YosemiteSam
Unfriendly and Aloof!
- Messages
- 45,858
- Reaction score
- 22,189
More excellent reading material. Enjoy!
That Time An SR-71 Made An Emergency Landing In Norway After Spying On The Soviets
BC Thomas and Jay Reid with Norwegian Newspapers, Bodø, Norway, August 15, 1981- Image courtesy of BC Thomas
(At the height of the Cold War, SR-71 Blackbird pilot BC Thomas, who became the highest time SR-71 Blackbird pilot ever, and his Reconnaissance Systems Officer Jay Reid were tasked with a very urgent mission to spy on the Soviet Russia’s massive naval base at Murmansk. The sortie started off as planned but ended up as anything but usual, and they found themselves in a very precarious situation. This is Thomas’ story in his own words. —TR)
THE MISSION
Before establishing a continuous SR-71 presence in Europe in 1982 (at RAF Mildenhall, England), the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, the responsible headquarters for all SR-71 operational flights, was sometimes tasked to fly a particularly important higher-headquarters mission from Beale AFB in California to the Soviet Union and back.
The purpose was to photograph (with either film or radar), and collect electronic data in and around the Soviet Naval facility at Murmansk, located on the Kola Peninsula in the Barents Sea above the Arctic Circle, in the extreme northwest portion of the Soviet Union, north of Norway and east of Finland.
We required information about their air-defense electronic warfare capabilities and specifically, their antiaircraft surface-to-air (SAM) missile systems. Murmansk was a strategic nuclear submarine base and maintenance facility, and since knowing the disposition of all nuclear threats was vital for the security of the United States, Murmansk was one of our most significant reconnaissance objectives.
Link to Full Aritcle
That Time An SR-71 Made An Emergency Landing In Norway After Spying On The Soviets
BC Thomas and Jay Reid with Norwegian Newspapers, Bodø, Norway, August 15, 1981- Image courtesy of BC Thomas
(At the height of the Cold War, SR-71 Blackbird pilot BC Thomas, who became the highest time SR-71 Blackbird pilot ever, and his Reconnaissance Systems Officer Jay Reid were tasked with a very urgent mission to spy on the Soviet Russia’s massive naval base at Murmansk. The sortie started off as planned but ended up as anything but usual, and they found themselves in a very precarious situation. This is Thomas’ story in his own words. —TR)
THE MISSION
Before establishing a continuous SR-71 presence in Europe in 1982 (at RAF Mildenhall, England), the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, the responsible headquarters for all SR-71 operational flights, was sometimes tasked to fly a particularly important higher-headquarters mission from Beale AFB in California to the Soviet Union and back.
The purpose was to photograph (with either film or radar), and collect electronic data in and around the Soviet Naval facility at Murmansk, located on the Kola Peninsula in the Barents Sea above the Arctic Circle, in the extreme northwest portion of the Soviet Union, north of Norway and east of Finland.
We required information about their air-defense electronic warfare capabilities and specifically, their antiaircraft surface-to-air (SAM) missile systems. Murmansk was a strategic nuclear submarine base and maintenance facility, and since knowing the disposition of all nuclear threats was vital for the security of the United States, Murmansk was one of our most significant reconnaissance objectives.
Link to Full Aritcle
