Aerospace

The CIA’s Legendary Blackbird Was Actually the First Stealth Warplane

In 35 years of military and CIA service, the Blackbird became legendary for its blistering top speed and sinister appearance. But a just-released, formerly top-secret official CIA history underscores the Blackbird’s lesser-known but equally important accomplishment.

In addition to being really, really fast, the Blackbird was also the world’s first operational stealth warplane—an honorific that most historians reserve for the 1980s-vintage F-117.

In the mid-1950s, America’s first spy satellites were still in development. The only way for the Pentagon to spot the Soviet Union’s army divisions, airfields, and command centers was to fly an airplane overhead and snap photographs.