Trucking Company a Front to Secretly Haul SR-71 and its Predecessor to Area 51 in 1960s

In the 1960’s, during the development of the SR-71 Blackbird aircraft, Lockheed had to figure out a way to transport the secret aircraft from their Skunk Work’s facility in Burbank, California to the test site (Area 51, Nevada) without anyone knowing what they were hauling.

The SR-71 did not have the C-5 airplane, Airforce’s huge transportation aircraft introduced in 1970 that secretly transported the F-117 Stealth Fighter to Area 51 test site. So, the Lockheed team developed a “false-front” truckline, called Roadrunner Internationale, to haul the SR-71 fuselage and wings to the test site, where it was reassembled.

History of the SR-71 Blackbird Airplane

The Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird” is a long-range, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft that was operated by the United States Air Force. It was developed as a black project from the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft in the 1960s by Lockheed and its Skunk Works division.

During aerial reconnaissance missions, the SR-71 operated at high speeds and altitudes to allow it to outrace threats. If a surface-to-air missile launch were detected, the standard evasive action was simply to accelerate and outfly the missile. The shape of the SR-71 was based on the A-12 which was one of the first aircraft to be designed with a reduced radar cross-section.

The A-12 was produced from 1962 to 1964 and flew from 1963 to 1968. It was the precursor to the SR-71 Blackbird, a slightly longer variant able to carry a heavier fuel and camera load.

How Did Roadrunners Internationale Haul The Airplanes?

The Roadrunners were an elite group of CIA, Air Force and support personnel operating out of what is officially known as “an operating location near Groom Lake, Nev.,” also known as Area 51, the Ranch or the Area by those who worked there.

From the beginning of Project OXCART, it was known that the A-12s would be built in the Skunk Works within the Lockheed Plant complex in Burbank, California and that the A-12s (and later the SR-71) would have to be transported overland to Area 51 for flight testing, development and training of the Project Pilots.

The trip to haul the full scale model was started in November 1959 and took three days to complete. The largest of these packages was 65′ long and 32.6′ wide.

In total, eighteen trips were made to Area 51 and three trips were made to Palmdale to carry the first three SR-71s built.

The first fully developed A-12 convoy departed Burbank on 26 February 1962 and arrived three days later. The safe operation of the transportation of these airplanes was aided by the California and Nevada Highway Patrols.

Dorsey Kammerer was appointed to head up the activity to build and use the transportation carriage system. An early-on step was to equip a pickup truck with a set of extension poles sized to the width, height of the main transport carriage trailer.

An initial plan was to drive the best estimate route of travel, noting the obstacles to easy movement of the carriage boxes. Where necessary, the obstacles were noted and steps were taken later to be removed, such as signs, trees, and roadside soils.

Travel was allowed on mid-week days only, no movement on the weekends or Holidays. During one of the movements a Greyhound bus nicked the big box. The bus driver was paid cash to have the bus repairs done without any resultant attention to the details.

The end of the road was the main hangar complex at Area 51 where the airplane was off-loaded into the hangar for re-assembly.

Below are pictures of these top secret trips found on the Roadrunners Internationale website: http://roadrunnersinternationale.com/transporting_the_a-12.html