By: Warren Gray
Copyright © 2024
“The (search-and-rescue) problem is wickedly hard…
You need to be tackling this from all directions.”
— Christopher Mouton, Rand Corporation expert in personnel
recovery and special operations, July 2022.
The Lockheed Martin SR-72 “Darkstar” hypersonic, strategic-reconnaissance aircraft was prominently featured in the 2022 blockbuster aviation film “Top Gun: Maverick,” with U.S. Navy test pilot Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, played by Tom Cruise, breaking an astounding airspeed of Mach 10.4 very early in the dramatic movie. The real SR-72, however, has not yet flown, even as a prototype, and will probably be limited to approximately Mach 6.2, which is still tremendously impressive.
It’s a more-than-worthy successor to the combat-proven Lockheed A-12 “Archangel/Cygnus/Oxcart” high-speed, reconnaissance aircraft designed for the CIA in 1962, and only briefly operated from 1967 to 1968. The single-seat A-12 quickly evolved into the two-seat, SR-71A Blackbird version for the U.S. Air Force, which was flown from 1964 until 1998, when it was finally retired from active-duty service. The Blackbird was constructed of 92-percent Russian titanium and was employed primarily to spy upon the Soviet Union, North Korea, and North Vietnam, with a demonstrated top speed of Mach 3.2, which was faster than an M16 rifle bullet! It was so blazingly fast, in fact, that no A-12 or SR-71 was ever intercepted by hostile aircraft, and the Blackbird reportedly outran an estimated 4,000 Soviet air defense missiles during its 34 years of active service.
Only 15 CIA A-12s were ever built, plus 32 all-black SR-71s, since these were ultra-complex and expensive aircraft. Fortunately, on January 16, 1984, I was able to witness a dark, mysterious SR-71A Blackbird taking off in full, twin afterburners, while I was standing very close to an active runway in West Germany. Most impressive!
SR-71A Blackbird takeoff, West Germany, January 1984. Photo by author
SR-71A Blackbird takeoff, West Germany, January 1984. Photo by author
Then, in July 1999, while attending the Combat Targeting School at Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas, this author personally witnessed the pulsing, white contrails of a very-high-speed, very-high-altitude aircraft, traversing from horizon to far horizon, from northwest to southeast, at least 24 nautical miles (27.6 miles) in distance, possibly more, within the brief span of only 18 seconds! This equates to an airspeed of 80 nautical miles per minute, or Mach 7.2!!! So, I know for certain that we had something that incredibly fast, whether it was manned or unmanned, a quarter-century ago.
This was most probably the highly elusive Northrop Grumman Advanced, Unmanned, Reduced-Observable, Reconnaissance Aircraft (AURORA) from the early 1990s, often unofficially referred to as the SR-91, due to its year of inception. But there were developmental problems and cost overruns with the hypersonic AURORA, pushing the absolute limits of aviation technology at that time, and it’s rumored that only a few operational prototypes were ever constructed and flown.
By 2013, Lockheed Martin Corporation had officially announced that there would be an SR-72 (nicknamed “Son of Blackbird”) hypersonic reconnaissance aircraft developed over the next decade, a twin-engine platform capable of speeds in excess of Mach 6, and with the added capability to strike enemy targets with hypersonic missiles (Lockheed Martin High-Speed, Strike Weapons, or HSSWs). It will feature Aerojet Rocketdyne turbine-based, combined-cycle (TBCC) engines, and is expected to be an unmanned, aerial vehicle (UAV), or drone. However, at least a few prototype examples may be optionally manned, for testing-and-development purposes, as was clearly portrayed in “Top Gun: Maverick.”
While photoreconnaissance satellites may be very useful in maintaining surveillance of enemy forces and military installations, advanced, satellite tracking techniques mean that most adversaries have detailed, satellite tracking (SATRAN) data, and can predict exactly when, and for how long, a U.S. satellite will pass overhead, providing ample opportunities to move or hide certain forces or their equipment. Therefore, the advantages of an SR-72 reconnaissance aircraft are speed, stealth, surprise, and unpredictability. It can arrive almost anywhere in the world on very short notice.
Lockheed Martin stated in November 2018 that an SR-72 prototype was scheduled to fly by 2025 (but possibly as early as 2023) and enter operational service in the early 2030s. Like the A-12 and SR-71 aircraft that came before it, the Darkstar’s primary emphasis will be for short-notice, photoreconnaissance missions over Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, and other hostile nations.
In order to avoid the extreme political embarrassment of the U-2C Dragon Lady spyplane shootdown incident over Russia on May 1, 1960, in which CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers, a former Air Force captain, was held hostage for one year and nine months, the SR-72 will likely be an unmanned drone, except for a few optionally manned, demonstrator prototypes. In the event that any of these manned aircraft ever undertake an operational mission over hostile territory, a pilot’s seat survival kit becomes vitally important, should the SR-72 ever be shot down, damaged, or suffer a mechanical or electrical malfunction necessitating pilot ejection.
As a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Combat Survival School at Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Washington, and as a former intelligence specialist who taught refresher survival skills to American fighter pilots in Germany for four years, I’ve never seen a better, more-comprehensive, survival kit than those issued to Air Force pilots in their ejection-seat kits. In the very special case of the SR-72 Darkstar, however, certain modifications may be necessary in the name of plausible deniability.
This aircraft will be so complex, extremely expensive, and difficult to maintain that probably no more than a single squadron of 18 to 20 examples will be built, mostly of the unmanned variety, although perhaps just a few (three or four) manned examples may be expected. Looking at the very latest aviation technology available, the Collins Aerospace ACES 5 (Advanced-Concept, Ejection Seat 5) Next-Generation ejection seat seems like the optimum choice, fitted with an improved, multi-color, GR7000 parachute, which “has been designed to handle the greater weight ranges for pilots, and to provide a slower rate of descent and oscillation,” according to the manufacturer.
Because the SR-72 will operate at the very fringes of outer space, flying at 70,000 to 80,000 feet altitude, or greater, the pilot will have to wear a special pressure suit, such as the mustard-yellow, David Clark S1034 system currently employed by Air Force U-2S Dragon Lady reconnaissance pilots.
The service has also recently examined NASA’s orange Orion Crew Survival System (OCSS) suit, designed for upcoming Artemis missions to reestablish a human presence on the Moon, as a possible, S1034 replacement suit. Tom Cruise wears a black space suit in “Top Gun: Maverick,” with a shoulder patch that reads “Stella Tenebris,” or “Dark Star” in Latin. A black suit is certainly less-conspicuous in a ground-survival situation than yellow or orange, until the pilot can change into a camouflaged uniform.
My Gunpowder Magazine article entitled “Survive Like a Fighter Pilot” from September 1, 2021, described current, U.S. Air Force survival seat-kit contents in great detail, and most of those items should certainly apply to SR-72 pilot kits, as well, but certain modifications may be in order, due to the nature of the aircraft’s exceptionally-hazardous missions, usually deep behind enemy lines.
The SR-71’s primary operating locations for active missions were from Beale Air Force Base (9th Reconnaissance Wing home station), California, RAF Mildenhall (Detachment 4), England, and Kadena Air Base (Det. 1), Okinawa, Japan, with alternate bases at Diego Garcia island (Det. 8) in the Indian Ocean, and an emergency recovery site at Bodø Air Base (now closed, except for a rescue helicopter detachment), Norway. Given that the greatest threat nations have not changed significantly since the end of the Cold War, it’s reasonable to expect the SR-72 to operate from the same general areas.
As air warfare journalist Stephen Losey reported for Defense News on July 11, 2022, “Combat search-and-rescue airmen in the next war will likely have to navigate a contested airspace with enemy surface-to-air missiles, radar, and hostile aircraft. The missions could come days, perhaps even weeks, after the crash, as the rescuers wait for an opportunity to go in…‘There are some places where you’re just not going to take a helicopter. It’s just not going to work with that reality’…The Air Force also knows it must rethink how it supplies aviators so they can survive longer on their own.
“The seat kits that downed personnel use to survive after ejecting, which typically include a signal mirror, medical supplies, food and water (or tools to obtain them), a weapon, and camouflage face paint, are also undergoing review…the Air Force is working on more modular kits that combatant commanders can customize and tailor to each theater…One way to do that is with the upcoming replacement to the (PRQ-7A) Combat Survivor Evader Locator, or CSEL, hand-held radio, which dates back to the 1990s.
“The Air Force began including a GAU-5A gun in some seat kits. The weapon is essentially a smaller version of the M4 rifle that allows for rapid assembly and disassembly…intended to give downed aviators more firepower than a pistol. If downed aviators can survive on their own longer…that would give rescuers more time to map out the best rescue plan…The Air Force is also trying to beef up SERE training, or survival, evasion, resistance, and escape, for aviators who are at higher risk of being downed.”
With these grim factors in mind, should an SR-72 Darkstar pilot be forced to eject over Russia, for example, and evade capture for many days, or even weeks, he’ll need to inventory very carefully the existing survival supplies at his disposal. First, he needs to remove his bulky, 60-pound, astronaut-style flight suit and helmet, and bury them. All of that extra weight is an impediment to travel and mobility.
Hopefully, the seat kit contains an Air Force Two-Piece, Flight-Duty Uniform (2PFDU) in the standard, Operational Camouflage Pattern (OCP), with rank insignia but no other markings, for him to change into. OCP camouflage, nearly identical to MultiCam, has been proven in the field to be the most effective camouflage pattern in current service, and the downed pilot is definitely going to need to hide, and blend in with his surroundings.
Also, many Russian Special Forces units, including the Special Operations Forces Command (KSSO), Federal Security Service’s (FSB) elite, Spetsgruppa Alfa counterterrorist unit, and SOBR riot police, wear MultiCam camouflage, so it helps to add a confusion factor, making the U.S. pilot look from a distance like a Russian soldier.
Next, he (or she) has three separate components to consider. The first is the GR7000 parachute canopy itself, which is 28 feet wide, and made of ripstop nylon in four different colors. There are 28 panels, or “gores,” of which 10 are white, 10 are International Orange, four or sand-colored (tan), and four are olive green. There are also 14 shroud lines, comprised of 550-pound-test paracord. Whenever possible, the pilot will save this canopy for constructing a shelter roof, using certain panels for camouflage, the orange panels for signaling his location, and the paracord is extremely useful for tying all sorts of things together, or making a survival tent from the canopy sections.
The second component is the Aircrew Survival Vest, which contains key survival items that he may need instantly upon reaching the ground, without the luxury of time to sort through a larger survival kit. These items typically include a survival radio with GPS locator, a locator beacon, signal mirror, two smoke flares, an American compass, first-aid kit, Ontario 499 standard, USAF survival knife, and a SIG Sauer M18 service pistol, with two loaded, 15-round magazines (The SR-71 vest apparently had a Smith and Wesson Model 12 Airweight [military M13 Aircrewman, only 14.4 ounces] snub-nosed revolver in .38 Special, not shown in most photos of the survival seat kit).
This is all excellent equipment, especially the radio, which should be a brand-new (since July 2017), state-of-the-art, General Dynamics Hook3 Combat Survival Radio (CSR) system, with built-in, 32-channel, GPS navigation and automatic, GPS geo-location of any downed pilot via encrypted satellite link. It’s smaller, lighter, and more capable than the previous, PRC-112G Hook2 or PRQ-7A CSEL USAF survival radios. But the coyote-brown pistol and leather-handled knife are uniquely and distinctly American in design and will only highlight the evader on the ground as an American pilot.
A far better choice in Eastern Europe would be the all-black, Glock-19 handgun in 9x19mm, standard-issue for the Air Force Special Operations Command and most other U.S. special operations forces, including Delta Force, SEAL Team Six, and the CIA, instead, with high-quality, foreign-made (Czech or German) ammunition, for plausible deniability, and a very-high-quality, rugged, Eickhorn-Solingen (German-made) Aviator III survival knife. Another quite-interesting possibility would be the excellent, large, and sturdy, Kizlyar (Russian-made, from Dagestan) KK0078 Survivalist-Z knife (average $215), readily available for purchase here in the United States.
Kizlyar (Russian) KK0078 Survivalist-Z knife. Photo credit: knifeworks.com
And a Suunto (Finnish) MC-2 professional compass or Silva (Swedish) Army Ranger 515 CL military compass might be a better choice than the distinctive, American-made (Michigan) Cammenga M-1950 (Model 3-H) Lensatic model.
Now, we come to the seat survival kit itself, which hangs down 30 feet below the pilot while parachuting and contains most of the essential gear for longer-term survival. This includes an Aircrew Survival Manual, pen-gun flare kit, strobe light, GPS receiver unit, signal whistle, black rubber life raft, matches, snare wire, a Leatherman (made in Oregon, USA) multitool, military flashlight, penlight flashlight, water flask, camo stick for covering face and hands, water-purification tablets, Mylar space blanket, insect repellent, magnesium fire-starter tool, and camouflaged poncho (useful from making a pup ten or shelter), as a minimum.
Packed neatly on top of the other items in the kit is a GAU-5A Aircrew Self-Defense Weapon (ASDW) in 5.56mm, with 12.5-inch barrel and four loaded, 30-round magazines, which can be fully assembled in about one minute. This is a great, relatively new weapon to have, however, it’s basically a modified, Colt M4 carbine, and its readily identifiable, AR-15-style outline just screams “American!” from virtually any distance.
A far better plausibly-deniable selection would be the H&K MP7A1 personal-defense weapon (PDW) with a 7.1-inch barrel, in 4.6x30mm, currently used within the U.S. Armed Forces only by the elite SEAL Team Six counterterrorist unit, and by some Russian special operations units, as well, because it’s very compact, lightweight, has almost no recoil, and provides deadly-accurate, armor-piercing firepower. 40-round magazines are preferred by the SEALs in combat.
Travis Pike wrote for SOFREP on July 5, 2021, that, “The MP7 is much easier to use than a rifle…The little gun’s small size gives it an advantage over even the shortest 5.56mm carbines.” A suppressor is highly recommended for taming the fierce muzzle blast. Firearms journalist Foghorn wrote for The Truth About Guns on October 10, 2013, that, “Without a silencer, the MP7A1 is somewhere between ‘uncomfortable’ and ‘deafening’ when fired. With a silencer, the gun is hearing-safe, but there’s no stealthiness at all.”
In my Gunpowder Magazine article on “SEAL Team Six and the MP7” from October 19, 2022, I concluded that, “The H&K MP7 has seen extensive, combat action in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, and other world hot spots. Despite its tiny caliber (only half the diameter of a 9mm bullet, with a mere one-fourth of the cross-sectional area), it’s basically impossible to find another close-range, assault weapon that weighs less than five pounds, is compact, utterly reliable, and unleashes nearly 16 rounds per second of high-velocity, armor-piercing (German DM11) ammunition. That’s why SEAL Team Six loves the MP7 so much, and uses it more often than ever before.”
Among the optional, cold-weather gear provided in the ACES 5 seat kit is a vacuum-packed, Marmot (American company, but most of its products are made in China and Vietnam) Helium insulated sleeping bag in navy blue, with woolen mittens, black leather gloves, a woolen hood and face mask, camouflaged boonie hat, and other accessories. In the unlikely but still-possible event that the pilot’s hide site is found by enemy troops one day while the U.S. pilot is out roving the area, it might be more advisable to substitute something like a Fjällräven (Swedish) Move-In foreign sleeping bag in dark gray, with goose-down insulation rated to as low as 15 degrees Fahrenheit.
Many Air Force pilots add a few personally owned items for extra safety and security, such as a Swiss Army Knife multitool/pocket knife, a high-quality, boot dagger, or a wire saw, and waterproof storm matches for survival use.
Another extremely useful addition might be a small, pocket-sized, Russian-English phrase booklet, including military terminology, in case of chance encounters with Russian civilians on the ground. Either the CIA or Air Force intelligence linguists could also provide similar booklets in Arabic, Farsi, Korean, Kurdish, and Mandarin Chinese, as required for various SR-72 mission profiles. I’ve personally seen such a compact, military phrase booklet in Spanish, for U.S. special operations forces, so I know they can be easily created, and a small Russian phrase book was apparently issued in SR-71 survival kits.
Finally, here’s an interesting, new weapon being advertised by Tactical Supply Company (TSC) Machine Shop as part of the “SR-71 Pilot Survival Kit,” although that’s not true at all. In actuality, it’s a Heckler and Koch G3KB Class III conversion in 7.62mm NATO, essentially an HK21E machine gun with the barrel shortened from 22 inches to just 12.4 inches, like the handy, G3KA4 carbine used by British and German Special Forces. It fires at a rate of 13 rounds per second from a 20-round, 50-round, or 100-round magazine.
H&K G3KB machine gun conversion. Photo credit: Tactical Supply Company
While I love the basic concept of a rugged, reliable, HK21E machine gun with a very short, G3K barrel, it certainly would never fit inside an SR-71 or SR-72 pilot’s survival kit. However, one might expect to see some of these custom weapons turn up in the hands of Ukrainian Special Forces, given that they have already purchased at least a few very exotic, $6,000 Laugo (Czech) Alien 9mm pistols.
SR-72 “Darkstar” Mach 6+ reconnaissance aircraft mockup. Photo credit: Lockheed Martin
The SR-72 Darkstar is a highly advanced, exotic, ultra-high-speed aircraft that may only result in a very few manned examples, but its mission is so unique and dangerous that a comprehensive, custom-tailored survival kit is an absolute necessity. In a modern world of high-intensity warfare, and with the U.S. Air Force unexpectedly reducing its acquisition of new, HH-60W (“Whiskey”) Jolly Green II combat rescue helicopters by more than 33 percent this past year, it may instead fall upon elite, U.S. Army special operations aviation forces to rescue any downed Darkstar pilots behind enemy lines, a bold scenario in these rapidly-changing times that was readily predicted several years ago.
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Warren Gray is a retired U.S. Air Force intelligence officer with experience in joint special operations and counterterrorism. He served with three fighter squadrons in Europe and the Middle East (two F-4E Phantom II squadrons in Germany, and one F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter squadron in Saudi Arabia), earned Air Force and Navy parachutist wings, and four college degrees, including a Master of Aeronautical Science degree, and was a distinguished graduate of the Air Force Intelligence Operations Specialist Course, and the USAF Combat Targeting School. He is currently a published author, historian, and aviation enthusiast.