Spyplanes and Surveillance Aircraft

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Surveillance aircraft are military aircraft used for monitoring enemy activity, usually carrying no armament. This article concentrates on military aircraft used in this role, though a major civilian aviation activity is reconnaissance and ground surveillance for mapping, traffic monitoring, science, and geological survey. In addition, civilian aircraft are used in many countries for border surveillance, fishery patrols or the prevention of smuggling and illegal migration.

A surveillance aircraft does not necessarily require high-performance capability or stealth characteristics. It may in fact be a modified civilian aircraft which has been disguised in order to look harmless. Technically, anything which can fly and make observations (dynamically or via recording equipment/sensors) of visual information or electronic emissions qualifies as a surveillance aircraft.

Such efforts long predate the invention of heavier-than-air flight, with experiments using balloons to provide targeting information for artillery beginning in France in 1794. Continued attempts throughout the 19th Century proved militarily useless, but aerostat-based radar platforms are now in use.

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USAF Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird Reconnaissance Aircraft - 61-7972, Lt. Col. Raymond E. Ed Yielding and Lt. Col. Joseph T. "JT" Vida, Senior Crown Flight, March 6th, 1990 (1:200 Scale)

The Lockheed SR-71 was an advanced, long-range, Mach 3 strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed from the Lockheed A-12 and YF-12A aircraft by the Lockheed Skunk Works. The SR-71 was unofficially named the Blackbird, and called the Habu by its crews.

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