DET 4 SR-71 question

[El Diablo]

Hi, I'm creating a digital image of a Blackbird departing from Mildenhall during the 'good old days'.
As i'm only 30 years old I don't remember the DET 4 birds departing for recce missions.

I have read many storys of missions all over the world but cant seem to find any info about mission times etc.
So I am curious to know if they had any regular times they would launch? I would imagin they would go up early mornings?? My plan is for the picture to be of one flying in to the rising sun. If anyone can help me out with pointing me in the right direction to this sort of info it would be greatley appreciated.

Many thanks.

[Tango13]

The take off times would vary according to where they wanted to go. Sometimes the time on target would be arranged to make the best of the available sunlight. Sometimes in the case of the Libyan post strike recon they were timed to be overhead as soon after the raids as possible.

So you can paint what you like really

[El Diablo]

Thanks for that. There is always a bit of artistic licence I guess, just want to be as accurate as possible.

I pretty much thought that would be the case with times due to available light over the target. But wouldn't they be launching early am or during daylight hours from the UK rather than in the evening 99% of the time?

The idea I have in my head is for it to be taking off from Mildenhall runway 11.

[trickywoo]

If you can get some shock diamonds in there that would be good.

[Gokartmozart]

I have a copy of Lockheed Blackbird- Beyond the Secret Missions by Paul Circkmore.
Chpt 9 covers some of the DET $ mission sorties.

Having a quick scan, one sortie to Yemen around March 79 gives sortie take offs of 04:00

One arrival is given as 14:52 Aug 7 Bodo to Mildenhall

First deployment left Beale AFB 02:00 and arrived mid afternoon UK time.
There are several quotes of arriving in the afternoon due to UK weather considerations.

One paragraph also states a sortie on Nov 3 1977 was an evening take off which was unusual due to noise considerations.

One ferry flight back to Beale AFB 5 July 83 departed 10:00

The above are strictly pre DET 4 deployment

Quoted DET 4d Sorties

980 Dept 10:10 3 June 86

979 Dept 07:30 27 July 84

For the 86 raid on Libya 980 dept 05:00 16th April

[NM62]

I saw 10 Different SR71's departing and arriving many times ( ex plane spotter ) , earliest departure i saw was 05:30, we were camping rough just off the a1101 at the easterly end of the runway and that headed out towards Norway according to radio communications.

This was late 70's and early to mid 80's

Latterly there were times when there were two SR71's operating out of there and they were sometimes both active in one day.

A mate got a beautiful sunset picture of the SR71 and the U2R at the Western end of the runway unfortunately have lost touch.

HTH.

[El Diablo]

Thanks for all the info chaps.

I'll post a pic of it once done.