Guno צְבִי
We fight, We win, Am Yisrael Chai
On May 15, 1972, an SR-71 Blackbird called the "Rapid Rabbit" — distinguished from the rest of the fleet by the Playboy Bunny logos painted on its sides — was flying a Mach 3.2 reconnaissance mission when both electrical generators failed in succession, causing both Pratt & Whitney J58 engines to flame out at 41,000 feet over the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. Pilot Major Tom Pugh and RSO Major Ronnie Rice expected to be shot down — but no attempt was ever made. Twenty years later, at a formal function in Washington DC, the North Vietnamese general who had commanded Hanoi's air defense told Pugh he hadn't fired because he and his staff had concluded the broken aircraft must be a deliberate ploy — a booby-trapped SR-71 loaded with a nuclear weapon designed to detonate over Hanoi if shot down.