Blackbird Air Park preserves aircraft, engines, and equipment associated with the Blackbird family, including a one-twelfth-scale wind tunnel model used to test the A-12, YF-12, and SR-71 with different nose sections; the Pratt & Whitney J58 engine, originally developed in 1956 for a U.S. Navy project and later adapted with Lockheed for the A-12, operating at high compressor inlet temperatures and functioning essentially as a ramjet above 1600 mph; early and later starter carts built to spool up and start J58 engines; the Lockheed A-12, the proof-of-concept predecessor of the SR-71/YF-12 family and the first of fifteen produced, first flown on 26 April 1962 by Louis Schalk and used in covert CIA operations during the 1960s; the unmanned D-21 reconnaissance drone, designed for air launch from an A-12-derived mothership and later flown operationally from B-52 aircraft after a fatal test accident ended the original program; and the SR-71A, which reached Mach 1.5 on its maiden flight on Dec 22, 1964, entered Strategic Air Command service in Jan 1966, operated from bases including Beale AFB, Kadena AB, and RAF Mildenhall, and set a transcontinental speed record on Mar 6 1990.