Stealth Fighters and SR-71 Mach 3 Spy Planes Can't Do Anything Without 1 Thing

Dario Leone

Security,

This picture is a clue. 

The intensity of the December 1972 LINEBACKER II aerial campaign meant that current Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) and targeting intelligence acquired by GIANT SCALE SR-71 missions be made available quickly to senior planners in Washington DC. In the absence of real-time satellite data links, this required a dedicated courier system known as GIANT CIRCLE, and involved four KC-135s, including KC-135Qs, when available. The first of these carried SR-71 imagery from Kadena AB to MACV at Tan Son Nhut AB, South Vietnam. Additional intelligence acquired from US Navy BLUE TREE tactical reconnaissance flights and SAC drones would be uploaded to this KC-135 which then returned to Kadena AB. A second KC-135 would then take this consolidated material (and any new SR-71 imagery) and fly direct to Eielson AFB. A third KC-135 then carried this material to Washington DC, landing at Andrews AFB. It took 12 hours from the time the SR-71 landed at Kadena AB until its imagery was in the hands of theater planners in Saigon, and 24 hours until it reached the Pentagon. GIANT CIRCLE began on Dec. 19, 1972, although operational demand for KC-135s meant that the inaugural flight from Kadena AB to Eielson AFB was aboard a BURNING PIPE RC-135C. On Dec. 27, the fourth KC-135 was added to transfer duplicate intelligence from Eielson AFB direct to Offutt AFB.