HI EVERYONE!!! I'm releasing my newest artwork on the SR-71 Blackbird in this exciting profile artwork. In particular, this is BlackBird #17958. She is currently on display at the Museum of Aviation at Robins Air Force Base in Warner Robins, Georgia.

After World War II, a new cold war was heating up between the United States and the Soviet Union.  In order to determine the technological threat of the Soviet Union, reconnaissance was a growing priority for the United States. Early on, the CIA was conducting overland flights of the Soviet Union using the U2 Spyplane – A lightweight, slow but high altitude aircraft with an advanced suite of onboard cameras. Everything had to be invented just to INVENT the SR-71 Blackbird; from the tools, materials to machining construction procedures. The Skunkworks really had to think outside of the box to create the SR71 Blackbird. Over 90% of the SR-71 Blackbird was made from titanium, which is quite a difficult metal to work with. Not only that, the United States didn’t have much of it. In order to get enough titanium to build the SR-71 Blackbird fleet, the CIA setup several front companies to get ahold of that precious metal. The SR-71 had a crew of 2: A Pilot seated in front, and an RSO seated directly behind the pilot. The crew had to wear pressurized flight suits just to keep them alive. The flight suits weren’t that different then astronaut space suits. They fly so high they’re practically astronauts, . . .well, almost – topping out around 85THOUSAND feet and “space” starts at around 300-ish thousand feet. Well,. . . even though it’s not technically space, the views I’m sure the views were QUITE spectacular. The SR-71 Blackbird served from 1964 to 1998. She flew over 17,000 sorties with over 53,000 flight hours - 11,000 of those hours at MACH 3. Over 4000 Missiles were fired at the SR-71 – she was NEVER shot down.

Prints are now available and to see more modern day aircraft artwork, follow the link or go to https://www.davidcollinsonline.com/modern-age-aircraft.