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.
“Hill”14 pages
have CIA act as executive agent for this transaction, which the Air Force called Project DRAGON LADY. To maintain secrecy, the Air Force transferred funds to the CIA, which then placed an order with Lockheed for 29 U-2s in configurations to be determined by the Air Force. The Air Force later bought two more U-2s, for a total of 31. The aircraft purchased for the Air Force were known as the Follow-On Group, which was soon shortened to FOG. $ ^{56} $
Once enough pilots had been trained, Project AQUATONE managers concentrated on checking out the complete U-2 system: planes, pilots, navigation systems, life-support systems, and cameras. From 10 through 14 April 1956, U-2s equipped with A-2 cameras took off from Area 51 and made eight overflights of the United States in order to test the various flight and camera systems as part of the standard Air Force Operational Readiness Inspection. Colonel Yancey and his detachment served as observers during this weeklong exercise.
A-2 camera being installed in U-2 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.