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 59 Original source ↗

“F-104”5 pages

  • p. 23 …Johnson quickly came up with a radical design based upon the fuselage of the F-104…
  • p. 24 …same engine he had chosen for the F-104, which had been the basis for the…
  • p. 58 …Because its design was based on Lockheed's F-104, the U-2 was relatively inexpensive…
  • p. 342 …war his design successes continued with the F-104 jet fighter, the Constellation airliner, and the…
  • p. 377 …100 fighter 71 F-102 fighter 270 F-104 fighter 10-11, 45, 329 F-106…
Secret NOFORN
Chapter 2
46

Skunk Works Design Staff

speed of Mach 0.8 or 460 knots at altitude. Its initial maximum altitude would be 70,600 feet and the ultimate maximum altitude would be 73,100 feet. According to these early December 1954 specifications, the new plane would take off at 90 knots, land at 76 knots, and be able to glide 244 nautical miles from an altitude of 70,000 feet. After discussing the reconnaissance bay with James Baker, Johnson had worked out various equipment combinations that would not exceed the weight limit of 450 pounds. Johnson ended his report by promising the first test flight by 2 August 1955 and the completion of four aircraft by 1 December 1955. $ ^{12} $

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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.