Lockheed YF-12 | Blackbird with missiles

The Lockheed A-12 was an outstanding aircraft with amazing speed and altitude. Of course, as soon as people got their hands on such a plane, they wanted to give it weapons. Let's see what comes of it.

The Lockheed YF-12 is a high-speed interceptor created by the Lockheed Skunk Works division on the basis of the A-12 reconnaissance aircraft, ordered by the United States Air Force in the early 1960s. The breakthrough solutions and design of the A-12, as well as the developments of the never-created North American XF-108 Rapier, made it possible to create an interceptor with outstanding capabilities, flight speeds three times faster than the speed of sound and the most advanced weaponry.

However, the unique capabilities had their price and at the stage of testing of 3 prototypes it became clear that the mass use of future F-12s would be incredibly expensive. For this reason, already at the end of the 1960s, the program was, in fact, closed. However, the YF-12 became a research platform that provided the basis for many other programs, both scientific and military.

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00:00 - Not only a spy
00:49 - A Mach 3 interceptor?
04:17 - The YF-12 equipment
05:30 - The AIM-47 Falcon missiles
07:05 - The cockpit
07:53 - Other design changes
09:24 - The test flights
11:31 - And why is it needed?
13:11 - The YF-12 legacy