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."
“Donald A. Johnson”17 pages
CO5653421 UNCLASSIFIED --g-e171111149/41/41, Chapter 2 68 power-to-weight ratio of 2.7: I was almost 20 percent less efficient than the preferred P-31 version.' To conduct lengthy missions over hostile territory, the U-2 needed to carry a large amount of fuel. Kelly Johnson used a "wet-wing" design for the U-2, which meant that fuel was not stored in separate fuel tanks but rather in the wing itself. Each wing was di- vided into two leak-proof compartments, and fuel was pumped into all the cavities within these areas; only the outer 6 feet of the wings were not used for fuel storage. The U-2 also had a 100-gallon reserve tank in its nose. Later, in 1957, Johnson increased the fuel capacity of the U-2 by adding 100-gallon -slipper" tanks under each wing, pro- jecting slightly ahead of the leading edge. One of the most important considerations in the U-2's fuel sys- tem was the need to maintain aircraft trim as the fuel was consumed. The aircraft therefore contained a complex system of feed lines and valves draining to a central sump, which made it impossible to pro- vide the pilot with an empty/full type of fuel gauge. None of the first 50 U-2s had normal fuel gauges. Instead there were mechanical fuel totalizer/counters. Before the start of a mission, the ground crew set the counters to indicate the total amount of fuel in the wings. and then a flow meter subtracted the gallons of fuel actually consumed during the flight. The pilot kept a log of the fuel consumption shown by the counters and compared it with estimates made by mission planners for each leg of the flight. As a double check, U-2 pilots also kept track of their fuel consumption by monitoring airspeed and time in the air. Most pilots became quite expert at this. Several who did not came up short of their home base during the 20 years these planes were flown.4' INITIAL TESTING OF THE U-2 Preliminary taxi trials began on 27 July 1955, when the first run down the newly completed runway took the plane to 50 knots. Lockheed's chief test pilot, Tony LeVier, was at the controls. A second taxi trial OSA Hiswry, chap. 8. p. 13 (TS Codewort). Information supplied by Norman Nelson. former director of Lockheed's Skunk Works, to Donald E. Welzenbach, 14 March 1986 (U): Miller. Lockheed U-2. pp. 77, 96. UNCLASSIFIED
Not linked to a story yet.
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.