Missiles typically have a set number of hours that they can be carried on pylons in flight. Vibrations can eventually dork up things of an internal nature.

Solid propellant missiles have shelf lives of a set number of years. Beyond that point, the propellant is not guaranteed to actually ignite or burn consistently. Storing such weapons for a decade or two (like in the case of the sealed missiles for the S-300P series) won’t affect their performance.

If you assume that the basic shape is fine due to the attention given to the LO attributes, any changes would likely be mostly under the surface in the form of systems or avionics. There could be some airframe changes insofar as maybe using different materials, but don’t expect a drastic rethinking of the design.

IIRC LM was promising 277 aircraft for the congressional cap price.. its now only 183…

A lot of that has nothing to do with LockMart or the aircraft. There are a whole mess of factors that can increase the price of any manufactured product like an aircraft. This is why you won’t find a lot of fixed-price contracts in the defense industry, everybody would end up bankrupted!

Many thanks SOC. I’m convinced now. Obviously it was my error to stop buying books about SR-71 after the seventh!

Obviously it was 😀 I’ve got at least 20 myself and am always looking for more!

The A-12(M-21)/D-21 was no success and in 1964 the definitive long-range recon/strike RS-71A came in to service, which President announced as SR-71-A. By that mistake the S for strike did become strategic, despite the SR-71A had still the capability to carry an atomic bomb.

The A-12 by itself was a success operationally, it was political infighting between the USAF and the CIA that really killed it off. The SR-71 was always the SR-71 (the original design was actually called the R-12), the term RS-71 came from misprinted copies of LBJ’s speech given to the press. The transcriber probably had some experience with defense-related matters, and had heard of the RS-70, and made the obvious mistake. The SR-71 never had the capability to carry an atomic bomb.

It takes roughly thirty minutes to get from a Soviet or Russian launch base to a US target. Missile launches will be detected early on by satellites and tracked by radar as they cross the horizon. That leaves more than enough time to counterfire. Ohio SSBNs are there because of policy; the USA doesn’t want to be forced to rely on one aspect of its Triad.

It may have involved a separate static test airframe rather than the first prototype. That way they can test it until it breaks to find out the limits without totalling a flight article.

Yeah, that’s an operational Russian 96L6 (CHEESE BOARD is not an official name, by the way) with the Elektrostal S-400 battery. The lower image is a pre-series or prototype version displayed at MAKS.