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

Clarence L. 'Kelly' Johnson and Maggie Smith, Kelly: More Than My Share of It All (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985), 137, 138.

107

Sloop, Liquid Hydrogen, 163-67. Ironically, given Sun Tan's secrecy, a number of aircraft projects during the 1950s had configurations similar to the CL-400. These include the Soviet M-50 jet bomber and MN-1 reconnaissance aircraft, the British Avro 730, the Bristol T.I88, the Armstrong Whitworth AW. 166 and AW. 169, and the French SO 9000.

108

Thomas P. McIninch, 'The Oxcart Story,' Studies in Intelligence (Summer 1982): 26.

This document was declassified when the surviving A-12s were given to museums. A copy was sent to each museum as an 'owner's manual' for the airplane. It was soon being passed around like samizdat.

(Some nth generation copies were unreadable.) 'Thomas P. McIninch' is a pseudonym for John P. Parangoski, the Oxcart project officer. Studies in Intelligence is an internal, classified CIA magazine.

109

Jay Miller, The X-Planes: X-l toX-31 (New York: Orion, 1988), 43.

110

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

111

Steven J. Zaloga, Soviet Air Defence Missiles (Alexandria, Va: Jane's Information Group, 1989) 75, 76. The SA-2's booster rocket burns for four to five seconds, while the second stage fires for twenty-two seconds. Thus, it would have to be launched well before the A-12 was within range. The closure speed would be over Mach 6. The computer and guidance radar would have to direct the SA-2 to a point in space ahead of the A-12. This proved impossible in some 1,000 launches against the A-12/SR-71.

112

McIninch, 'The Oxcart Story,' 26.

113

'Kelly's Way': The Story of Kelly Johnson and the Lockheed Skunk Works (Edwards AFB: Air Force Flight Test Museum, 1993), videotape.

114

Dino Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball (New York: Random House, 1991), 39.

115

Rich and Janos, Skunk Works, 197-99.

116

The President's Appointments, Monday July 20, 1959 (Dwight D. Eisenhower Library: Abilene, Kans.).

117

McIninch, 'The Oxcart Story,' 26, 27.

118

Clarence L. Johnson, 'Development of the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird,' Lockheed Horizons (Winter 1981/82): 4.

119

McIninch, 'The Oxcart Story,' 27, 29.

120