YF-12A

Due to some interest, here’s a little bit of information on this excellent prototype interceptor, fielded by the US in the early 1960’s.

Developed to meet the AMI, or Advanced Manned Interceptor program, the YF-12 was a two-seat version of Lockheed’s A-12 spy plane being produced for the CIA designed to attack incoming Soviet bomber formations long before they were within weapons range. This gave the aircraft a Mach 3+ speed. 3 were produced, serials 60-6934/5/6.

FCS was a Hughes AN/ASG-18 radar, coupled with dual IRST trackers. The prototypes were fitted with 4 weapon bays, 3 of them carrying Hughes XAIM-47A Super Falcon long-range AAMs with SAR homing, and a range in excess of 100nm. The missiles were armed with nuclear warheads. The fourth weapon bay was used for FCS components. The radar and missile combination proved so successful during tests, they were developed by Hughes into the AWG-9/AIM-54 combination for the F-14. For obvious reasons, the aircraft lacked an internal cannon.

After a flight test program that saw the loss of one of the aircraft, the surviving 2 were transferred to NASA, where 60-6935 remained in use until it was flown to the USAF museum in 1979 where it is on display today in the annex. The other remaining aircraft was also lost.

One of the 2 that crashed was salvaged to provide the rear half of the USAF’s SR-71C trainer after one of the 2 SR-71B’s crashed.

The program was cancelled by the USAF after a credible threat was not found. However, Kelly Johnson believed it would have been the only aircraft capable of defending against high-speed, high-altitude attacks by Tu-22M BACKFIRE aircraft after these aircraft surfaced. Unfortunately, Lockheed had already destroyed all the F-12 production tooling by then. 93 aircraft would have been produced for the USAF under the designation F-12B, with minor improvements.

A flightline full of armed F-12’s would have been a menacing sight, but we all know the costs of operating the SR-71 were quite high, so this may have played a part in the cancellation of the program. The F-12 has to be reguarded as one of the greatest aircraft to never enter service.

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