In reality, there was little besides diplomatic warnings and veiled threats to protect the U-2s. Adding electronic countermeasures (ECM) equipment to jam the SA-2 radars was studied, but it was determined this would not keep them safe from attack.[174] The U.S. government began looking at alternative means of making the overflights. The A-12 was finally selected.
The initial plan for contingency A-12 overflights of Cuba was code-named "Skylark." Park's crash delayed the plan for a time, but on August 5, acting CIA Director, Gen. Marshall S. Carter, ordered that Skylark have an emergency operational readiness by November 5, 1964. To meet the deadline, the five CIA pilots would have to be qualified to Mach 2.8 speed and 80,000 feet altitude. The camera system would also have to be proven. One major problem was the lack of ECM equipment for the A-12s. Only one complete set of ECM gear would be ready by November. An intra-agency group was organized to study the risk. They decided the first few Cuban overflights could be made safely without full ECM equipment. Later overflights, however, would require full defensive setup. The ECM delivery schedule could meet this requirement.
After completing training missions that simulated the Cuban overflights, the CIA A-12 unit was judged ready to undertake Skylark. It would take two-weeks' notice before an overflight could be made, and it would be done with fewer pilots and aircraft than had been planned. The next step was to convert this emergency capability into a sustained program. Training flights were conducted to determine range and fuel consumption of the A-12, to finish qualification of the pilots, and to prepare a number of Skylark mission profiles. By the end of 1964, five pilots and five aircraft stood ready to undertake sustained Cuban overflights. There were now eleven A-12s at Groom Lake — four test aircraft and seven for the CIA detachment.[175]
As Skylark was becoming operational, the Lockheed test pilots were bringing the A-12 up to its full design capability. On January 27, 1965, one of the test aircraft made the first high-speed, long-range flight. The mission took one hour and forty minutes and reached speeds above Mach 3.1, at between 75,600 and 80,000 feet.
With Skylark, the continued A-12 test flights, and the start of SR-71 test work at the site, Groom Lake was at a peak of activity during 1965.[176] Construction was finished, and the population reached 1,835 (equivalent to a small town). Lockheed-operated Constellation airliners made daily flights between Burbank and Groom Lake. There were also twice-daily C-47 flights to Las Vegas.[177]
The Groom Lake facility had grown considerably since the U-2 days.
The original U-2 facility at the edge of the lake bed was much expanded, with four new, larger hangars. Just south of this was the housing area, with neat rows of buildings. Conditions at Groom Lake were more livable — a movie theater replaced the projector on a mess hall table, and a baseball diamond was built. Nonetheless, the site was still isolated, hot, and barren.
At the south end of the facility was the A-12-Lockheed area. It included individual hangars, each of which housed an A-12. The hangars provided protection against both the sun and blowing dust, as well as hiding the aircraft from the prying cameras of Soviet reconnaissance satellites. The main runway ran up to the edge of the lake bed. A long asphalt overrun strip extended out across the lake bed.[178]
The year 1965 also saw recruitment and training of the second group of CIA A-12 pilots. There were only three members, all from operational backgrounds — Mel Vojvodich, Ronald J. Layton, and Jack C. Weeks.[179] As had the XP-59A pilots of two decades before, they lived a unique existence. They were flying the fastest airplane in the world, but not even their wives knew what they were doing. Like the Bell pilots, they used symbols to define their secret brotherhood. These took the form of flight suit patches. After seeing the A-12, Weeks dubbed it "Cygnus," after the constellation of the swan. Patches showing the constellation and "Cygnus" were made. Another patch showed a cartoon roadrunner (the unit's nickname) and the words "Road Runners" and "Beep Beep." An emblem showed a swan-shaped dragster and the words "1129th SAS The Road Runnin'est."[180]
While the CIA pilots awaited orders to overfly Cuba, a new target appeared for the A-12. On March 18, 1965, CIA Director McCone warned McNamara that reconnaissance operations over Communist China were facing increased threats. Since 1962, four U-2s flown by Nationalist Chinese pilots had been shot down over the mainland. The A-12 was the clear alternative. It was decided to start construction of the facilities needed for the A-12 on Okinawa. This stopped short of deploying the A-12, however; a decision to overfly China could be made only by the president.
Four days later, the A-12 operational plan, code-named "Black Shield," was ready. Initially, three A-12s would be deployed for a sixty-day period, twice a year. The aircraft would fly from Kadena Air Base on Okinawa; later, a permanent detachment would be established at Kadena. Funding was released, with the A-12 support facilities to be ready in the fall of 1965.[181]
Reconnaissance operations over North Vietnam also were being threatened. On April 5, 1965, an SA-2 SAM site was photographed in North Vietnam. Soon, more sites were spotted near Hanoi. General William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in South Vietnam, wanted to attack the sites but was ordered not to by McNamara. His rationale was this: the SA-2s had been sent by the Soviets to appease the North Vietnamese; if the United States did not attack the SAM sites, it would send a "signal" to the North Vietnamese, who would then not use the SAMs. (Johnson and McNamara saw the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign as a means of "signaling" North Vietnam to negotiate.)
Despite his belief that North Vietnam would not use the SAMs, McNamara asked the under secretary of the air force on June 3, 1965, about using the A-12 to replace the U-2 missions. He was told the A-12 could begin operations over North Vietnam as soon as the final qualification flights had been made. On July 24, 1965, the North Vietnamese, ignoring the U.S. signal, used the SA-2s to shoot down an air force F-4C. More U.S. aircraft were lost, and it was clear the days of the U-2 over North Vietnam were numbered.[182]
With deployment of the A-12 seemingly at hand, the CIA unit began the final steps toward operational status. The first three "H cameras" were delivered in April 1965. Originally designed for the U-2, the H camera had a sixty-inch focal-length lens. It used Kodak 3414 film, which had a low ASA 8 rating and a frame size of four and a half inches square. The resolution from 80,000 feet was two inches. The other camera that could be carried in the A-12's Q-bay was the KA-102A. This had a forty-eight-inch focal length and carried a seven-hundred-foot-long roll of film that could provide 1,675 frames. Both the H camera and the KA-102A used a motion compensator to prevent the A-12's high speed from blurring the photos.[183]
The pilots also began the final qualification flights. These were to prove aircraft and system reliability at speeds of Mach 3.05, altitudes of 76,000 feet, at a range of 2,300 nautical miles, with three aerial refuelings. These longer flights revealed new problems. The most important were with the electrical wiring. It was exposed to prolonged temperatures of more than 800 degrees F, as well as flexing of the structure, vibration, and shock. The wiring could not withstand the conditions, which caused malfunctions in the inlet controls, communications equipment, ECM systems, and cockpit instrumentation. There were also continued problems with the fuel tank sealing.
174
Memorandum for the President, Re: NSC Agenda, Tuesday, May 5, 1964 (Lyndon B. Johnson Library: Austin, Tex.). There was no intention of using the A-12 over the Soviet Union, except in a national emergency. Satellites could provide routine coverage of the USSR with zero political risk.
However, in the 1960s, the number of satellites was too small to allow them to cover targets in Cuba, North Vietnam, or North Korea.
178
Jay Miller,
182
David A. Anderton,