Message posted by Magoo on March 13, 2000 at 18:37:41 EST:
Dear all I've been surfing through a few of the links off this site and some other Area 51 sites in recent days, and one particular error seems to keep popping up. Despite many references to it in those sites, the SR-71 was NEVER based at Groom Lake. It's predecessors, the A-12, YF-12A and M-12 were all based there. The A-12s spent some time on detachment at Kadena AFB in Japan in 1967/68, the two M-12s were at Groom only, and the YF-12s were moved from Groom to Edwards in late 1964 after President Johnson announced there existance. They remained there until they were retired in the late 70's. The SR-71s started out at Palmdale, moved to Edwards, and then to Beale AFB. There was a permanent detachment of 2-3 aircraft at Kadena from 1968 to 1989, and a semi permanent (later permanent) detachment of 1-2 aircraft at Mildenhall in the UK from 1976 to January 1990. Many people think that these aircraft were all the same, but they were in fact very different. Check out the 'outstanding' article on the Blackbird in the More Info&Photos section of this site for more info! See ya's Magoo
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