Documents / FOIA release
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.
“Mission Control”28 pages
As it turned out, no review of the contract was necessary at the three-fourths point. Lockheed delivered the aircraft not only on time but under budget. During the final contract negotiations in the spring of 1958, Lockheed and the US Government agreed on a price for the original 20 aircraft of $17,025,542 plus a profit of $1,952,055 for a total of $18,977,597—less than $1 million for each aircraft. Because its design was based on Lockheed's F-104, the U-2 was relatively inexpensive even though only a small number of aircraft had been ordered. Only the wings and tail were unique; Lockheed manufactured the other portions of the aircraft using the F-104's jigs and dies.
## MAJOR DESIGN FEATURES OF THE U-2
Aware of the great need for secrecy in the new project, Kelly Johnson placed it in Lockheed's Advanced Development facility at Burbank, California, known as the Skunk Works. $ ^{10} $ Lockheed had established this highly secure area in 1945 to develop the nation's first jet aircraft, the P-80 Shooting Star. The small Skunk Works staff began making the detailed drawings for the U-2, which was nicknamed the "Angel" because it was to fly so high.
Kelly Johnson's approach to prototype development was to have his engineers and draftsmen located not more than 50 feet from the aircraft assembly line. Difficulties in construction were immediately brought to the attention of the engineers, who gathered the mechanics around the drafting tables to discuss ways to overcome the difficulties. As a result, engineers were generally able to fix problems in the design in a matter of hours, not days or weeks. There was no emphasis placed on producing neatly typed memorandums; engineers simply made pencil notations on the engineering drawings in order to keep the project moving quickly.
A little more than a week after he had been authorized to begin the project, Kelly Johnson wrote a 23-page report detailing his most recent ideas on the U-2 proposal. The aircraft, he explained, would be designed to meet load factors of only 2.5 g's, which was the limit for transport aircraft rather than combat planes. The U-2 would have a Not linked to a story yet.
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.