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

Finally, he was able to restart the engine and return to Groom Lake.

65

Pocock, Dragon Lady, 22, 145.

66

David Frost Show, Transcript, April 28, 1970 (Francis Gary Powers File, Central Intelligence Agency: Washington, D.C.), 4.

67

Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 20.

68

Pocock, Dragon Lady, 145. Of the first seven U-2 crashes, only Ericson survived.

69

Powers and Gentry, Operation Overflight, 28, 33.

70

Pocock, Dragon Lady, 22, 23, 38.

71

Rubin, 'A Day at the Ranch,' 52–57, 74–76.

72

Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 27.

73

Peebles, The Moby Dick Project, chap. 6.

74

Johnson and Smith, Kelly, 119, 120.

75

Shaw, 'Interview with Bissell,' 21.

76

Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 18.

77

Powers and Gentry, Operation Overflight, 29, 49. Initially, Powers thought the eighteen-month contract was an unduly optimistic estimate of the U-2's lifetime. Accordingly, the U-2s were flown only the mimimum necessary for training and test flights, to avoid wearing them out. Powers later recalled that the pilots heard rumors that the original concept for the overflights was for each U-2 to make a single overflight, ending with a belly landing (an apparent reference to the original CL-282's takeoff cart and skid landing gear).

78

Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 30.

79

Shaw, 'Interview with Bissell,' 21.