61-7962

61-7962 was a production SR-71A of the USAF's 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing. The wing flew from Beale AFB in California, with detachments at Kadena in Okinawa and RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk.

On 28 July 1976, crewed by Captain Robert Helt and Major Larry Elliott, it reached 85,069 ft (25,929 m). That remains the absolute altitude record for sustained horizontal flight; other aircraft have gone higher only in zoom climbs. The flight was one of a set of records the SR-71 fleet established that summer.

The USAF retired the SR-71 fleet in 1990, and 61-7962 went into storage at Lockheed's Palmdale plant in California. In 2001 the National Museum of the US Air Force lent it to the Imperial War Museum. It represents the Blackbirds that flew from RAF Mildenhall during the Cold War. It was taken apart in the United States, shipped to Duxford and reassembled.

It was first shown in Hangar 1. It left that hangar on 8 June 2002. The next day it was rolled into the American Air Museum, which was then being refitted. It has remained there since, and it is the only SR-71 displayed outside the United States. In July 2026 IWM held a weekend of talks by former SR-71 crews beside the aircraft.

Displayed in the American Air Museum, where you can walk round it at floor level. The cockpits are not open to visitors.