Documents / FOIA release
This is a CIA History Staff monograph by Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, written in 1992 and approved for release in 2011. It covers the CIA's manned overhead reconnaissance program from 1954 to 1974 and its two aircraft, the U-2 and the A-12 OXCART. It follows their development, the overflights of the Soviet Union, the downing of Francis Gary Powers in 1960, and later operations. One section is titled "U-2s, UFOs, and Operation BLUE BOOK."
“Nevers”24 pages
Sratrt.11/Qt2.1....31■1 Chapter 5 251 005653421 UNCLASSIFIED There was never another Agency U-2 mission from an aircraft carrier. Although the idea of using a floating airbase to avoid political sensitivity proved feasible, the cost did not. Aircraft carriers are enor- mously expensive to operate and require an entire flotilla of vessels to protect and service them. The movement of large numbers of big ships is difficult to conceal and cannot be hastily accomplished, while the deployment of a solitary U-2 to a remote airfield can take place overnight. A New Version of the U-2 By the summer of 1966, the number of flyable Agency U-2s had dwindled to six—two at in California—wan three more in LOCKIICCU ullueigu- ing re Agency had originally ordered 20 U-2s in 1954-55 (the Air Force had purchased another 31 of these planes), and Kelly Johnson's crew at the Skunk Works had managed to assemble four additional craft for the Agency from leftover spare parts and usable sections of crashed aircraft. This brought the total number of U-2s ac- quired by the Agency to 24, for an average cost o leach. _ - At this point, the DC1 and the Secretary of Defense on 1 August 1966 decided to place an order with Lockheed for ei g ht more aircraft to be used in the Agency and Air Force U-2 programs—a completely new version of the aircraft. Kelly Johnson had been working on ways to improve the performance of the U-2 since early 1965 because he was concerned that all the modifications and additions to the aircraft over the years had made it so heavy that it had lost almost half of its ran ge and several thousand feet in cruisin g. altitude.7 ' The new model, known as the U-2R, had a lon ger fuselage and a wider wingspan than the original U-2. The U-2R's wings were 103 feet long with 1,000 square feet of lifting surface, in contrast to the U-2C's 80-foot wings with only 600 square feet. The longer fuselage of the U-2R made it possible to provide two pressurized bays with an additional 2.2 cubic meters of equipment space and also achieve a better weight distribu- tion. The net result of all these improvements was a much better per- forming aircraft. No lon g er did the U-2 pilot have to worry about keeping the aircraft's speed at altitude within a 6-knot window in the stall/buffet corner of the flight envelope. The envelope was now ex- tended to 20 knots, which greatly improved flyability. E0 12958 1.6fillill>1010<25Yrs Johnson, "Log for Project X, - 2 February 1965. June to October 1965, 20 October 1965: Johnson. - U-2R Log, - January to August 1966. ret 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.