The Lockheed A-12 was a reconnaissance aircraft built for the Central Intelligence Agency by Lockheed's famed Skunk Works, based on the designs of Clarence "Kelly" Johnson. The A-12 was produced from 1962 through 1964, and was in operation from 1963 until 1968. The single-seat design, which first flew in April 1962, was the precursor to both the twin-seat U.S. Air Force YF-12 interceptor and the famous SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft. The final A-12 mission was flown in May 1968, and the program and aircraft retired in June of that year

Design and development

With the failure of the CIA's Project Rainbow to reduce the radar cross section of the U-2, preliminary work began inside Lockheed in late 1957 to develop a follow-on aircraft to overfly the Soviet Union. The designs were nicknamed "Archangel", after the U-2 program, which had been known as "Angel". As the aircraft designs evolved and configuration changes occurred, the internal Lockheed designation changed from Archangel-1 to Archangel-2, and so on. These nicknames for the evolving designs soon simply became known as "A-1", "A-2", etc.

These designs had reached the A-11 stage when the program was reviewed. The A-11 was competing against a Convair proposal called Kingfish, of roughly similar performance. However, the Kingfish included a number of features that greatly reduced its radar cross section, which was seen as favorable to the board. Lockheed responded with a simple update of the A-11, adding twin canted fins instead of a single right-angle one, and adding a number of areas of non-metallic materials. This became the A-12 design. On 26 January 1960, the CIA ordered 12 A-12 aircraft. After selection by the CIA, further design and production of the A-12 took place under the code-name Oxcart.

After development and production at the Skunk Works, in Burbank, California, the first A-12 was transferred to Groom Lake test facility, where on 26 April 1962, Lockheed test pilot Lou Schalk took the A-12 on its shakedown flight. Many internal documents and references to individual aircraft used Johnson's preferred designation, using the prefix, "the Article" for the specific examples. Thus on the A-12's first flight, the subject aircraft was identified as "Article 121". The first official flight occurred on 30 April. On its first supersonic flight, in early May 1962, the A-12 reached speeds of Mach 1.1.

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ROAD RUNNERS

BEEP BEEP

A-12 CYGNUS (ORIGINAL)

PATCH DESIGNED BY A-12 PILOT JACK WEEKS.

ONLY 12 PATCHES EVER MADE.

SPECIAL ACTIVITES SQUADRON

OFFICIAL SQUADRON

PATCH DESIGN

I HAVE IT

ONLY PATCH MADE DURING THE OXCART PROGRAM TO SHOW AN A-12.

BELIEVED THAT ONLY 12 WERE MADE

I have a reproduction patch

SEYMOUR

TO COMMEMORATE THE

FIRST LAUNCH OF THE D-21 FROM THE M-21

I HAVE IT

BLACK SWAN

CYGNUS

A-12

 500th Training Flight

ONLY ONE OF THESE PATCHES EVER MADE

WANTED

ROAD RUNNERS DET 1

Deployment to Kadena AB

"BLACK SHIELD"

DET 1 KADENA

Deployment to Kadena AB

"BLACK SHIELD"

WANTED

Processed Film from the A-12 Black Shield Missions.

AIR REFUELING SQUADRON

Based at BEALE AFB and refuelled the A-12.

AIR REFUELING SQUADRON

 BLACK SHIELD

WANTED

FRANK MURRAY'S NUMBER -1054

ONE-O-WONDER

Picture Credit-ROADRUNNERS INTERNATIONALE

OTHER PATCHES

AIRCRAFT RECOVERY TEAM

 40th ANNIVERSARY

40th ANNIVERSARY

40th   ANNIVERSARY

Yokota AB JAPAN.