I was watching a program in the History Channel about the Stealth Aircraft developed by the U.S. Airforce during the 80's (The Skunk Works) which included the SR-71, however they mentioned something which caught my attention, they said that the U.S. managed to keep these airplanes secret from the USSR from 1978 to 1988, however this movie is from 1985, I highly doubt they would reveal their secret in a movie and moreover, not be discovered by the USSR. Comments?
sharethe blackbird had her maiden flight in the early or middle 60's. so if anything, they kept it secret from '65-...
Agreed... when this film came out I was still in elementary school, yet I knew the first time I saw the film that Daryl was stealing the SR-71 Blackbird: a supersonic spy plane which had been designed/built by the Lockheed Skunk Works/ Kelly Johnson and had been flying for 20+ years at that point.
Like was mentioned elsewhere, the specs for the plane weren't released (and the top speed still hasn't definitively been declassified although they have admitted it can achieve Mach 3.2+) however the profile was well known.
Also, I had a friend who used to live near an Air Force base and he had seen them taking off on several occasions before this film was released, occasionally even during the daytime.
Existence: acknowledged
Top altitude, top speed, camera resolution, etc: still classified Secret or Top Secret now and at the time.
Hi chouse1020,
Your information confirms my understanding of things. Thanks,
-David Chipman
Hi there,
Frankly, by the mid-80s, at least, the SR-71 had certainly shown up in books for kids about airplanes. So, it ceratinly wasn't a secret. Later,
-David Chipman
This plane was top secret up until the early 80's. The information that the airplane could capture was released in the late 80's at the end of the cold war. The cockpit in the movie looks nothing like the actual cockpit of the airplane, close but very different. Great movie.
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