I am interested in this but not sure what you are getting at in relation to this thread? Are you suggesting that if its in the public domain one can assume there are far more exotic things going on behind closed doors?
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With the USAF, what you read, hear or even actually see, may be what you actually get, but only a fool would bet even a plug nickle on the information given to the public domain.
At the F-106 sites that is run by person who flew and dealt with them, pilots of other planes at times give an insight into the Air Force during their years, and a few are active pilots.
As interesting as the absolute fact stories are, the items where they simply do not give straight answers in a manner that one knows that one has heard all that will be told of a far larger item, makes one the most curious.
Even the Six pilots and ground crew sometimes, on a system that has been retired for over twenty years will on occasion simply say, if they even reply– I cannot tell you that.
I asked one pilot how far north the Sixes had gone (theoretically they could shoot down a intruding aircraft where Canada gives way to the Arctic ice pack)
One fellow gave me the ADC districts of the U.S..
Another pilot responded by saying those were just formal (paper work) boundaries not interception limits)
No one ever told me how far north, or actually any direction, they had ever gone or could go, on a mission.
One story from a former SR-71 pilot who knows some of the Six pilots:
Pilots could, and still do, use ground systems to run a check on the accuracy of their instruments. I.e. they will ask ground control for their speed and altitude and compare the reading to their instruments should be showing.
Apparently the Air Force pilots would call in once in a while, this info went over the public airwaves, just because they could.
On this mission the SR was at near maximum altitude and mach 3, so they called in just to see how ground control responded. (They had heard several civilian pilots do a speed-altitude check)
Now the SR pilot did not tell use what his mission really was nor did he say he knew the details of why the Air Force had him there.
When he called in the ground control they gave an altitude and speed twenty thousand feet higher than he was and many hundreds of mph faster than he was going.
The SR responded, he said “Am I really?”
There was a long silent break and ground control replied with correct speed and altitude in an apologetic voice that indicated the controller knew he had given the wrong aircraft and should not have broadcast what he had.
The SR pilot was flying a shadow mission for an aircraft that was much higher and faster than his in the same flight pattern.
His plane did not truly hide the other, but made it harder to detect.
The persons, to whom the SR pilot was giving that bit of trivia to, responded with the attitude of — yeah there used to be a lot of that type thing going on back then.
I doubt it has changed, so all those paper performance figures that are so hotly debated here, may be pure bs, or close to the real deal but I doubt any are truly accurate.
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