The Lockheed A12 was an outstanding aircraft with incredible speed, altitude and strategic range. But what if even this is not enough? It's time to get acquainted with the Lockheed M21 and the D21 supersonic drone.

The Lockheed M21/D21 are a pair of highspeed reconnaissance aircraft created by Lockheed in the early 1960s based on the A12 Archangel project.
The project involved the creation of the M21 carrier aircraft, which was supposed to act as a carrier for the D21 highspeed unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. The drone was capable of flying at speeds over Mach 3.3 at altitudes of about 27 kilometers.

The project was implemented, however, the tests showed the extreme complexity and danger of the implementation of this concept (the tests were mostly unsuccessful, and one of the launches ended in the crash of the carrier). After abandoning the M21 carrier, the drone was modified and launched from the B52 Stratofortress carrier. The launches were carried out in real conditions and conducted reconnaissance of the territory of China, but these flights were unsuccessful. The program was terminated in 1971.

Thank you for watching!

Subscribe to the channel, comment, like!

If you want to support Skyships and our work, welcome to our Patreon. We will create some special content for you there:   / skyships  
Our Facebook:   / skyshipscom  
Our Instagram:   / skyships_world  

00:00 Spy on spy
00:50 A new Mach 3 idea
03:12 The Q12 drone
06:07 The M21 and the D21
08:03 Testing
09:10 parade of absurdity
11:22 Cancellation of the project