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.
“Canberra”10 pages
advanced gear for the U-2 pilots. David Clark expert Joseph Ruseckas then developed a complex life-support system, which was the first partially pressurized "spacesuit" for keeping humans alive for lengthy periods at ultrahigh altitudes. The effort to provide a safe environment for pilots at high altitudes also involved the Firewel Company of Buffalo, New York, which pressurized the U-2 cockpit to create an interior environment equivalent to the air pressure at an altitude of 28,000 feet. The system was designed so that, if the interior cockpit pressure fell below the 28,000-feet level, the pilot's suit would automatically inflate. In either case, he could obtain oxygen only through his helmet. $ ^{34} $
MC-2 partial-pressure suit (seen on pilot Francis Gary Powers) 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.