SR-71 Blackbird Titanium Skin Sample

The Blackbird is a stealth plane, engineered to be difficult to detect. Instead of weapons, it was outfitted with specialized sensors, radar, and photography equipment and was designed with a physical profile that could reduce its radar detectability by 90%.

Its top speed was Mach 3.2 and maximum altitude was 85,000 ft (25,900 m), both ratings exceeded that of any other aircraft that may have wanted to attack it. The idea was threat avoidance—if a Blackbird was ever detected, it could simply outrun any attacks.

Unlike most aircraft, an SR-71 is made almost entirely of titanium, which was difficult for the US government to obtain in the large quantities required. At a cost of $34 million each, only a few dozen of these stealth aircraft were built and they were officially retired in the 1990s. Twelve aircraft have crashed, but all in non-combat incidents. The surviving Blackbirds are now preserved in museums around the US.

At 9:15 am on June 17, 1970, an SR-71A with registration number 61–7970 struck a tanker plane while attempting to refuel over Texas. The Blackbird’s cockpit was damaged so both pilots ejected safely, leaving the plane to fall from the sky. The other plane landed safely despite the damage it had incurred.

Following the crash, the government quietly cleaned up the site. However, over the subsequent decades locals were able to find and scavenge the desert crash site for pieces of wreckage that had been left behind—much of which was buried by the force of the impact.

We recently worked with a team that carefully recovered portions of the outer skin and other pieces of the supersonic aircraft. These are invaluable artifacts of aviation history and components of a major scientific and engineering achievement. We believe such pieces of history deserve to be preserved rather than littered in the desert.