Dark Eagles: A History of the Top Secret U.S. Aircraft

136

'Kelly's Way, ' videotape.

137

Paul F. Crickmore, Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird (Osceolo, Wis.: Motorbooks, 1986), 21, 22.

138

A-12/SR-71 Lecture, San Diego Aerospace Museum, June 14, 1991.

139

McIninch, 'The Oxcart Story,' 33. The two men who had done so much to bring both the U-2 and A-12 into existence, Allen Dulles and Richard Bissell, had both resigned following the Bay of Pigs disaster a year before.

140

Crickmore, Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, 23.

141

McIninch, 'The Oxcart Story,' 33, 34.

142

Ibid., 30.

143

Lt. Col. Steve Stowe, USAF Test Pilot School 1944–1989 (Edwards AFB: USAF Test Pilot School, 1991), 42. Two of Skliar's classmates were Mercury astronauts L. Gordon Cooper and Virgil I. 'Gus' Grissom.

144

SR-71/A-12/YF-12 Flights/Checkout (Edwards AFB History Office, June 14, 1991).

145

Crickmore, Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, 21, 23, 26, 29.

146

Private source. The author has extensive contacts within the Black airplane community, both personal and through publications. This provides an insight into both the latest information and the beliefs behind it.

147

Milton O. Thompson, At the Edge of Space (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), 55, 58–60. Groom Lake may have had a secret role in the X-15 program. In the event of an engine failure during the climb, the X-15 would have to land on dry lake beds scattered across the desert. If the X- 15 suffered an engine failure forty to forty-six seconds after ignition, it would 'land at an unnamed lake bed in a highly classified restricted area.' Groom Lake meets this description, and it is along the line between Delamar Lake and Edwards AFB. Groom Lake was also larger than many of the emergency lake beds. The high mountains to the west and east would have made the unpowered approach difficult.

148

Private source

149

Private source

150

McIninch, 'The Oxcart Story,' 35; and Crickmore, Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, 26– 28.