The Secret Genesis of Area 51

by Td Barnes

  The United States did not have pilots qualified to fly a plane at the high altitude or the long-lasting flights intended for the U-2. Nor were they qualified to fly a plane whose unique landing gear resembled a bicycle, with its wheels aligned under the center of the plane. No one was qualified to fly a plane as lightweight as a glider, a plane that wanted to fly and refused to land.

  The U-2, being a mixture of glider and jet, made training pilots more difficult even for the qualified fighter pilots chosen for the overflight program. The purpose of the training program was to teach the fighter pilots to fly the delicate U-2, a revolutionary new plane design concept with large wings and tremendous lift but too fragile to survive the stresses of loops and barrel rolls to which the pilots were accustomed. Moreover, the original placard U-2s found that flying in the smooth air at sea level limited their speed to a mere 190 knots or even lower to 50 knots in rough air.

  ARRIVAL AT AREA 51

  The selected pilots flew out of Burbank, California, in an air force C-54 transport plane, thinking they were preparing all this time for space flight. At Watertown, the plane pulled up to an aircraft with long, glider-type wings: the U-2. Four of the six pilots got off the plane; Marty Knutson and another pilot did not, saying thanks, but no thanks. After some persuasion, the two joined the other four.

  All six of the pilots came from a fighter background, flying planes with control sticks or, if a bomber pilot, wheels or yoke-type controls. The fighter pilots in those days considered bomber pilots below them. They looked into the cockpit of the U-2 and saw the wheel/yoke control, and all six returned to the transport plane saying, “No way.” Again, after much persuasion by the CIA, they all decided to give it a try.

  CHECKING OUT IN THE U–2

  All the selected pilots arrived at Area 51 as experienced fighter pilots, so it was a matter of becoming familiar with the plane and high-altitude flight. Aside from its extraordinary gliding ability, the U-2 proved to be a tough aircraft to fly. Its light weight that enabled it to achieve extreme altitudes also made it fragile. The aircraft was very sleek, and it sliced through the air with minimal drag. The U-2 design could not withstand high-speed G-forces, which made it very dangerous. Flying at high operational altitudes required the pilots to be extremely careful to keep the aircraft in a slightly nose-up attitude. If the pilot dropped the nose only a degree nose-down, it caused the plane to gain speed at a dramatic rate. In less than a minute, the speed could exceed the placard structural limit and come apart. Pilots, therefore, paid close attention to the aircraft’s speed indicator because at sixty-five thousand feet, they had no objects nearby to use as a reference to give them a physical sensation of speed.

  The P-37 model engine demonstrated poorer combustion characteristics than the preferred but unavailable P-31 version. The P-37 tended to flame out at high altitudes. The combustion problems became apparent as the U-2 began the final part of its climb from fifty-seven thousand to sixty-five thousand feet. The pilots referred to this area as the “badlands” or the “chimney.”

  The U-2 encountered some developmental and technical problems, as did all new aircraft designs. One such issue involved an oil film often appearing on the windscreen, which clouded the forward visibility and increased the landing problem. During the interval, until Kelly Johnson solved the problem, the pilots used a sanitary napkin on the end of a stick to clean enough of the windscreen for them to see to land.

  Flameouts at altitude proved a significant problem because it depressurized the cockpit and inflated the suit, thus preventing the pilot talking on the radio. It forced oxygen into the faceplate and mouth at a great rate while the aircraft slowly descended. Also, the neckpiece of the helmet often popped out, requiring the pilot to hold it in as far as possible with one hand and fly the plane with the other. The procedure created a dangerous predicament, to say the least. It did not take Johnson and the Pratt & Whitney engineers long to solve the flameout problem using a bleed valve—making the U-2 much less hazardous to fly at altitude.

  The flameouts bedeviled the U-2 project until sufficient numbers of the more powerful P-31 engines became available in the spring of 1956. Meanwhile, with the airworthiness of the U-2 airframe proven, Lockheed set up a production line in the Skunk Works. Nonetheless, delivery of even the second-choice J57/P-37 became a major problem. The CIA learned of Pratt & Whitney contracting with the U.S. Air Force its full production capacity to provide these engines for the next year. The U.S. Air Force needed the engines for its F-100 fighters and KC-135 tankers.

  Colonel Geary, with the help of a colleague in the U.S. Air Force Material Command, managed to arrange the diversion of several of these engines from a shipment destined for Boeing’s KC-135 production line, making it possible to continue building the U-2s.

  Thus, the CIA and the United States Air Force initiated the development of high-flying aircraft capable of penetrating the airspace of the Cold War enemies of the United States. They screened personnel to engineer, test and fly this new type of aircraft. Loyalty to the United States, physical and mental condition and skills set the criteria in the selection of personnel to participate in these black, secret projects.

  CHAPTER 7

  FLYING THE ANGEL

  AMERICA’S FIRST SPY PLANE

  The U.S. Air Force instructor pilots and the CIA pilots arriving at Area 51 were experienced military pilots. Nonetheless, before allowing them to fly the U-2, the U.S. Air Force instructor pilots began their training with the ground school on the aircraft systems, emergency procedures, flight planning, navigation and so on.

  Before starting the ground school, the instructor pilots devised procedures to use in the air and in preparation for a flight. The preparation included the route, fuel consumption, checkpoints, pre-breathing for two hours and the myriad details necessary for an overflight of denied territory in a new type of aircraft flying in an environment never flown before. To ready these pilots to fly the U-2, the instructor pilots first verified the Central Intelligence pilots’ flying experience and qualifications before allowing them to fly the U-2, the first million-dollar airplane. To do this, the instructor pilots first placed the trainee pilots in the back seat of a twoplace T-33 jet for flight evaluations.

  The instructor pilot took control of the airplane at the end of each T-33 flight. He climbed to ten thousand feet; put the gear, flaps and speed brakes out; and shut off the engine. The lakebed contained a paint cross mark, the pilot’s target to land as close as possible. After a few practice flights, most pilots touched down within one hundred feet of the mark.

  Maintenance on C-packs. CIA via TD Barnes Collection.

  Lockheed test pilot Robert Schumacher watching a life support technician while undergoing oxygen pre-breathing before a U-2 flight. CIA via TD Barnes Collection.

  Even with the T-33 trainer, the U.S. Air Force used a souped-up Mercury station wagon for mobile control and to chase the plane on takeoff and landing. On landing, a driver and an instructor pilot raced alongside and to the rear of the plane while calling out his altitude above the ground: “Two feet, two feet, one foot, one foot, OK, ease her on down.”

  Even for experienced pilots, landing the U-2 proved difficult and required flying inside a two-mile-per-hour range to make a safe landing. When flying the CIA’s U-2A and U-2C models close to its operational ceiling, the maximum speed (critical Mach) and the minimum speed (stall speed) approached the same number, presenting a narrow window of safe airspeed. Knowing the exact stalling speed of the T-33, the instructor pilots instructed the pilots to fly at two knots above the stall speed, two feet above the surface of the dry lake. The instructor pilots induced contact with the lake to let them develop the correct recovery procedures. When satisfied with the pilots’ capability of transitioning to this new airplane, the instructor pilots checked them out in the U-2.

  On their second flight, the pilots flew to seventy thousand feet to learn the idiosyncrasies of the coffin corner. The range of indicated airspeed in th
e U-2 was around 100 to 105 knots. Too slow and the plane goes into a lowspeed buffet; too high and it goes into a speed buffer.

  Testing at even higher altitudes continued, and on September 8, 1955, the U-2 reached its initial design altitude of 65,600 feet.

  The flameouts were not the only problem developed by high flight. On a flight, Captain Meierdierck had departed from Watertown and over the Pacific Ocean to check the wind patterns when he developed engine problems and the engine quit. The pressure suit blew up, forcing him to descend to thirty thousand feet to attempt an air start. It worked, and he climbed back to altitude, only to have it blow out again. Once again, he descended to air start the engine. The suit malfunction occurred fifteen times during his return to Area 51.

  Meierdierck returned to the David Clark Co in Worcester, Massachusetts, to solve the communication problem that occurred when the engine flamed out and the suit blew up. David Clark Co. built a new suit for him containing a chest bladder that placed pressure on the pilot’s chest to enable the pilot to talk with his suit pressure. To verify this, the CIA sent Meierdierck to the altitude chamber at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where they lowered the pressure to a simulated altitude of 120,000 feet and broke the seal. The suit inflated, and he shouted to see if they could hear him. They heard him, solving the inability to communicate during a flameout.

  A U-2 pilot always took care not to hit the front gear first, as it caused the plane to bounce and porpoise near the stall speed. The problems occurred once when a pilot who was coming in for a landing hyperventilated. Lou Garvin, the mobile control officer, drove to the end of the runway to assist the landing by calling out the plane’s altitude above the runway as he raced alongside in a souped-up Ford Thunderbird. In his hyperventilated condition, the pilot heard Garvin call “two feet, two feet, one foot.” The pilot said, “Screw you,” and jammed the front gear onto the lakebed with the nose a foot off the ground and the tail high in the air. He conducted this impossible maneuver by leaving the power on and continuing two or three miles before he pulled the power off and let the plane settle to the runway. When the flight surgeons met him, they grounded him until they could evaluate his condition. The grounding set him off again. He gave them all hell for a little while until the effects of too much oxygen wore off and he returned to normal.

  The U-2 program developed a unique device for the U-2: a small sextant for making celestial fixes during the long overflights. With cloud cover often preventing U-2 pilots from locating navigational points on the earth through the periscope, the sextant became the pilot’s principal navigational instrument during the first three years of deployment. Otherwise, the periscope proved accurate for navigation. During the final tests before the aircraft became operational, U-2 pilots found they could navigate by dead reckoning with an error of less than one nautical mile over a one-thousand-nautical-mile course.

  As early as August 1955, the CIA realized that even with air force support, establishing a secret flight test facility in the Mojave Desert did not come easily. A shortage of supply personnel remained a recurring problem for setting up the depot and the assembling of supplies for training the CIA’s Detachment A, scheduled to commence early in 1956. The shortage continued through the training and deployment of Detachment B.

  Despite the difficulties involved in training U-2 pilots, Colonel Yancey’s cadre of six qualified air force U-2 pilots began training agency pilots by September 1955.

  In the face of this shortage, the SAC support group, headed by Colonel Herbert Shingler, carried the burden of getting Detachment A logistically ready at the time of deployment. From July 1955 until June 1957, he, while stationed at March Air Force Base in California, was the director of material for the 4070th Support Wing and later the wing commander. Now, he was at March AFB and commuting to Area 51 to train the pilots selected by the Central Intelligence Agency to fly the U-2. The shortage of aeromedical staff and personnel at March AFB and Watertown forced Shingler to borrow personnel to staff Detachment A at the time of deployment. Colonel Ritland reported the problem to the project director on March 30, 1956, saying:

  Because the overall expansions and the lack of sufficient personnel, they had drawn on the U.S. Air Force commands to assume definite project responsibilities. It was apparent that although work was proceeding rapidly, personnel outside of the project and not under the control of the project director were accomplishing the buildup. The lack of control was not a satisfactory situation and should be watched as the scope of the project expanded.

  As the flight tests developed, flameouts became a frequent occurrence. Lockheed test pilot Bob Matye experienced the first flameout on his third high-altitude flight. The experience proved the pressure suit, regulator and emergency oxygen system worked.

  During the final test in the spring of 1956, the U-2 once again demonstrated its unique airworthiness. On April 14, 1956, James Cunningham received a call from Watertown while in his office in Washington. The caller informed him of a westward-bound U-2 experiencing a flameout over the Mississippi River along the western border of Tennessee. After restarting his engine, the pilot reported a second flameout and engine vibration so violent it prevented him from getting the power plant to start again.

  Early in the program, Bissell and Ritland had foreseen such an emergency and, with the cooperation of the U.S. Air Force, arranged for delivery of a sealed order to every airbase in the continental United States giving instruction concerning what to do if a U-2 needed to make an emergency landing.

  Cunningham instructed the project officer to ask the pilot how far he could glide so they could determine which air force base to alert. The pilot, now over Arkansas, radioed back giving the prevailing wind and the U-2’s 21:1 glide ratio; he thought he could reach Albuquerque, New Mexico.

  Within minutes, Cunningham phoned Colonel Geary in the Pentagon. Geary, the U.S. Air Force’s assistant director of operations, and Brigadier General Ralph E. Koon called the commander of Kirtland Air Force Base near Albuquerque. General Koon warned the base commander to expect an unusual aircraft to make a dead stick landing at Kirtland within the next half hour and told him to make use of the sealed orders. The general instructed the base commander to have air police keep everyone away from the craft and quickly secure it out of sight inside a hangar.

  Ground crew and U-2 pilot performing preflight and engine start for a flight at Watertown. CIA via TD Barnes Collection.

  U-2 flying over Watertown by USAF 4080th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing pilots training at Watertown in early 1957 before transferring to Laughlin AFB, Texas. CIA via TD Barnes Collection.

  After a half hour passed, the base commander called the Pentagon to ask where the crippled aircraft was. As he spoke, the officer saw the U-2 touch down on the runway and remarked, “It’s not a plane, it’s a glider.” It surprised the air police surrounding the craft even more when it came to a halt and the pilot climbed from the cockpit in his “space” suit. One air police officer remarked that the pilot looked like a man from Mars.

  The pilot, Jacob Kratt, later reported to Cunningham how from the first flameout to the landing at Albuquerque, the U-2 covered over nine hundred miles, including more than three hundred by gliding.

  ADJUSTING TO HIGH–ALTITUDE FLIGHT

  Putting a man into high flight required a change that spawned several experiments with both the pilot and the plane throughout the aviation industry. The U.S. Air Force undertook high-altitude bailout experiments from balloons in the autumn of 1955 to determine if the suit designed for the U-2 pilot protected him during his parachute descent once he separated from the life-support mechanisms inside the aircraft.

  The CIA’s instructor pilots and its agency pilots flying the U-2 at Area 51 pioneered the prevention of pilots suffering the effects of decompression sickness that could cause permanent brain damage, with initial symptoms such as disorientation and inability to read.

  The U-2 pilots used a procedure known as pre-breathing to avoid getting the
“bends” during such descents or long flights. They donned their pressure suits and breathed 100 percent oxygen an hour before taking off to remove nitrogen from the body. They used a portable oxygen supply while entering the aircraft, where they then connected to the aircraft’s oxygen supply.

  The pilots found eating, drinking and urinating major problems while wearing their suits. The first model of the pressure suit used by Lockheed test pilots made no provision for urination. At first, they had to catheterize the pilot to permit urination during flight. The catheter proved uncomfortable, so by the autumn of 1955, an external bladder arrangement made the catheter unnecessary.

  Lockheed test pilot Ray Goudey pre-breathing for a flight while reading the 1955 sci-fi edition of Adventures in Time and Space. CIA via TD Barnes Collection.

  The back room of the flight planning Quonset containing classified material storage and work area for classified planning and target review. CIA via TD Barnes Collection.

  Sergeant Weldon C. Lewis checking Major Richard Heyser’s inner flight helmet assembly. The model MA-2 helmet, made by International Latex Corporation of Dover, Delaware, provided constant pressure and oxygen to the pilot’s head with a tight-fitting liner and seal covered by a hard shell. CIA via TD Barnes Collection.

  The pilots reduced their stimulation by eating a low-bulk, high-protein diet on the day before and the morning of each mission. They drank sweetened water to prevent desiccation during the long missions, a condition exasperated by their breathing pure oxygen. They accomplished this by providing a small self-sealing hole in the face mask to allow the pilot to push in a straw-like tube attached to the water supply.