At the time of its creation, it was the highest-flying and fastest manned military aircraft ever built—a record that, sixty years later, still eludes other models.

" Blackbird " - SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft , a masterpiece of Lockheed's "Skunk Works Team". At the time of its creation, it was the highest-flying and fastest manned military aircraft ever built—a record that, sixty years later, still eludes other models. In the final years of the Cold War, the SR-71 broke into enemy airspace to perform reconnaissance missions, evading countless anti-aircraft missile interceptions and never being shot down.

However, on March 9, 1979, the SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft performed a unique and humiliating mission - the pilot became incontinent after taking off and invaded the airspace of another country with a stinky smell!

▲ "Blackbird" No. 61-7972 in flight, a classic artistic photo

This story begins in early March 1979. At that time, a war broke out between the north and south Yemen , Saudi Arabia requested the US military to provide intelligence support. To this end, the U.S. Air Force dispatched the SR-71 with serial number 61-7972 in the 9th Reconnaissance Wing to the Mildenhall Airport in the United Kingdom, the closest forward base to the Middle East , and prepared to be driven by the pilot Major Buzz Carpenter and the reconnaissance system operator Major John Murphy to perform a reconnaissance mission in Yemen.

From Mildenhall to the Arabian Peninsula , one needs to cross the entire Mediterranean Sea from west to east, then fly into the Red Sea and enter the border airspace of Saudi Arabia and Yemen to carry out aerial photography missions. In theory, flying directly through French airspace is a convenient route, but France withdrew from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 13 years ago and refused to facilitate US military operations. For this reason, the 9th Reconnaissance Wing was forced to adjust its mission route. After taking off from the United Kingdom, the "Blackbird" reconnaissance aircraft first bypassed the Iberian Peninsula from the southwest, then made a big turn and entered the Mediterranean Sea from the Strait of Gibraltar. The entire mission lasted for 10 hours and required five aerial refuelings: the first refueling was over Lands End, the most southwesterly point of the British island, the second was over the Mediterranean, the third was when entering the Red Sea, the fourth was when leaving the Red Sea, and the fifth and final aerial refueling was over the central Mediterranean, adjacent to the airspace of Libya.

▲ Schematic diagram of the British Mildenhall base and the target area in Yemen. It can be seen that the French's inaction increased the difficulty of the mission.

According to the plan, the flight will start on Wednesday, March 7. The night before, the two crew members went to bed around 6 to 7 p.m., then got up at 1 a.m. for a physical exam, breakfast (steak and eggs), and mission briefing. Next, the two got ready and took their places in the cockpit of aircraft No. 61-7972, waiting for the order to take off. However, at four o'clock in the morning, a disappointing news came: the weather in the target area was poor and the mission was delayed for 24 hours. The two crew members climbed out of the cockpit and returned to the dormitory after wandering around the airport for a long time. They opened a few bottles of wine and vodka tonics to comfort themselves.

Compared with the "Blackbird" pilots, the crew of the air tanker has a much harder time. Before they take off, the tanker has already taken off and is on standby over Lands End. These large aircraft weighing hundreds of tons need to consume enough fuel to reach a safe landing weight standard. Consuming fuel for this is also a long, time-consuming and painful task.

html On Thursday, March 8th, the mission was once again suspended due to weather conditions. That night, the two crew members decided to change their tastes and had a seafood dinner at the Mildenhall Officers' Club before going to bed.

The next day, on the morning of March 9, the weather conditions finally improved. Thus began Major Buzz Carpenter's nine-hour mission:

" We were up at 1 a.m. on Friday morning, hoping that this would be the day we could complete our first mission. The weather at the destination was good, but not so good at Mildenhall, with light rain and fog.

We now started the engines, and John and I crossed our fingers for good luck.However, maintenance supervisors and Lockheed technicians show up out of the blue...which is usually not a good sign. I opened my helmet panel to see what was going on.

It turned out that it was to leave a souvenir for the maintenance personnel who participated in this mission. The intelligence and photography personnel asked me to bring two plastic bags filled with SR-71 icon tie clips. My pressure garment still had room in the leg pockets, so I stuffed the bags in them. I reattached the helmet panels and the backup crew finally gave us the clear signal. We are finally starting this adventure. Everything went as planned. We took off into the night sky at about 4:30 in the morning and flew to the southwest of England at an altitude of 25,000 feet to find the tanker near Lands End, England.

This is a big change for us, because we usually refuel eastward over the North Sea , and we quickly connected with the tanker. As we headed west, it looked like there was a little more fuel inside than usual. I discovered that fuel consumption increases significantly as the aircraft climbs, and the cockpit pressure increases at 28,000 feet. It is too common to know the fuel consumption of the aircraft during the climb. It took us about 30 minutes to complete the docking with the first tanker...

”

▲ Real photos of SR-71 receiving aerial refueling

At this time, last night's seafood dinner began to show off. Major Carpenter's stomach was full of emotions, and the mission had just begun. The pilot suddenly fell into an extremely embarrassing situation:

"

... At this time, I was already feeling quite uncomfortable. John and I discussed what to do. If something goes wrong with my body, this mission will definitely not be able to continue, but I don't want to mess up the mission, and I don't want to report to the National Security Council that the mission is abandoned due to the pilot's discomfort after the mission was delayed for two days due to weather!

While docking with the second tanker, I had diarrhea (mostly due to the seafood meal, we think), but I felt better afterwards. Then another question arises: What to do with sitting on this pile for the next nine hours? John and I discussed the issue with the tanker crew and I feel better now that we can continue the mission.

"

Major Carpenter was cruel and released the inventory in his intestines heartily. According to his recall, after the mission, he " lost more than 8 pounds"...

The peculiar smell slowly penetrated out of Major Carpenter. The school’s fully enclosed flight suit permeates the cockpit of the SR-71. Fortunately, both crew members have independent oxygen supply systems and were not affected for the time being. Major Carpenter cheered up and continued the mission:

"

We left the tanker over the Atlantic Ocean, loaded with fuel and began to accelerate climb and fly south. The sun had risen and we reached the target area at an altitude of 74,000 feet at Mach 3.0. We turned east, crossing the Strait of Gibraltar and entering the Mediterranean Sea. By this time I was feeling pretty good and we started preparing to slow down and descend for the second air refueling. Everything was normal for these tankers from Spain. After seeing us, they were very happy. After all, they had been flying for 3 days. As instructed, and after a few aerial refuelings, we radioed that all was well and began another accelerated climb.

▲ An SR-71 crew member wearing a fully enclosed flight suit. The yellow box he carries is a portable air conditioner. It can be said that without these equipment, the mission of March 9, 1979 would have been difficult to carry out.

So far, no hostile areas have responded to us. After flying out of the Mediterranean Sea, we saw the spectacular Pyramids and the Sphinx! Then we were descending again. John said we wouldn't get distance information to the tanker rendezvous.Unbeknownst to us, the tanker's radio equipment was not working and they actually saw our contrail as we descended. Based on past experience, they began to turn and appeared in front of us at the appropriate spacing and speed. What can I say...great teamwork and perseverance made this happen.

The refueling went very smoothly this time, but we did not realize that on the third day, two Egyptian MiG-23 fighter jets followed our tanker, wanting to see 'what happened'. Unbeknownst to us at the time, a second tanker took a photo from above us while refueling. A few months later, John and I got the photo, signed it, and gave it as a gift to the Egyptian Embassy and the Egyptian Air Force to thank them for their support of the mission. This is a great photo of 3 tankers flying in formation, with us refueling underneath the second tanker and two Egyptian MiGs 200 yards behind.

With the tank full, we are now on our third accelerated climb, but this time we are entering the target area. Defense systems were checked again and all other systems on the aircraft were operating normally.

html Aircraft number 1972 performed very well. But now when we were flying at Mach 2.4 to an altitude of 45,000 feet, we found a signal from the front right fighter attacking the radar . We determined that fighters from Middle Eastern countries could not pose a threat to us at this speed and altitude (I talked about this with Kelly Johnson after returning to California, and he had the right to know about any incidents and situations we encountered during the mission).

As we climbed to 75,000 feet at Mach 3.0, we turned left. So spectacular! As far as the eye can see is desert, with occasional oases appearing! It's really hard to imagine them fighting in such an open desert. The sand below us was blown up by the wind, blurring the view. The sky above us was still pitch black. As we flew over the Yemeni-Saudi border, I prepared to turn left and make a second loop over the target.

▲ SR-71

in flight In this intense, high-intensity operational environment, John and I barely exchanged a word. Everything seemed to be going according to plan, but the plane tried to turn right instead of left as planned. I turned off the autopilot and turned the plane left. John is trying to get to the source of the problem and checking the rest of the target area to make sure we stay on the correct flight path. Over that mysterious black front, we staggered through another crossing. Now, as we exit the target area, we are descending and slowing down the turn, looking for the fourth group of tankers. We were running low on fuel due to too many maneuvers, but again the aerial refueling was completed without incident.

Once again we left the tanker, climbed and began our return to the UK. After this flight, we arrived at the last position, refueled for the fifth time, and then started to rush home, just under 10 hours of mission time. The last refueling is different from the previous ones because normal refueling takes 15 to 20 minutes and requires more than 80,000 pounds of fuel (12,000 gallons). The purpose is to fly with full fuel and prepare to accelerate in the final stage of the mission.

However, during the last refueling, we had to fly behind the tanker at subsonic speeds for 50 minutes to get as close as possible to the starting point of the final stage of the aircraft, so as to ensure that we would have enough fuel to find other solutions if we encountered bad weather in the UK. This aerial refueling took place over the central Mediterranean north of Libya, and everyone was watching closely to see if Libya detected us and responded to our presence. The descent and docking both went flawlessly. I considered several times disengaging from the tanker and re-docking to refuel the aircraft, but the risk was that there might not be a chance of a successful next docking, and the easiest thing to do was to dock with the refueling sleeve of the second tanker for about 45 minutes.During this period, we saw passenger planes coming and going over the Mediterranean Sea, but nothing unexpected happened.

John and I were getting ready to embark on the final leg of our voyage. We had been wearing the pressure suit for over 9 hours...the climb and acceleration were normal, we headed back across the Strait of Gibraltar, then turned north and headed back.

Before descending we were informed that the weather at Mildenhall had taken a turn for the worse and it was now raining. We descended and entered the UK at subsonic speeds and now we are crossing the UK again. When approaching tower , we wanted to conduct a precision approach, but when checking various equipment, we found that the nose landing gear could not be lowered. It was still raining outside and we had to use the backup gear checklist, which included lowering the gear selector handle, pulling some breakers , and then manually pulling the release cable in the forward cockpit.

While performing these steps, we abandoned the precision approach and switched to a visual approach. After a rather long process, the nose gear fell freely and locked in a fixed position.

We fooled the birdwatchers today because there were very few people around the airport on this rainy day. Thankfully, the landing went smoothly, and as we taxied slowly into the parking bay in front of the hangar, it seemed like all the deployed personnel were standing around, congratulating us on the successful completion of our mission. John and I are extremely proud to be members of this great team. The engine stopped and the frame moved around us. I felt comfortable, if a little weak. I politely told the ground staff not to try to get too close to the aircraft because of the smell...

"

What Major Carpenter didn't know was that a few hours earlier, the first tanker had reported "SR" to the ground The sensational news of -71 pilot having diarrhea. The two crew members climbed down the boarding ladder, and waiting for them was Colonel Dave Young, the deputy commander of the 9th Wing. After the mission report, as usual, the crew members received SR-71 tie clips issued by their superiors as a souvenir. What was special was that Major Carpenter’s tie clip was brown! He also received an official Documents proving that he was the first person to fly supersonic with poop...

▲ An SR-71 commemorative medal. The custom of the "Blackbird" troops is to make various homemade medals and tie clips as souvenirs. The tie clip Major Carpenter received was a meaningful brown...

Major Carpenter laughed it off and accepted this rather embarrassing "achievement" calmly. Decades later, " Lockheed "Blackbird" strategic reconnaissance aircraft: global covert operations (Lockheed Blackbird: Beyond the Secret When the book Missions () was published, he openly disclosed this dark history of his life to the public.

As for the SR-71 that completed the "most embarrassing mission", it will also receive another real honor: the U.S. Air Force decided to retire the SR-71, and aircraft No. 61-7972 completed the last record-breaking flight of the "Blackbird" family on March 6, 1990:

flies from the west coast of the United States to the east coast, with an average speed of 3419 kilometers/hour;

flies from Los Angeles to Washington , with an average speed of 3452 kilometers/hour;

flies from Kansas City to Washington, with an average speed of 3502 kilometers/hour;

flew from St. Louis to Cincinnati, with an average speed of 3524 kilometers per hour;

At this moment, aircraft No. 61-7972 is parked in the National Air and Space Museum building at Washington Dulles International Airport for tourists to pay their respects. The aircraft has been carefully maintained and maintained in a state that can be returned to active service at any time...

▲ Well-maintained No. 61-7972 aircraft

The information in this article comes from the book Huazhong University of Science and Technology Press " Lockheed "Blackbird" Strategic Reconnaissance Aircraft: Global Covert Operations ".

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