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Project OXCART Declassified From Area 51
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."
The answer is in Area 42, but you must bring your own towel.
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
A-12: CIA-flown single-seater
SR-71: Air Force-flown two-seater
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"I have also mastered pomposity, even if I do say so myself." -Kryten
Pffffff... The gay bomb was declassified years ago.
If you were a government agency in charge of secret weapons testing, what better cover could you possibly come up with than implausibility? It may not have fooled the Soviets, but it sure fooled the American public. Nowadays Area 51 is usually mentioned in the same breath as JFK and Elvis' retirement community.
It would be interesting to check the Soviet archives and see what they thought was going on in Area 51.
The book "Skunk Works" by Ben Rich discussed a lot of this.
Basically, they hired AF pilots (on loan or retired). This stuff was all very top-secret and the CIA didn't want it to be widespread knowledge in the Air Force.
They did this for the U-2 program too, which was a CIA initiated aircraft.
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"I have also mastered pomposity, even if I do say so myself." -Kryten
Is that the Area 42 over in Base 13?
No existe.
The truth comes out, but was hard to find in the article...
Colonel Hugh 'Slip' Slater, 87, was commander of the Area 51 base in the 1960s. Thornton 'T.D.' Barnes, 72, was an Area 51 special-projects engineer. Xorbz Blazzeet, 179, from the Orion system was dissected and stored in an Area 51 freezer for 16 years. And Harry Martin, 77, was one of the men in charge of the base's half-million-gallon monthly supply of spy-plane fuels.
You are referring to the YF-12A, which did fly and successfully launch an air-to-air guided missle, while flying at mach 3.2 at 74,000 feet, hitting a target drone flying at 500 feet altitude. Amazing, given the state of electronics and guidance technology at the time. Hell, all of the technology for the A-12 / YF-12 / SR-71 is still amazing today.
Anyway, the YF-12 was acknowledged and publicized so it could be used as a cover for the similar A-12 and follow-on RS-71 planes. It wasn't much of a stretch to think that we had ever-faster interceptors, but a stratospheric, Mach 3+ spy plane? That was science fiction. The RS-71 was re-named the SR-71 after Lyndon Johnson flubbed the name on live television. They changed all drawings and documents for the program, an amazingly expensive waste of tax-payers dollars, just so that no one would have to correct the Commander in Chief.
-- Len