The CIA's Mach 5 A-12 Oxcart: Faster than SR-71 Blackbird

Summary and Key Points: The A-12 Oxcart, predecessor to the famed SR-71 Blackbird, was a groundbreaking reconnaissance aircraft developed by Lockheed's Skunk Works in the late 1950s.

-Designed to gather intelligence at speeds up to Mach 3.5 and altitudes of 90,000 feet, the A-12 was faster and flew higher than its successor.

-Despite its impressive capabilities, the A-12's operational history was brief. It primarily served in Vietnam and played a crucial role during the USS Pueblo incident.

-The A-12 was retired in 1968 after just a year of service, overshadowed by the SR-71, which went on to become the more well-known aircraft. Today, the remaining A-12s are displayed in museums across the United States.

Meet the A-12 Oxcart: The SR-71’s Faster, Higher-Flying Predecessor

Aviation enthusiasts know the SR-71 Blackbird, America’s lightning-fast reconnaissance plane. They are not as familiar with its predecessor, the A-12 Oxcart. Despite its plodding name, the Oxcart could fly faster and higher than the Blackbird.

The Origin Story of the A-12

The U.S. in the 1950s was locked in a military-technological race with the Soviet Union and wanted every scrap of information it could source from behind the Iron Curtain. The U-2 spy plane, capable of flight above 70,000 feet, offered the first real look deep inside Soviet territory. 

But the high-flying U-2 was vulnerable to technological developments in surface-to-air missiles. After failed attempts to reduce the radar cross section of the U-2, designers at Lockheed met with the CIA and agreed to produce another reconnaissance aircraft. 

Skunk Works, the secretive Lockheed division dedicated to highly classified equipment for government programs, got to work. Lockheed had to compete with Convair’s Kingfish design, which incorporated a number of stealthy features. But the success of the U-2 program contrasted with Convair’s struggles with the B-58 Hustler. This swayed the CIA to select Lockheed’s design, the A-12.

Specs and Capabilities

The A-12 is visually similar to its better-known successor, the SR-71. It has a long fuselage with hard chines and blended delta wings topped by two inward-canted vertical stabilizers. The Oxcart is smaller than the SR-71 and has only one crewmember. Reports differ, but Lockheed has said it was designed to fly at 90,000 feet and Mach 3.5 – higher and faster than the Blackbird. 

Development began in the late 1950s, but the Oxcart wasn’t operational until 1967. The process was so drawn out in part because new technologies and materials were needed to support this ambitious aircraft. The platform made heavy use of titanium, and few companies had experience working with that material. Other advances in radar absorbing materials were included in the A-12, making it more stealthy.

Operations and Retirement of the A-12

The Oxcart was designed to spy on the Soviet Union, but after the loss of Gary Powers’ U-2 in 1960, seven years before the A-12 entered service, leaders deemed these missions too risky. Instead, the A-12’s first missions were over Vietnam. 

The A-12 program was actually canceled in 1966, before its missions over Vietnam even began. The aircraft flew for about a year in that theater. Perhaps its most significant contributions came during the USS Pueblo incident, when a Navy intelligence ship was captured by North Korea. A-12s dispatched to the region were able to locate and identify where Pueblo was being held. 

In June of 1968, the A-12 was retired. At that point, the SR-71 was operational and would go on to steal the spotlight. The nine remaining A-12s were placed into storage and eventually loaned out to museums across the country, where they can be viewed today. 

About the Author: Maya Carlin 

Maya Carlin, National Security Writer with The National Interest, is an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel. She has by-lines in many publications, including The National Interest, Jerusalem Post, and Times of Israel. You can follow her on Twitter: @MayaCarlin. 

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