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From its questionable debut over Panama, the shoot-down of a Nighthawk during Operation Allied Force over the former Yugoslavia, to the mind-boggling successes enjoyed by the type in the two Gulf Wars, this is the story of another 'Skunk Works' icon that took aircraft design and operational capabilities to previously unprecedented levels.

Even from the earliest days of 'dog-fighting', when pilots attempted to attack their advisories with the sun on their backs, one adage has held true - "you can't destroy what you can't see." Even with the advent of radar the precept remains valid,...

During the early years of the Cold War, the most effective way to gather strategic intelligence about the Soviet Union and its allies was manned overflight. Lockheed's U-2 was spectacularly successful in this role. Much to the concern of President Eisenhower, its shape meant that it could be tracked on Russian radars. Given the highly sensitive nature of such flights, the President insisted that every effort should be made to reduce to zero the U-2's radar cross section (RCS), thereby making the aircraft "invisible." When this was proven to be impossible, the stage was set for a U-2...

An icon of American military might during the Cold War (1946-1991), the Lockheed SR-71 'Blackbird' had covered itself in glory during the aircraft's debut in over-flights of North Vietnam and North Korea. When the US intelligence community realized that the aircraft could fly faster and higher than any Soviet fighter, and outrun most surface-to-air missiles, they instructed the United States Air Force to establish a European detachment of the aircraft.

In 1976, SR-71 Det 4 commenced operations from the Royal Air Force base at Middenhall in the United Kingdom. Its mission was to monitor...

Even before the first operational flight of the legendary Lockheed U-2 spy plane, aircraft design genius Kelly Johnson began work with his team at the company's "Skunk Works" plant on the type's replacement. The result was the SR-71. First deployed on March 9, 1968, this tri-sonic 'hotrod' flew its first operational sortie over North Vietnam just 12 days later. On that debut mission, the Blackbird overflew surface-to-air missile sites with complete impunity, collecting the detailed intelligence that led directly to the end of the siege of Khe Sanh in the process.

Thereafter, the...