The Museum of Flight
Cold War aviation collection spanning a restored barn to a supersonic spy plane and a lunar module trainer.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Lockheed M-21 at The Museum of Flight in Seattle traces the top-secret program that grew out of a Mach 3 midair collision above the Pacific in July 1966: a plan to launch a pilotless drone called the D-21 from a plane so classified that most SR-71 engineers working down the hall never knew it existed. You'll hear about pilot Bill Park and launch officer Ray Torick, the two men who flew the fourth test mission, and how few workers even held the pass needed to cross into that part of the hangar. Look closely at the drone riding the aircraft's back, it was built for a mission far stranger than it looks.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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