Delco Remy Division - USS Alabama Museum

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USS Alabama - Mobile, AL

This is located in the Aviation Museum at the USS Alabama.

This is a Lockheed A-12 on display at the USS Alabama Air Museum and was designed for the CIA in secret by Kelly Johnson at the Lockheed "Skunk Works". The A stood for "Article" so that what it was and its mission would remain secret, which was high altitude reconnaissance. The CIA operated the A-12 so secretly that President Johnson did not even know the aircraft existed.

The A-12 was a single seat aircraft vs. the later Air Force SR-71 which had two seats and because of this the A-12 was actually the faster aircraft. The SR-71 gets all the credit for being the world's fastest aircraft because all information on the A-12 was classified and what has been released on the program was just done in the past five years. The first missions flown by the A-12 were spy flights of North Vietnam and China during the Vietnam War. The yellow unit is the starter for the jet engines.

The starter was powered by two Buick Big Block engines driving a single drive shaft that came out of the top of the starter unit.

The Big Blocks are located side by side. In the foreground is a DR Delcotron and in the background one can see the other alternator on the second engine.

No doubt the starters and the ignition on these Buicks were Delco-Remy units also. But there it is, the Delco-Remy name for all the visitors to the museum to see.

This gear with the counter sunk holes was on the end of the drive shaft that came out the top of the starter unit. The drive shaft would extend upwards and this gear and holes would then engage a matching gear and set of pins on the A-12 and later SR-71 engines. (There were two engines on the aircraft and they would have to be started separately or have two starters available for simultaneous start.) Once the the Buicks came up to speed a clutch could be engaged to start rotating the jet engine. Delco-Remy was everywhere in the old days. In this case it was involved in one of the blackest and most secretive spy programs the CIA ever had which even the President of the United States did not know about.