- Member since
June 2006
- From: Patterson, CA
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Posted by SoD Stitch
on Wednesday, December 13, 2006 1:43 PM
The D-21 was a hypersonic reconnaisance drone with a Marquardt ramjet engine. It was designed to overfly "high risk" areas where it was too risky (and illegal) to use the SR-71 (like mainland China). Upon completion of it's pre-programmed flight path, it was supposed to fly out to the ocean and eject it's reconnaisance capsule containing photos, telemetry data, etc. and the capsule retreived by an MC-130 equipped with the Fulton recovery system. After that, the D-21 would dive into the ocean, destroying itself. Several successful launches were made from the M-21 (the SR-71 was called an "M-21" when it carried the drone) before one launch went awry and destroyed both aircraft, killing the RSO in the process. After that, Clarence "Kelly" Johnson prohibited any more D-21 launchings from the SR-71, and it was thereafter launched from a B-52D. There used to be quite a few D-21's sitting out at Monthan-Davis AFB, but most of them have probably been "disposed of" by now.
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