US Navy F-4 pilot recalls when his Phantom II radar screen went black because of the high speed of an SR-71 Blackbird he and his RIO tried to intercept while it was exiting Chinese airspace
Written by Black Hot Fire Network on May 21, 2023
‘I watched in amazement as the Vc circle [on the radar display] which told us the relative closing velocity of the target started rapidly winding up far higher than I had ever seen it before,’ Jerry Hart, US Navy F-4B Phantom II pilot.
During its 24 years of service, the SR-71 Blackbird gathered intelligence in some of the world’s most hostile environments. The Blackbird evaded all 1,000 missiles fired at it and, to this day, remains the only US Air Force (USAF) aircraft to never lose a crewmember associated with it; whether in . . .
