I am looking at the history of this aircraft with a view of building all the variants of this family of aircraft and got to wondering what the configuration of the F-12B production machine would have been like assuming that the aircraft ever reached production status. I am thinking of trying to build a what if with parts left over from the various conversions I am planning. Can anyone help?
Regards
Gondor
I'm pretty sure it was going to look just like the YF-12, with the exception of not having the camera pods suspended under the engine nacelles. "YF" indicates a production prototype, so the design should be identical. Are you going to do the RB-12 bomber? That had a different nose radar design. There's a side view of it in Jay Miller's "Skunk Works" book, as well as a drawing of the bomb bay set-up.
Pat
I was thinking of doing the production fighter and was wondering if there was likely to have been any changes to the airframe. I have a F-111B in the works as well, or will have once I woke out the easiest way to do the revised cockpit. I only have the Osprey Air Combat Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird by Paul F Crickmore as reference so didn't know about the RB-12. Sounds from what your saying is that the Skunk Works book would be a good purchase.
Gondor
It's a very good book; particularly in regards to where the A-12 came from, and the designs that led up to it, as well as the CL-400 "Sunburn" Mach 2.5 liquid hydrogen-fueled predecessor to the A-12. And NOW, as a special TREAT to those who haven't seen this yet... Here are photos of the General Dynamics "Kingfish" competitor to the Lockheed A-12, in its full scale Radar Cross Section test model, sitting out at Nellis AFB on the radar test pole...with badly translated Russian text to go with it:
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