[Bill McIntyre]

I flew the RF-4B, the photo recon version of the Phantom, in Vietnam, but of course that was tactical reconnaissance rather than strategic by the SR-71. While it was fun to be down there at 100 feet and 500 knots some times, I always thought it would be cool to be up there over 80 grand thumbing my nose at everyone.

When I was a flight instructor in a Navy squadron in Texas, our operations officer was a Navy Lt Cdr who had just returned from a tour in the intel section of Commander in Chief Pacific HQ in Hawaii. He said that on one clear and cloudless day, they sent an SR-71 straight up the spine of North Vietnam and it completed most of their outstanding photo requirements without getting a detectable reaction from the NVA. And then it turned out over the Tonkin Gulf over our fleet and they didn't see it either.