Skunk Works

But the Air Force decided that the twenty or so SR-71s remaining in service from the original procurement of thirty-one aircraft could suffice through the end of this century. In fact, a study by the Defense Science Board review, in 1984, concluded that the Blackbird’s outer titanium skin, annealed by heat on every flight, was actually stronger than when first delivered more than a decade earlier and would last another thirty years. The blue-suiters decided to invest $300 million in updating the airplane’s electronics with digital flight controls and a new weather-penetrating synthetic-aperture radar system, as well as refurbishing its power systems. But General Larry Welch, the Air Force chief of staff, staged a one-man campaign on Capitol Hill to kill the program entirely. General Welch thought sophisticated spy satellites made the SR-71 a disposable luxury. Welch had headed the Strategic Air Command and was partial to its priorities. He wanted to use SR-71 refurbishment funding for development of the B-2 bomber. He was quoted by columnist Rowland Evans as saying, “The Blackbird can’t fire a gun and doesn’t carry a bomb, and I don’t want it.” Then the general went on the Hill and claimed to certain powerful committee chairmen that he could operate a wing of fifteen to twenty F-15 fighter-bombers with what it cost him to fly a single SR-71. That claim was bogus. So were claims by SAC generals that the SR-71 cost $400 million annually to run. The actual cost was about $260 million.

SR-71 operations were not cheap; they could not fly at cruise speed longer than an hour and a half without requiring the costly and complex planning of air-to-air tanker refueling. And what really annoyed the blue-suiters was the fact that while the Navy, the State Department, and the CIA shared in the intelligence takes acquired on SR-71 missions, none of these users helped to defray the operational expenses. In 1990, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney decided to retire the airplane and end the program. Some of our friends in Congress, like Senator John Glenn, were bitter about the decision, after a two-year struggle to keep it from happening. Senator Glenn warned, “The termination of the SR-71 is a grave mistake and can place our nation at a serious disadvantage in the event of a future crisis.” We had more than forty members of Congress actively seeking to keep the program alive, headed by Senator Sam Nunn, the powerful chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. But Cheney prevailed. I was a fan of his, thought he was an outstanding DOD Secretary, but I agreed with Admiral Bobby Inman, then the former director of the National Security Agency, who commiserated with me over Cheney’s decision. “Satellites will never fully compensate for the loss of the Blackbird,” Bobby told me. “They have nothing in the wings to replace it and we may be in for some nasty surprises and a whole new set of intelligence problems because of this.” A few days after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, I called General Michael Loh, Air Force vice chief of staff, and told him that I could have three Blackbirds ready and operational in ninety days to overfly the region. I also could supply qualified pilots. The last three Blackbirds were being used by NASA for high-altitude flight tests. My idea was to provide the blue-suiters with a total package—airplanes, pilots, and ground crews—for a cost of about $100 million. The airplanes would be indispensable providing surveillance over Iraq, and I had another idea, too. “General,” I said, “We could fly over the rooftops of Baghdad at Mach 3 plus at prayer time and sonic-boom the bastards. Just think how demoralizing that would be for Saddam.” General Loh said he would get back to me. About a week later I received a call saying that Dick Cheney had vetoed the idea. The secretary felt that there was no such thing as a one-time-only role for the Blackbird. “Once we let this damned airplane back in, we’ll never get it back out,” he told General Loh.