U-2 History Complete

Found an article from the Atlantic Wire, it has a PDF document attached with newly declassified information on the U-2. Most of the information is already well known but there a bit in it that was previously classified, 3 pages on the British involvement in the program, previously redacted pages on U-2 operations in India, and US sponsored Chinese nationalist operations. Also the name 'Area 51' isnt redacted in these documents.

Atlantic Wire

Newly declassified documents, obtained by George Washington University's National Security Archive, appear to for the first time acknowledge the existence of Area 51. Hundreds of pages describe the genesis of the Nevada site that was home to the government's spy plane program for decades. The documents do not, however, mention aliens.

Here's the PDF file on the U-2 History.
U-2 History

More than three pages (pp. 153-157, previously deleted in their entirety) on British participation in the U-2 program. The authors note that President Dwight Eisenhower viewed British participation "as a way to confuse the Soviets as to sponsorship of particular overflights" as well to spread the risk of failure. An account (pp. 231-233, previously redacted in its entirety) of U-2 operations from India, between 1962 and 1967, triggered by the 1962 Sino-Indian war. An account (pp. 222-230 ff., almost entirely deleted in the previous release) of U.S.-sponsored Chinese Nationalist U-2 operations, including tables of the number of overflight and peripheral missions each year.

reply to post by Stealthbomber


There's a lot of information out there about some of that, such as the Taiwanese pilots (who had a horrible record for losses compared to US pilots), even some about British pilots flying it. It'll be interesting to sit and read this and see what other information they have in there that I haven't read yet.

On the news article ive linked it invites people to comment on other things in there that werent yet declassified, as the PDF is over 400 pages they probably didnt catch everything that was redacted in the last one but not in this one.

When I have the time id love to sit down and read the whole thing too.

I'm downloading it now, but the server is overloaded.

BTW, my N27RA FOIA submitted on 6/19 is still not done yet. Mind you JAG has phoned me twice, so there is no question as to what I am looking for.

reply to post by gariac


I'm looking forward to that. What exactly did you FOIA?

And nice find stealth. S and F. Downloading now...

reply to post by boomer135


In plain English, the request is for information about the crash of N27RA, including transcripts with ATC and anyone at the TTR. Also the flight plan and if there was a missed approached. I asked about the missed approach in the event they refuse the comm logs.

I say in plain English because you need to phrase things carefully so that the data can be released. That is, you say subject to redaction blah blah blah I want to know blah blah blah. Otherwise you get a letter asking you to make the request again. These people can drag things out if they want.

Obviously because of where the flight originated, they need to redact it. I'm expecting a third phone call when they finally release the report. For what, I don't know, but I get usually get a call at release time. But the phone call has never been a negative experience since they can help you phrase the next FOIA. For instance, when I FOIAd the locations of the fixes FIDOE and SHOWW, they could not be released because the names of the fixes were reserved, but the actual locations were not known. In the phone call, I was able to determine one fix was reserved by Nellis, and the other by "I can't say." But it never occurred to me to ask who reserved the fixes until I talked to the lawyer at the FAA. After my inquiries about the fixes, the powers that be eventually made them public. It wouldn't surprise me if all the Groom fixes are now "owned" by Nellis rather than "I can't say".

It was unknown to me at the time that you could even reserve a fix name. But note that the WWW prefix used by the Janet aircraft comes back to "reserved". So what Groom Lake did is set up an airline where you could file the proper FAA paperwork and not have the FAA computer kick it out for missing terms. Of course, the WWW flight prefix signifies nothing and until recently you never even knew the fixes.

I flipped through the first 158 pages. It is very similar to the document on the FAS website, but with more info obviously.

It is good to hear the creation story of Area 51 again as there are several versions out there. In this document, Area 51 was not part of the AEC's NTS. Ike added Area 51 to the NTS, but handed it over to the U-2 project. Not explicitly states, but perhaps adding the area to the proving grounds was to give it some cover.

I was tempted to skip the parts about the high altitude balloons, since that project was less than stellar from previous writings. However, it turns out that a metal bar used in the high altitude balloons resonated with Soviet radar, acting like a passive repeater. The USAF didn't know the frequency of the radar at the time. An interesting tidbit. Also states was some useful recon came out of the project.

One tidbit I didn't know is that the U-2 has/had a cover over the lens. This is to keep grime off the lens when taking off. They would drop the cover when they dropped the pogos. Makes sense.

The U-2 history over the Suez seems odd if your mindset is present day. That is, they needed recon over Gaza and Egypt, as if we didn't have people on the ground? Well I guess not. From reading some CIA history books, they concentrated on Europe. In fact, one of the reasons the CIA is so tied to the north east Ivy League schools is they needed American's accustomed to vacationing in Europe, hence go to the schools where the rich people attended. [In contrast, the FBI is full of ex-cops, so they are the blue collar G-men.]

Most interesting was the EG&G radar site at Indian Springs. They were trying to make the U-2 a bit more stealthy. That project was already known, mostly because it didn't work. [The so-called dirty bird.] I don't recall if it was mentioned that the work was done at Indian Springs. Even in the 1950s, if you needed to get from Reno to Vegas, you drove by Indian Springs. I assume the traffic was a fraction of what there is today, but still Indian Springs is really easy to observe.

Kelly Johnson got the brilliant idea of putting the plane on a boom rather than flying it, and thus perhaps the birth of static RCS.