The Liggen/Vightning/whatever is still in the works though the clock still turns and other models reach the finish; so lets jump back in time to Ronald Reagan taking office in the White House!
The military build-up besides encompassing the 600-ship Navy and revival of the B-1 also made room for more exotic projects. Ever since the maiden flight of Concorde during 1969 and most especially the 1973 Solar Eclipse Mission the USAF had a wet dream of a SuperSonicReconaissance aircraft that with in-flight refuelling capability and room for various mission types also should be capable of accommodating a double crew for very long extended flights around the Globe at high speed. More or less instant recce where We want it - when We want it!
With Reagan ready to open the coffers the USAF handed in their projects among a lot other and got the go as had been the case of the B-1 revival.
In years to come following delivery of the first USAF SSR-001 in 1983 from the assembly line that had been moved to Seattle on March 23, coinciding with the on-TV launching of the Strategic Defence Initiative didn't fail to name the aircraft Star Wars 1 by those on the inside of the USAF!
The first hot mission occured on April 18, following the bombing of the US Embassy in Beiruth, Lebanon supplementing other sources of intel gathered.
Actually knowledge of the aircraft was kept limited for a number of years and even if rumours of its operations did get out the information was very small with no pictures of the aircraft existing; that is not until the Libyan-Chad war broke out in January 1987 when the French foreign minister managed to disclose that part of the intelligence gathered that made Chadian army able to defeat the Libyan tank brigade had been provided by USAF overflights of SSR-001 aircraft.
This led to a mad scramble of any air-nerd worldwide to produce pics of the aircraft. It wasn't till late 1987 when a British journalist on a trip across the Indian Ocean managed to get a blurred image from high altitude of one on the runway of Diego Garcia base. It didn't exactly mirror you ordinary Concorde - if a Concorde ever could be labelled ordinary - with the twin rudders and antennae panels behind the cockpit.
It took some years before the USAF itself disclosed the SSR-001 which then happened at a US airshow. In an instant the aircraft was the most photographed of the world. It was speculated that the tail/rudders lay-out was in response to the not uncommon problems that had been encountered on Concorde but could also be part of Radar profile reduction that would help to make it near radar-invisible! This of course was not commented on by US defense department officials.
Here's a few pictures:
It was apparent that USAF aircrews still would uphold the great tradition of nose-art
The aircraft registration did pose some queries from air-plane spotters - would this be the new Airforce II?
..or did this signal VIP-transport too with of course a most prestitious mile-high-club following??
Anyway the upper fuselage "windows" as well as the under fuselage "windows" were the focus of much air-nerd debate usually attributing the lower ones to cameras though the upper ones would remain a mystery. At some point it was reported that a Tu-144 had been spotted at Schönefeld Airport East Berlin with like "windows"!
This Airfix 1/144 Concorde was handed me by my brother-in-law; partially built with one main landing gear broken I decided to go for a kit-bash. The tail was sawed off and replaced with ones from Heller 1/72 Viggen's. The antennae panel's are pieces of plastic card glued to the fuselage. Decals from stash. Brush painted in Light and Dark Ghost Gray.
Enjoy.