EDWARDS SPY PLANE HELPS LOOK FOR A-10 : SR-71 PASSES OVER MOUNTAINS IN SEARCH OF JET, PILOT.Byline: Jim Skeen Daily News Staff Writer An SR-71 Blackbird “SR-71” redirects here. For other uses, see SR-71 (disambiguation). The Lockheed SR-71 was an advanced, long-range, Mach 3 strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed from the Lockheed YF-12A and A-12 aircraft by the Lockheed Skunk Works. spy plane out of Edwards searched Monday for a missing A-10 Thunderbolt warplane believed lost in the Colorado Rocky Mountains Rocky Mountains, major mountain system of W North America and easternmost belt of the North American cordillera, extending more than 3,000 mi (4,800 km) from central N.Mex. to NW Alaska; Mt. Elbert (14,431 ft/4,399 m) in Colorado is the highest peak. . The spy plane flew a loop over the search area en route to war-game exercises in New Mexico New Mexico, state in the SW United States. At its northwestern corner are the so-called Four Corners, where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah meet at right angles; New Mexico is also bordered by Oklahoma (NE), Texas (E, S), and Mexico (S). . It was not immediately known if the spy plane was able to provide useful information to searchers. ``We're doing anything we can to provide them with the support they need,'' said 1st Lt. Wilson Camelo, spokesman for the 9th Reconnaissance Wing, the Blackbird's home unit. ``We want to bring this to a resolution. We want to find the pilot and that plane.'' The Blackbird searched for an A-10 Thunderbolt missing since April 2. The attack jet, piloted by Capt. Craig Button Craig Button (Born 1963 in Rochester, NY) is currently a Pro scout for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Moved to Montreal when, Father Jack Button, went to the NHL offices to start the NHL Central Scouting Bureau. , 32, disappeared about 90 minutes after takeoff while flying in a three-plane formation across southern Arizona Southern Arizona is a region of the United States. It is the southernmost portion of the 48th state, Arizona. Southern Arizona's boundaries are not well defined, but certainly include all of present-day Cochise County, Pima County, Graham County, and Santa Cruz County. . It appears Button headed into the high-mountain country of Colorado, but poor weather in the region has hampered the search effort for the aircraft and its pilot. The Blackbird took off from Edwards at 11 a.m. to fly a mission in support of ``Roaming Sands,'' a desert warfare Desert warfare is combat in deserts. In desert warfare the elements can sometimes be more dangerous than the actual enemy. The desert terrain is the second most inhospitable to troops following a cold environment. exercise in New Mexico. Because of the aircraft's high speed, its pass over the war games was going to take it near the search area anyway, Camelo said. ``It's flying 2,000 mph. It's not going to turn on a dime,'' Camelo said. The 32-year-old Blackbird is the world's fastest, highest-flying production aircraft. It can fly at more than three times the speed of sound, or more than 2,000 mph, and it routinely cruises at altitudes exceeding 80,000 feet. The aircraft can survey more than 100,000 square miles of the Earth's surface in one hour. Its sensors include the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) Radar, airborne or satellite-borne, that uses special signal processing to produce high-resolution images of the surface of the Earth (or another object) while traversing a considerable flight path. system that provides all-weather, day or night imagery. The 9th Reconnaissance Wing is based at Beale Air Force Base Beale Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base near Marysville, California, that was established in 1943. The host wing is the 9th Reconnaissance Wing, which includes an operations group, a maintenance directorate, a mission support group, and a medical group. near Sacramento, but bases its two SR-71 Blackbirds at Edwards. The SR-71 flight is the second mission to originate out of the Antelope Valley in the search effort. On Friday, a U-2 flew out of Air Force Plant 42 to assist in the search, but information gleaned from that flight was inconclusive, officials said. CAPTION(S): 2 Photos Photo: (1--color) SR-71 sent to search for plane Monday. (2) U2 returned with inconclusive information. |
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