Project OXCART Declassified From Area 51 208
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from the LA Times:
"... the myths of Area 51 are hard to dispute if no one can speak on the record about what actually happened there. Well, now, for the first time, someone is ready to talk ... Colonel Hugh 'Slip' Slater, 87, was commander of the Area 51 base in the 1960s. Edward Lovick, 90, featured in 'What Plane?' in LA's March issue, spent three decades radar testing some of the world's most famous aircraft (including the U-2, the A-12 OXCART and the F-117). Kenneth Collins, 80, a CIA experimental test pilot, was given the silver star. Thornton 'T.D.' Barnes, 72, was an Area 51 special-projects engineer. And Harry Martin, 77, was one of the men in charge of the base's half-million-gallon monthly supply of spy-plane fuels."
Re:The A-12 is better known as the SR-71 (Score:5, Informative)
The A-12 was a successor to the U-2 and precursor to the SR-71. The A-12 project ended in '68. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_A-12
Re:The A-12 is better known as the SR-71 (Score:5, Informative)
A-12: CIA-flown single-seater
SR-71: Air Force-flown two-seater
Re:How they could have kept this secret (Score:5, Informative)
Re:OXCART (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The A-12 is better known as the SR-71 (Score:3, Informative)
What? Every source out there lists the SR-71 as a single-seater plane, with a few two-seater planes existing for training purposes. The A-12 was the designation for the CIA version, while SR-71 was the official designation of the final plane. Not to mention that I highly doubt that the CIA actually flew those planes. The SR-71 might have been flying recon for the CIA, but I just don't know many test pilots in the CIA.
Re:The A-12 is better known as the SR-71 (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/barrier/machines.html [pbs.org]
Relevant text:
The two-seat SR-71 was developed in the early 1960s by the U.S. Air Force as a strategic reconnaissance aircraft.
Re:The A-12 is better known as the SR-71 (Score:2, Informative)
I refer you to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-71#Specifications_.28SR-71A.29 [wikipedia.org]
Where it says:
Crew:2
(not going to bother to look up the primary sources)
Conspiracy Theorists' Wet Dream..... (Score:3, Informative)
Why is it that conspiracy theorists love to believe that:
1. All unidentifiable flying objects are of extraterrestrial origin?
2. Highly-Secure (as opposed to 'secret') military installations have alien bodies and extraterrestrial spacecraft?
3. Mysterious animals in the Pacific Northwest are all Sasquatches.
4. Unexplained technologies are of extraterrestrial origin.
It's amazing how people sometimes refuse to acknowledge that there is an EXTREMELY SLIM CHANCE that any of these have actually occurred, yet continue to claim that they happen all the time.
Just because something cannot be explained in now way validates the fantasies of conspiracy theorists.
Because if two people know, it's not a secret (Score:5, Informative)
Basically what it gets down to is the more people who are in on something, the more likely information leaks out. Now as with any large government bureaucracy, when you involve another arm of the government, you get even more people than just those you needed. I mean if you go to the Air Force and secretly hire away some pilots, well then very few people even know that anything has happened, and all they know is that the CIA wants some flyboys. If you have the AF run it, well now you have all kinds of additional people who know about it.
A big part of keeping secrets is compartmentalizing information, and restricting access to the minimum amount of people.
Nothng new here (Score:5, Informative)
Most of this info is in Ben Rich's book, "Skunk Works". The story doesn't have much if any new information. The SR-71 story is well known, and there's one at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. (They have the engineering documents for it, too, which can be seen on request.) Most of the stealth aircraft were tested at Area 51.
There are other sites "near" Area 51. Jackass Flats was a well known nuclear test area in the 1950s. (You can't really hide atmospheric nuclear testing.) The Sedan crater [google.com], from a nuclear test, is in that area. It's interesting to look at the area in Google Maps. There are all sorts of little abandoned installations in the Nellis Bombing Range area.
Back in the 1980s, the Lockheed Skunk Works ran a small ad in Aviation Week. It said only "If you missed out on this one (picture of U-2) and on this one (picture of SR-71) how'd you like to get in on the next one? Lockheed Skunk Works, Burbank, CA." That's how you got into stealth aircraft.
There's still a big USAF black budget, and it doubled during the Bush years. The question is whether much useful is coming out.
Re:The A-12 is better known as the SR-71 (Score:3, Informative)
Sled Driver [amazon.com] is pilot-centric.
Re:How they could have kept this secret (Score:2, Informative)
Well I guess that the gay bomb might not have worked out considering that it could potentially booster the morale of the enemy troops and eagerly protect their loved ones.
Well, it worked in Sparta. And you didn't mess with the Spartans
Re:I just find it amazing (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, there is. A high/low mix of Predator and Global Hawk UAVs provide real-time intelligence with a loiter time. Rather than blowing by a target at Mach 3, UAV surveillance gives the ability to observe a target for a long period of time. I suspect if there's a secret reconnaissance aircraft in the U.S. inventory it's a stealth UAV, something like the DarkStar concept only my guess is it's scaled up to have endurance similar to Global Hawk.
Aviation Week is the best non-classified source (Score:1, Informative)
Aviation Week magazine is the best non-classified source for information on old, new, and proposed aircraft. "Black" projects can only remain "Black" as long as development occurs or if they are tiny.
Find a library with a subscription to Aviation Week if you want to know more. When I was in the business, it was about $300 for an annual subscription. Hopefully they have online versions now for much less cost.
Re:The A-12 is better known as the SR-71 (Score:3, Informative)
Nah, I had just shot those and tried to make a photosynth of them. It didn't act as advertised, but at least all the photos ended up online. I didn't have them anywhere else to link to, or else I would have linked directly to the cockpit photo, which shows two distinct cockpit windows.
How about this...
USAF Diagrams of the pilot and RSO seats [sr-71.org]
Photo of the RSO seat (the rear seat) [flickr.com]
It's not to argue the point though. There were 13 1-seat A-12 and 32 2-seat SR71's built.
And just to keep things interesting. Here's a M-21 with a D-21 drone [sr-71.org]