Lockheed Designed the SR-71 I to Hunt Russian Bombers at Mach 3 — It Never Flew, and the U.S. Could Use One Today

Lockheed Designed the SR-71 I to Hunt Russian Bombers at Mach 3 — It Never Flew, and the U.S. Could Use One Today

In the early 1980s, Lockheed’s Skunk Works proposed converting the SR-71 Blackbird — the Mach 3+ reconnaissance aircraft that flew above 80,000 feet and was never shot down — into the SR-71 I, an offensive long-range interceptor designed to hunt Soviet AWACS aircraft and intercept Tu-95 Bear and Tu-160 Blackjack strategic bombers before they could reach U.S. airspace. The conversion would have added four AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles in modified inter…