ejected at around 25 thousand feet and was unhurt. The crashed aircraft was referred to as a Republic F-105 in a press cover story.
The failure of the air data computer was initially attributed to a pilot error, but it was later determined that the cause was an inadequate pitot tube design. It seemed to be more probable that the accident was an F-105 because Collins was not wearing his pressure suit during his low-altitude sortie.
‘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 searching 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 Madame and my aviation curiosity got the better of me.
Brothel with landing strip
‘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!
Check out Habubrats SR-71‘s Twitter profile, SR71Habubrats‘s Instagram profile and Born into the Wilde Blue Yonder Habubrats‘s Facebook page for further Blackbird photos and stories.
Photo by A1C SHERYL D. BARNETT and Kenji Thuloweit / U.S. Air Force and Central Intelligence Agency