"Jukka O. Kauppinen" wrote in
message ...

I suspect the SR-71s have flown intentionally in Swedish airspace. The
Blackbirds did however run a regular route in the international
airspace, at times very close to the Swedish border.

Swedes did intercept SR-71, though. With careful calculated interception
a Swedish fighter did streak into intercept position and got a radar
lock. The SR-71 flights over the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Finland stopped
for several weeks after that with the USAAF trying to find out how the
Swedes could do that.

First, with an absolute maximum ceiling of about 65K feet, how could a
Draken have acheived a radar lock on a SR-71 flying at its operational
altitude (the ol' "in excess of 85K feet" bit)? Second, the USAAF would have
been hard pressed to investigate a situation that came along twenty-five or
more years after it ceased to exist..:-)


The story below seems just a fabrication - how the Blackbird pilots or
anyone could even know that the Swedes tried to get them, if they didn't
even get planes up before they'd exited?

Another variation of this story tells, that the Blackbird pilots sent
the Swedes a trophy for being the only people ever to have intercepted
an SR-71. Given the circumstances that is far more believable, since an
interception is known to have happened.

Cite?

Brooks


jok

I remember reading about SR-71(Blackbird) aircraft flying in Swedish
airspace on recon missions to Russia, chased by the Swedish air force.
Apparently the Swedish aircraft never got into air even before the
Blackbird had exited Swedish airspace. The Blackbird pilots even sent
the Swedes Christmas post cards with compliments about their attempts
to get them.

Anyone else know of this story? Is it true?