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CIA: Flying Skyhook Wasn't Just For James Bond, It Actually Rescued Agents
coondoggie writes "This had to be one hell of a ride. The CIA today said it added a pretty cool item to its museum archives — the instruction card for officers being plucked off the ground by a contraption that would allow a person to be snatched off the ground by a flying aircraft without the plane actually landing."
Teleporter's most likely. Always wondered what you could come up with with an unlimited budget, now we know.
They showed this extraction method on The Unit. Season 2, episode 1 "Change of Station".
They practiced this, pretty regularly at Hurlburt Field, Florida... within view of the general public. Several of the MC-130's were fitted with the catch arms. (It's even had a wikipedia page for awhile now.)
So, yeah, it's cool... but it's hardly new or a secret.
Another stupid webmaster who never learned about aspect ratios. In fact, there's also stupid people in television stations, because the amount of broadcasts with the wrong aspect ratio is rather astounding.
Pah!
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
I didn't realize this flying skyhook technology and its use were doubted by any serious person. Are these the same people who doubt the moon landings?
prop plane flying in special circles could keep a weight at end of winchable cable relatively stationary to ground. this method was used to take and deliver mail at remote locations, and at stunt shows to pick up and leave a stuntman.
You can see a display about this in the Evergreen Avation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon. They have an airplane on display with the "catcher" appratus mounted on the nose, and I think they have the other hardware too. (It's been a few years since I went there, and I mostly remember my tour of the Spruce Goose.)
http://www.evergreenmuseum.org/
They had some other intriguing stuff. I remember a short-range VTOL device that was basically an airplane engine mounted vertically; it sucked air in from the top, blew it out the bottom, and the operator would stand on a ring that circled the outside of the engine. I remember wondering how difficult that might be to fly, since it was too old to have a computer-controlled active stabilisation system. Also, I think I would want to wear hearing and eye protection if I was riding that thing.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Many more details here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_surface-to-air_recovery_system
the catch was actually relatively gentle considering the plane would have been travelling at a couple hundred mph. Something to do with the lift of the balloon and friction on the rope...
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
In WWII we were recovering entire gliders this way, not just people: http://www.silentwingsmuseum.com/pdf/RetrievalSystem.pdf -- a history of airplane/ground retrieval systems specifically relating to the effort to pull Waco CG4A gliders big enough to hold 15 people, from the fields where they'd landed back into the air and tow them back to the launch airbase without the tow plane landing. It was dangerous work and pretty often it ended up just tearing the glider into pieces but it was successful a fair amount of the time.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
I heard (or I think I heard) about some system where you could play out a rope from a plane and, if the rope was long enough, the plane could circle and somehow the end of the rope would be held over a certain spot on the ground. Apparently (again, if I recall correctly) it could be used to gently lower equipment to the ground, where the receiver could just reach up and unhook the shipment from the rope while the plane was circling overhead. Has anyone ever heard of anything like that?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
the mail wagon got its mail from small cities by having a snatch hook grab it from a hanging hook at the edge of the platform, and the snatch hook was then pulled back into the mail car. so the CIA technology is derivative.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
This was my bet on the most effective way to get him out of London. Too bad Ecuador doesn't have the equipment.
The British experimented and used this method already during WWII, to retrieve spies from occupied Europe.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem delendam esse
I seem to remember that this contraption was used in the John Wayne film "The Green Berets", and since it was way before special effects, I suspect it was really a person being snatched off the ground.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
..The article was referencing this version: http://qbit.cc/cia-money-behind-wi-fi-positioning-system-wps/
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
http://military.discovery.com/videos/top-secret-weapons-revealed-sky-hook.html
Seems like they found a few good uses for the system.
Congratulations, you are the 100th person to make exactly the same post in this thread, so you get a special bumper sticker.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I’ll be driving the author of that article next week to the annual WWII glider pilot’s reunion. It was called snatch pickup or “the snatch”. About 1-in-8 WWII gliders were launched this way: http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA516653 The tow plane’s winch grew out of airmail pickup in the Alleghenies, with the goal posts first used by the Marines in 1927 (there’s a display at the National Museum of the Marine Corps). The physics of a 1946 launch of a 25,000-lb cargo glider into flight: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1559-3584.2009.00190.x/abstract A towed variation retreived telemetry tapes off tracking ships after rocket shots in the 1950’s, and a mid-air version caught spy satellite film. Today only aerial-towed banners are picked up this way.
Is it a rule, that there's an exception to every rule?
Not one mention of MGS: Peace Walker? All Fulton, All The Time.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I saw this demoed by the 5th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg on the mid 60's at the "Gabriel Demonstration" area (Dedicated to an early SFG member captured and killed in 1962 in VN) They used a dummy and I think a c-130
History of the 5th SFG and SP5 Gabrial: http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=77533
*"Cogito Ergo Liberalis"*
In "When the Bullet Hits Your Funny bone" http://amzn.com/1606190660 One of the "funny" stories talks about this device and a SEAL being whisked away from a card game. Unfortunately, something went wrong and he released just before reaching the plane. He flashed the bird to the plane as he fell to his death. That was the one tale from that book in which I didn't quite see the humor. Just goes to show how routine this stuff is for those who live it.