All had gone well until he entered the Deep Work refuelling track, just southwest of Okinawa, and hooked onto the KC-135Q’s refuelling boom. The boom operator’s first remark as the A-12’s fuel tanks began to fill was, ‘You don’t want to go supersonic with this aircraft, sir.’ The puzzled A-12 pilot enquired why, as there were no cockpit indications that supported such a remark and the aircraft seemed to be handling well. ‘I don’t think you’ll want to go fast, sir,’ the boomer insisted, ‘because the left side of your aircraft is missing.’

As he turned back to Kadena, an F-102 interceptor was scrambled from Naha AB, Okinawa to serve as escort in the event of controllability problems. As the Delta Dagger drew alongside the crippled Cygnus, the F-102 pilot reported that the A-12 had lost practically all its left chine panels from nose to tail. In addition, large panels on the wing uppersurface (which also covered the top side of the wheel well) had disappeared, allowing the escort pilot to see right through part of the aircraft’s left wing.

-- Paul Crickmore, Lockheed Blackbird: Beyond the secret missions

Controls

• Custom camera 1: cockpit view

Normal flight mode (AG3 OFF)

• All flight controls normal. Trim is available
• Brake to reverse
• AG1: afterburner
• AG2: high agility mode
• AG3: toggle VTOL mode
• FireGuns: fire plasma cannon

VTOL mode (AG3 ON)

• Pitch to ascend and descend, roll to turn, yaw to strafe