Angels and Oxcarts
Aviation and intel buffs probably already know what this article is about from the title.
The GMU National Security Archive has posted a fascinating declassified document released earlier this year by the CIA. It deals with the U2 and its successor, the A-12.
The document is huge (390+ pages), and appears to have minimal redaction.
Those interested can view the document in PDF format here. Unfortunately, you’ll have to use torrent to download the whole document at once, or you’ll have to download the chapters individually.
For those who didn’t already know: “Angel” was Kelly Johnson’s in-house (e.g., Skunk Works) name for the U2. “Oxcart” was the name given by the CIA to the project that developed the successor to the U-2, the A-12.
If you’re drawing a blank on “A-12” – that was the initial, single-seat version of an airframe better known today as the SR-71.
Amazing.
Category: Historical
The Blackbird was originally designated as the RS-71, Reconnaissance, Special-71. They let LBJ announce it and he screwed it up by calling it the SR-71. Not a single one of the toadies surrounding him would contradict him or correct his goof. They rushed out to get every document changed that referred to the plane as the RS-71. I wonder what it’s like to be omnipitant?
Roger in Republic: that’s true. But it’s only part of the story.
The version exposed as the SR-71 was actually not a SR-71 at all. Rather, it was one of the fighter prototypes being evaluated for the USAF – the YF-12A (three were built; one survives, and is in the USAF Museum). The reconnaissance version hadn’t yet been built.
Johnson was originally going to reveal the existence of the YF-12 program. Gen. Curtis Lemay preferred the “Reconnaissance/Strike” designation (RS), and convinced LBJ to change to this. However, as you noted LBJ screwed up the designation during his speech, calling it instead the “SR-71”. The USAF then quickly determined that “SR” stood for “Strategic Reconnaissance”.
The actual reason for revealing the program was that program test and training flights were becoming impossible to hide, and it was thus impossible to keep the existence of the program a secret much longer – particularly with the increased flight activity associated the start of YF-12/SR-71 development.
The existence of a double-digit fleet of operational A-12s wasn’t released until much, much later.
What is still amazing to me is that the Oxcart program was underway less than 20 years after the end of WWII.
Let that sink in. We had the century-series fighters, the B-47, B-52, and, amazingly, the B-58 all up and running starting just 10 years after WWII ended, and by 1965, we had an incredible technical edge over our Soviet friends.
And it wasn’t just in the Air Force. the US Navy pioneered many things that gave us a tactical, and in some cases, a strategic edge over the Soviets that most people cannot fathom. Our Achilles heel, though, was intelligence, and we had many programs compromised, and especially code systems, by traitors within our own ranks. Hanson, the Walkers, etc.
But even though i was involved day-to-day in some programs, as was NHsparky and others here, it still amazes me what we could, and did, develop.
You know Kelly is turning over in his grave at this. He demanded secrecy all the time. If you ever get the chance, read his book. It’s fascinating! He was a great man.
AW1Tim, it happened that way because people had the incentive to pursue developing those progrsms.
I doubt the current generations have anything like that.
Yes, but change the word “incentive” to “money.”
Although the defense budget wasn’t as high (in %GDP) as in the ’50s, it was still pretty high compared to now.
This irritates me whenever somebody talks about Eisenhower’s phrase the “military-industrial complex.” They’d been spending huge numbers back in Eisenhower’s day. Those numbers never came back.
Incentive does not equal money. Money supported the incentive to develope new systems and explore new technology.
If that weren’t the case, the iPad would just be a bright idea in Jobs’ head.
Yes, quite true. But the incentive got the money. The money was there back then, and it hasn’t been back since.
Even Reagan’s big defense build-up never got us back to where we were in the ’50s and ’60s — to say nothing of WWII. In %GDP (and I think in the number of active duty troops), 9/11 didn’t even get us back to Reagan’s numbers.
[…] For what it’s worth: I’ve finished reading the material found at the link in my previous article on the subject. […]
If I remember correctly, the A-12 was developed to counter The Threat of a high speed bomber the soviets had just built, resulting in the famous Bomber Gap. U-2 overflights showed that the number of these bombers had been exaggerated. We later found out that its performance had also been over rated. The A-12 was very expensive overkill. Arming the aircraft proved problematic. At top speed it could out run its own bullets. Missiles would burn up at the high temps generated by its high speed. It was never a practical fighter and it only survived when it was modified to the reccon mission It was and is, the penultimate accomplishment in the aero arts.
Roger in Republic: that would be a negative. The A-12 was developed as the successor to the U-2. It was developed as an overhead recon platform with the same mission as the U-2: penetration overflight of denied areas. Advances in radar technology (specifically, the use of computers to assist in sorting/tracking targets coupled with more capable basic radars) rendered that mission impractical over the USSR and PRC prior to it becoming operational.
The version you’re thinking of was the YF-12. The YF-12 was a fighter variant of the original A-12 design. It was an afterthought that came about during A-12 development (I think Lockheed proposed unsolicited it to the USAF, but the USAF may have requested the proposal). Three prototypes were built (the last 3 articles in the original A-12 production run, as I recall). Two were lost in testing and/or other flight accidents; the surviving copy is today at the USAF Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB.
Bomber and recon variants were also proposed, but only the recon variant – a 2-seat version 5′ longer than the single-seat A-12, which later became the SR-71 – was adopted and acquired by the USAF.
Arming the YF-12 was difficult, but was proven both possible and reliable during testing. The airframe was armed with 3x AIM-47 missiles stored in internal bays and the Hughes AN/ASG-18 radar; both supersonic missile launch and low-level lookdown/shootdown capability were demonstrated during testing. The airframe was hugely more capable than anything the USAF had on the drawing board in the late 1950s/early 1960s – or would have any time for decades thereafter.
Neither the U-2 nor the A-12 was developed by or for the USAF; both were developed by Lockheed for a different Federal agency. The USAF adopted variants of both, but developed neither. (The USAF did provide assistance in logistics, basing, and training for both.)
My guess is the “not invented here” syndrome played a part in both the rejection of the YF-12 fighter variant by the USAF as well as the eventual retirement of the SR-71 – though economics likely played the dominant role in both decisions.
Wait long enough, and whats old becomes new again. Some very senior brass are squawking about the need for a plane like the Blackbird to fill a gap in ISR capability largely performed by satellites…just wishful thinking right now.
http://killerapps.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/24/the_pentagon_finally_wants_a_new_stealth_spy_plane
http://ebird.osd.mil/ebird2/ebfiles/e20130814928641.html