Documents / Official release
This is a Secret History Staff monograph by Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach of the Central Intelligence Agency, published in 1992. It gives a history of the CIA's manned overhead reconnaissance program from 1954 to 1974, covering the development and operation of the U-2 and the A-12 OXCART aircraft. It covers overflights of the Soviet Union, the 1960 downing of Francis Gary Powers, and later operations. One section is titled "U-2s, UFOs, and Operation BLUE BOOK."
From the source:Release of 2026-06-12 This CIA History Staff document chronicles the complete history of the U-2 and OXCART (A-12) high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft programs from 1954 to 1974, detailing their development, operations over the Soviet Union and other targets worldwide, the famous downing of Francis Gary Powers in 1960, organizational reforms following that incident, and the eventual transfer of operations from CIA to Air Force control. A more redacted version of this document has been available on CIA's public website.
269 ~,et NOFOAN Chapter 6 to be ignited. Since ramjet engines had only been tested in wind tun nels, there was no available data to prove that these engines would work in the application proposed by Convair. The second uncertain factor was the B-58B bomber that was supposed to achieve Mach 2.2 before launching the FISH above 35 ,000 feet. This version of the B-58 was still in the design stage. Convair's proposal suffered a major setback in June 1959, when the Air Force canceled the 8-58B project. Conversion of the older, slower B-58A into a supersonic launching platform for the FISH was ruled out by the high cost and technical difficulties invol ved. Moreover, the Air Force was unwilling to part with two aircraft from the small inventory of its most advanced bomber. Even had the B-588 program not been canceled, however, the FISH proposal would proba bly not have been feasible. Convair engineers had calculated that the added weight of the FISH would prevent the B-588 from achieving the speed required to ignite the parasite aircraft's ramjet engines. The Convai r proposal was therefore unusable, but the Lockheed design with its high radar cross section was also unacceptable to the Land committee. On 14 July 1959, the committee rejected both Lockheed A · 11 Sec,et
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Official release, from the pursue 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.