Two of the UAVs would be used for reconnaissance, while two others would be used as relay aircraft. The reconnaissance GNAT-750s were also expected to be fitted with ELINT receivers that could pick up both radar signals and transmissions from walkie-talkies.
This would be done by buying GNAT-750s originally ordered by Turkey.
The Turkish government was in a budget crunch and lacked the money to pay for the three GNAT-750s already delivered, much less the four still at the General Atomics factory. Each GNAT-750 cost $800,000, while the ground station cost $1.2 million. The CIA asked Congress for a u t h o r i t y to reprogram funds to buy the UAVs.[632]
The HALSOL and GNAT-750 represent the future of airborne reconnaissance. The smaller post-Cold War air force is unlikely to have the billions of dollars needed to develop and fly a new manned reconnaissance aircraft.
In contrast, a unit of UAVs can be built and operated for less than one-tenth the cost of a single F-15E or F- 117A. The GNAT-750's similarity to a big model airplane is an advantage, rather than a shortcoming. This allows it to combine long-duration flight times with the simplicity of the small tactical
Despite all the problems, it was still done faster and at a lower cost than conventional methods could have accomplished. The criticism was based as much on jealousy as on the problems. At the same time, the GNAT-750 was a very different Black than the U-2, A-12, or even the Have Blue (which also started out White and then went Black). The involvement of congressional staffers meant that the lines of authority were less clear and direct.
The GNAT-750 effort also marked the return to Black aviation by the CIA after two decades. The Nationalist Chinese U-2 overflight program had ended in 1968. The CIAA-12s were retired the same year. Between 1969 and 1971, the CIA-sponsored D-21 Tagboard made their few disappointing flights. By the mid-1970s the CIA U-2 operation had been closed down, and the surviving planes had been transferred to the air force and NASA.
With this, the GNAT-750 project brings the story of the U.S. Black airplanes full circle.
The A-12, D-21, and HALSOL had all been kept secret for a decade or more before their existence was revealed. Up to that time, there had been no hint of these Dark Eagles. Such secrecy, along with the large number of stories about the stealth fighter, inevitably gave rise to speculation about other Black airplanes, ones that were still secret. Reports and sightings of these secret airplanes were soon being whispered about. From time to time, the stories would be published.
They were tales of darkness and shadows.
CHAPTER 10
The MiGs of Red Square
Have Doughnut and Have Drill
Therefore I say, 'know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be in peril.'
The longest continuing U.S. Black airplane program is the secret test flying of MiGs and other Soviet aircraft. This effort's tentative beginnings were in the mid-1950s, before the U-2. It began in earnest a decade later, contemporarily with the A-12 and D-21, and has continued to the present day.
Unlike the other Black airplane programs, such as the Have Blue, F-117A, or HALSOL, MiG operations still remain Black. The program can not even be acknowledged.
It is not known exactly the actual number or types of aircraft involved, where they came from, or the complete history of the program. There are only a few, limited accounts, and it is probable that many of these are, at best, incomplete, and at worst, wrong. In one case, a published MiG tale proved spectacularly wrong.
It is known that these Dark Eagles brought about a fundamental change in air-combat tactics. They revitalized the art of dogfighting at a time when, seemingly, it had nearly been forgotten. The knowledge gained from these planes was reflected in the success of U.S. Navy air operations over North Vietnam in the final year of the war, as well as in the founding of the Navy's Top Gun school.
The program started with a C-124 Globemaster landing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in the mid-1950s. Its payload was a Soviet-built Yak 23 Flora. This was a small single-seat, single-engine jet fighter. The 217 aircraft had first been exported to the Polish, Czechoslovakian, Bulgarian, and Romanian air forces in 1951. Although quickly superseded by the more advanced MiG 15, it was the first jet operated by these Eastern European air forces. For the U.S. Air Force, it introduced the secret testing of Soviet aircraft.
According to one account, an Eastern European intelligence officer contacted an American intelligence officer and offered the 'loan' of the plane.
The deal was made and the Yak 23 was packed in shipping crates and left aboard a railroad car. After its arrival, the parts were photographed, to insure they could be repacked correctly.
The project pilot for the Yak 23 flights was Capt. Tom Collins. In September 1953, he had become the first U.S. pilot to fly a MiG 15. It had been flown to South Korea by a defecting pilot. Unlike that effort, the tests Collins conducted with the Yak 23 were top secret. The plane carried U.S. Air Force insignias, while its buzz number of 'FU-599,' and the '0599' serial number actually belonged to an F-86E. If the curious asked what kind of plane it was, they were told it was an 'X-5.'
The flight tests of the Yak 23 lasted about a month. The plane was then disassembled, loaded aboard a C- 124, and flown away. It would be another forty years before the existence of a U.S. Air Force Yak 23 would be revealed. In December 1994, four photos of the plane were published. Where the plane had come from, and where it went after leaving Wright-Patterson, are secret still.[633]
In the years following the Yak 23's brief stay at Wright-Patterson, a new generation of fighter aircraft, such as the F-4 Phantom II, was developed.
The F-4 was the first fighter designed from the start with only air-to-air missiles — the radar-guided Sparrow and the shorter-range Sidewinder infrared-guided missile. With the new missiles came the new attitude that dogfighting was obsolete. The air-to-air training given to new navy F-4 crews was extremely limited. It involved about ten flights and provided little useful information. By 1964, few in the navy were left to carry on the tradition of classic dogfighting.[634] Then came Vietnam.
The early years of the air war over North Vietnam showed the faith placed in missiles was terribly in error. Between 1965 and the bombing halt in 1968, the U.S. Air Force had a 2.15 to 1 kill ratio. The navy was doing slightly better with a 2.75 to 1 rate. For roughly every two North Vietnamese MiG 17 Frescos or MiG 21 Fishbeds shot down, an American F-4, F-105, or F-8 would be lost. This was far worse than the 10-plus to 1 kill rate in Korea.[635]
More serious, the percentage of U.S. fighters being lost in air-to-air combat was growing. During 1966, only 3 percent of U.S. aircraft losses were due to MiGs. This rose to 8 percent in 1967, then climbed to 22 percent for the first three months of 1968.[636]
In 1968, navy Capt. Frank Ault was assigned to learn the reasons for this poor showing against the MiGs. The 'Ault Report' was issued on January 1, 1969. It found 242 problems that ranged from hardware to crew training. The Sidewinder and Sparrow missiles showed very poor reliability. A full 25 percent of Sparrows failed because their rocket engines never fired. The Sidewinder and Sparrow were both limited to 2- to 2.5-g maneuvers, as they had been designed for use against nonmaneuvering bombers rather than fighters. [637] It took a full 5.2 seconds to fire a Sparrow; yet, the average time the F-4 crews had to fire was 2.2 seconds. To hit the target, the F-4's radar beam had to be kept on the MiG. This was extremely difficult in a turning dogfight.
Far more important was the training of the crews. Few F-4 crewmen knew the firing parameters for the missiles. These changed with altitude, and whether it was a tail, head-on, or side attack. The crews lacked the
