Documents / FOIA release
This is a CIA History Staff monograph by Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, published in Washington in 1992 and approved for release in 2011. It covers the CIA's manned overhead reconnaissance program from 1954 to 1974, which developed and flew the U-2 and the A-12 OXCART. It traces the U-2's development, the overflights of the Soviet Union, the downing of Francis Gary Powers on 1 May 1960, and later operations. One section is titled U-2s, UFOs, and Operation BLUE BOOK.
“Mons”1 page
CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED Sec Chapter 6 262 The two most prominent firms involved in the search for a new aircraft were Lockheed, which had designed the successful U-2, and Convair, which was building the supersonic B-58 "Hustler" bomber for the Air Force and also working on an even faster model known as the B-58B "Super Hustler." Early in 1958, Richard Bissell asked of- ficials from both firms to submit designs for a high-speed reconnais- sance aircraft. During the spring and summer of 1958, both firms worked on design concepts without government contracts or funds. Following extended discussions with Bissell on the subject of a supersonic successor to the U-2, Lockheed's Kelly Johnson began de- signing an aircraft that would cruise at Mach 3.0 at altitudes above 90,000 feet. On 23 July 1958, Johnson presented his new high-speed concept to Land's advisory committee, which expressed interest in the approach he was taking. At the same meeting, Navy representatives presented a concept for a high-altitude reconnaissance vehicle that ex- amined the possibility of developing a ramjet-powered, inflatable, rubber vehicle that would be lifted to altitude by a balloon and then be propelled by a rocket to a speed where the ramjets could produce thrust. Richard Bissell asked Johnson to evaluate this concept, and three weeks later, after receiving more details from Navy repre- sentatives, Kelly Johnson made some quick calculations that showed that the design was impractical because the balloon would have to be a mile in diameter to lift the vehicle, which in turn would need a wing surface area greater than one-seventh of an acre to carry the payload.' By September 1958, Lockheed had studied a number of possible configurations, some based on ramjet engines, others with both rain- jets and turbojets. Personnel at Lockheed's Skunk Works referred to these aircraft concepts as "Archangel-1," "Archangel-2," and so forth, a carryover from the original nickname of "Angel" given to the U-2 during its development. These nicknames for the various designs soon became simply "A-1," "A-2," etc. In September 1958, the Land committee met again to review all the concepts then under consideration and to winnow out the few that were most practicable. Among the concepts rejected were the Navy's proposal for art inflatable, ramjet-powered aircraft, a Boeing proposal for a 190-foot-long hydrogen-powered inflatable aircraft, and a 'Clarence L. Johnson, "Development of the Lockheed SR-7l Blackbird," Studies in Intelligence 26 (Summer I982):4 (U); Johnson. "Archangel log," 23 July 1958, 14 August 1958. UNCLASSIFIED
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 406 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.