Documents / FOIA release

The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance; the U-2 and Oxcart Programs, 1954-1974

Central Intelligence Agency · 1900-01-01 · 406 pages · text by OCR

This is a 1992 CIA History Staff monograph by Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, originally classified Secret NOFORN and approved for release in 2013. It covers the CIA's manned overhead reconnaissance program from 1954 to 1974 and the two aircraft it developed, the U-2 and the A-12 OXCART. The history covers the U-2 overflights of the Soviet Union, the 1960 downing of Francis Gary Powers and later operations in Asia and Latin America. It also includes a section on U-2s, UFOs and Operation BLUE BOOK.

Open the PDF at page 325 Original source ↗

“Sea”26 pages

  • p. 16 …An RB-29 lost in the Sea of Japan on 13 June 1952 was probably also…
  • p. 38 …off to about 6 percent of its sea-level thrust. Finally, low structural load factors, like…
  • p. 75 …3 0 0 ^{\circ} \mathrm{F} $ at sea level. Manufacturing this special fuel required petroleum byproducts…
  • p. 80 …276 pounds heavier and delivered only 10,200 pounds of thrust at sea level; the resulting
  • p. 89 …that they could not be flown at sea level faster than 190 knots in smooth air…
  • p. 98 …southern Europe and then across the Black Sea and the desert areas of China. These balloons…
  • p. 139 …Soviet border from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea and on to Afghanistan. The System…
  • p. 146 …On 31 July, the same aircraft made a run over the Black Sea. There were a…
  • p. 148 …space launch facility east of the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan. None of the mission planners was…
  • p. 153 …of Soviet naval maneuvers in the Barents Sea. The final overflight of Detachment A. mission 2040…
  • p. 157 Secret NOFORN Chapter 3 144 U-2s flying well within international airspace above the Black Sea…
  • p. 158 …it turned abruptly upward over the Bering Sea just west of Alaska, climbed to 110,000…
  • p. 166 …the Soviet border and over the Black Sea without entering Soviet airspace. In late August, as…
  • p. 185 …Because the Bodo airfield was involved in NATO maneuvers taking place in the Barents Sea area…
  • p. 225 …forces were conducting an all-out air-sea-land drive against the rebel-held areas in…
  • p. 257 …The use of peripheral missions prevented any further losses, although one aircraft crashed into the sea…
  • p. 316 …Shortly before Leningrad, the A-12 would head west-southwest down the Baltic Sea, skirting the…
  • p. 317 …2 would be flying farther out to sea, safely beyond the range of all Soviet SAMs…
  • p. 350 …B B Afghanistan, Tashkent, Tyuratam, Kazalinsk, Aral Sea 11 August 1957 4039 McMurray Lahore B B…
  • p. 351 …A-2 Dushanbe, Tashkent, Tyuratam, Kazalinsk, Aral Sea 10 September 1957 4059 Hall Adana B A…
  • p. 369 …AQUILINE 304, 339-343 Arabs 256 Aral Sea 135 Arbenz, Jacobo 16 "Archangel-1" 262 "Archangel…
  • p. 371 ## Secret NOFORN Index 358 Baltic Sea 3, 303 Baltic states 104 Baltimore; Maryland 6, 9 Barents…
  • p. 373 …186, 201, 205, 208-209, 299, 327 Caspian Sea 126 catheterized 64 cathode-ray tube 267…
  • p. 382 …23-24, 109, 139, 143, 164 Kara Sea 142 Kazakh language 135 Kazakhstan 135 Kazan', Soviet…
  • p. 385 …301 mechanical fuel totalizer/counters 68 Mediterranean Sea 114, 116, 121, 140, 142, 153 medium-range…
  • p. 393 …7 Scranton-Wilkes-Barre Airport, Pennsylvania 222 Sea of Japan 3 Seaberg, John 8-9, 12…
Secret NOFORN
Chapter 6
312

Initial storage arrangements for A-12s at Palmdale

## POSSIBLE SUCCESSORS TO THE OXCART

The OXCART was the last high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft produced for the CIA, although the Office of Special Activities did briefly consider several possible successors to the OXCART during the mid-1960s. The first of these, known as Project ISINGLASS, was prepared by General Dynamics to utilize technology developed for its Convair Division's earlier FISH proposal and its new F-111 fighter in order to create an aircraft capable of Mach 4-5 at 100,000 feet. General Dynamics completed its feasibility study in the fall of 1964, and OSA took no further action because the proposed aircraft would still be vulnerable to existing Soviet countermeasures. In 1965 a more ambitious design from McDonnell Aircraft came under consideration as Project RHEINBERRY (although some of the work seems to have come under the ISINGLASS designation as well). This proposal featured a rocket-powered aircraft that would be launched from a B-52 mother ship and ultimately reach speeds as high as Mach 20 and altitudes of up to 200,000 feet. Because building this aircraft would have involved tremendous technical challenges and correspondingly high costs, the Agency was not willing to embark on such a program at a time when the main emphasis in overhead reconnaissance had shifted from aircraft to satellites. As a result, when the OXCART program ended in the summer of 1968, no more advanced successor was waiting in the wings—only the veteran U-2.

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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 406 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.