About Article 121
Article 121 is an archive of the Lockheed A-12, YF-12, M-21 and D-21, and SR-71: the aircraft the world came to call the Blackbirds. It gathers the best photographs, documents and records that are public and puts them in one place, with every source shown.
The name is the program's own: Article 121 was the CIA's designation for the first A-12 airframe, serial 60-6924, which made its official first flight on 30 April 1962.
Free, with nothing for sale
The archive is free to read. There are no ads, no paywall, no accounts and no tracking, and there never will be. Nothing here is for sale.
The photographs
Every image here is in the public domain or posted with the permission of its author.
Most are U.S. government photographs from NASA, the U.S. Air Force, the CIA and the National Archives, which belong to the public. Others are released by their photographers under open licences, or shown with the author's written permission. Each image carries its credit, its licence and a link to where it came from.
Photographs are shown as they were made. Nothing is upscaled, colourised or altered by AI.
Every fact has a source
Every date, figure and record links to the document, archive or museum it came from. Where reliable sources disagree, the file says so and shows each version rather than picking one quietly.
Credit where it belongs
This archive documents work that others did. The aircraft belong to the engineers of Lockheed's Skunk Works and to the crews and ground crews who flew and kept them flying. The photographs and records belong to the people and institutions credited beside them.
Preserving what is fading
Much of the best Blackbird material lives on enthusiast and veterans' sites that are decades old, and some have already gone offline. Every source cited here links to its Internet Archive copy where one exists, and where the original has gone offline the archived copy takes its place. Older sites are credited and, with their owners' permission, preserved.
Corrections
Found a mistake, a better source or a photograph that belongs here? Open an issue at github.com/ralphte/article121/issues with the source, and every fix is made in public.
Independent
Article 121 is an independent archive. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Lockheed Martin, the U.S. Air Force, NASA, the CIA or any museum it cites. The appearance of U.S. Department of War (DoW) visual information does not imply or constitute DoW endorsement.
Source code
The site's code and research are public at github.com/ralphte/article121.