- Throughout testing, flight procedures evolved; in effect, pilots were testing and training simultaneously. Here, the only A-12 trainer built—the “Titanium Goose”—is about to refuel, a process that took the A-12 close to stall speed when it was filled up.
Most test flights were short, averaging scarcely an hour.
Through 1963, 573 flights had taken only 765 hours. More air time was not
necessary for the earlier tests, and brief flights helped maintain security.
Project and test pilots and systems engineers closely critiqued each flight,
constantly reviewed data and procedures, and regularly made changes to the
latter, in flight and during debriefings afterward. The pilots in effect were
performing flight testing and training themselves at the same time. They kept
extremely busy in the tight-fitting cockpit, seated amid hundreds of dials,
switches, buttons, gauges, and breakers, keeping control of the aircraft with a
three-button stick and adjusting for variations in sensitive performance
indicators, while navigating at speeds far faster than they had ever flown
before. For such a state-of-the-art aircraft, the instrumentation was
surprisingly old-fashioned, in keeping with Johnson’s preference for
tried-and-true systems.
The pilots also practiced aerial refueling with Air Force
tanker crews. The first successful hook‑up occurred in early 1963. An Agency
engineer on the project recalled that connecting with the boom hanging from the
back of the KC-135s at around 30,000 feet was tricky. The tanker had to fly as
fast as it could, while the A-12 was throttled way back, practically stalling
out when it filled its tanks. [1]
Some achievements came quickly. The first supersonic flight
occurred within a week after testing began, and a speed of Mach 2.16 and an
altitude of 60,000 feet were achieved in November 1962. But further progress
could not be made because of delays in delivering the J58 engines and
inadequacies in those that arrived. “By the end of the year,” complained
McCone, “it appears we will have barely enough J58 engines to support the
flight test program adequately." [2] One of the two flight test aircraft used two J75 engines, and the other used
one J75 and one J58. The first A-12 equipped with two J58s flew on 15 January
1963. Ten of the engines were available by the end of the month, and from then
on all A-12s but the trainer were fitted with the required propulsion system.
Other performance benchmarks were reached slowly because of
continued difficulty sustaining Mach 3 speeds. The first flight to fly briefly
at Mach 3 was in July 1963, and the first sustained flight at operational
conditions—Mach 3.2 at 83,000 feet for 10 minutes—did not take place until
February 1964. A year later, the A-12 fleet had made 1,234 flights totaling
almost 1,745 hours, but only 80 of them had been at Mach 3 or faster (one
reached Mach 3.27) and for a total of only just over 13 hours. [3]
Progress came more quickly during the rest of 1965 and into 1966. Following a one-hour-and‑forty‑minute, 3,000-mile
flight mostly above Mach 3.1 in January 1965, an operationally outfitted A-12
(Article 128, not a test aircraft) first attained Mach 3 in March. Peak speed
and altitude—Mach 3.29 (over 2,200 mph) at 90,000 feet—were reached by separate
aircraft in May and August; 289 flights above Mach 3 lasting over 84 hours were
made by October; a maximum stress flight of nearly six‑and-a-half hours was
completed in November, with portions at peak speed and altitude; and as of
mid-March 1966, over 146 out of nearly 2,750 hours flown were above Mach 3. [4]
Not surprisingly, people living around the test site and
along the flightpaths filed many complaints about sonic booms, especially after
the public announcement about the OXCART project in February 1964. Another
consequence of all this flight activity was an increase in UFO reports. As with
the U-2 in the 1950s, there is a strong correlation between the A-12 flight
schedule and “alien aircraft” sightings submitted in the early and mid-1960s. [5]
Many other hurdles besides the engines had to be surmounted,
turning OXCART into a regular “four-alarm fire” that undermined CIA’s
“reputation for doing things on the cheap [and] quickly,” according to Bud
Wheelon. [6] In April 1963, after assessing the capabilities of the Soviet Union’s new
computer-equipped TALL KING radar, CIA directed Lockheed to rebuild the chines
to change the A-12’s RCS—an expensive and, it turned out, undesirable change.[7] Costs soared as a result of other miscalculations, delays, and difficulties. By
late November 1963, McCone reported to President Johnson that $400 million had
been spent, and $300 million more would be needed, to produce the 15 OXCART
aircraft CIA and the Air Force had ordered. [8]
Some of the problems encountered were mundane, but serious
nonetheless. One was foreign object damage, which by July 1963 had resulted in
18 engine removals and extensive nacelle modifications. [9] During the aircraft’s assembly at Burbank, small items such as bolts, nuts,
screws, pens, and metal shavings would fall into the nacelles. When the engines
were started at the test site, these objects were pulled into the power plant
and damaged its internal parts. Taking X-rays, shaking the nacelles, installing
screens over air inlets, and even having workers wear coveralls without breast
pockets largely controlled the problem.
Another issue was debris on the taxiways and runway. Like
huge vacuum cleaners, the giant J58 engines would suck up anything loose on the
pavement—fasteners, clamps, rocks, chunks of asphalt—as they propelled the A-12
toward takeoff. Site personnel had to sweep and vacuum the runway before each
test flight.
- A rare photo of an airborne A-12 with landing gear visible, here on its second flight ever.
Although most of the A-12’s systems proved acceptably
reliable in the less stressful earlier phases of testing, other difficulties
arose as the aircraft was put through longer flights at higher speeds and
temperatures. As late as March 1965 the inlet control was still a problem, even
after well over 10,000 wind tunnel tests, and several months later electrical
problems caused by high temperatures persisted. Failed wiring connectors and
components incapacitated the inlet controls, communications equipment, ECM
systems, and cockpit instruments. The superhot temperatures, structural
flexing, vibrations, and sonic shock were more than the materials could stand.
Much of the aircraft had to be rewired, and electrical components required
redesign.
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Crashes
During the first three years of pre-operational testing,
three A-12s crashed—two from mechanical malfunctions, one because of ground
crew error. All pilots ejected safely. The first loss, of Article 123, occurred
on 24 May 1963 during a low-altitude, subsonic flight to test an inertial
navigation system. While flying in heavy clouds above 30,000 feet, CIA pilot
Ken Collins saw erroneous and confusing air speed and altitude readings just
before the A‑12 pitched up, stalled, and went into an inverted spin. Unable to
regain control of the aircraft, Collins “punched out” at around 25,000 feet.
The A-12 spiraled down and crashed.
After parachuting to earth, Collins made his way back to the
test site. Wearing a standard fabric flight suit, he avoided having to make
difficult explanations to protect OXCART’s cover. According to the story given
to the press, the accident involved an F-105. The wreckage was recovered in two
days, and witnesses were identified and required to sign secrecy agreements.
The A-12 fleet was grounded for a week until the cause was determined. So great
was the need to find out what went wrong that Collins willingly took truth
serum to help his memory. Finally, the inquiry concluded that ice had plugged a
tube used to determine airspeed, causing faulty readings that led to the stall
and spin.
The next crash occurred on 9 July 1964 while Article 133 was
approaching the runway after a Mach 3 check flight. At about 500 feet and 230
mph the aircraft began a steady leftward roll that Lockheed test pilot Bill
Parks could not correct. A component of the roll-and-pitch control had frozen.
Although only about 200 feet off the ground when he ejected, Parks escaped
injury. No news of the accident filtered out of the test site.
On 28 December 1965, barely a month after the A-12 was
declared operationally ready, Article 126 crashed less than 30 seconds after
takeoff because an electrician had crossed the wiring to the yaw and pitch
gyros, in effect reversing the aircraft’s controls and making it unflyable.
Like Parks, CIA pilot Mele Vojvodich ejected close to the ground but was not
injured. DCI McCone ordered an investigation into the possibility of sabotage.
Simple negligence was found to be the cause, and Lockheed instituted stringent
corrective measures. As with the previous crash, there was no publicity about
the incident.
Amid increasing concern that the A-12 would not be ready in
time for its planned mission to East Asia (Operation BLACK SHIELD), the senior
CIA project officer, John Parangosky, met with Kelly Johnson on 3 August 1965
to discuss the problems. They had a frank discussion, and Johnson decided that
he needed to assign more top-level supervisors to OXCART and move to the test
site himself full time if the A-12’s remaining flaws were to be worked out
expeditiously. He wrote in his log that
I uncovered many items of a managerial, materiel and design
nature…I had meetings with vendors to improve their operation… Changed
supervision and had daily talks with them, going over in detail all problems on
the aircraft…Increased the supervision in the electrical group by 500%...We
tightened up inspection procedures a great deal and made inspection stick.
It appears that the problems are one-third due to bum
engineering...The addition of so many systems to the A-12 has greatly
complicated the problems, but we did solve the overall problem. [10]
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Footnotes
1. Norman Nelson, quoted in
Rich and Janos, 223.
2. McIninch, 13.
3. “Briefing Note for the
Director of Central Intelligence, Subject: OXCART Status Report,” 26 February
1965.
4. [OSA,] “Project
OXCART and Operation BLACK SHIELD Briefing Notes,” 20 October 1965; Memorandum
from CIA Acting Director of Special Activities to CIA Assistant to the Director
of Reconnaissance, “OXCART Status Report,” 18 March 1966; [OSA,] OXCART
Development Summary and Progress (1 October 1966–31 December 1966),” 31
December 1966; OSA, “Report—OXCART A-12 Aircraft Experience Data and Systems
Reliability,” 15 January 1968.
5. Haines, 73.
6. Richelson, 98.
7. Johnson, “History of the
OXCART Program,” 14.
8. McCone memorandum for the record, “Meeting with the President,
Secretary Rusk, Secretary McNamara, Mr. Bundy and DCI,” 29 November 1963.
9. Chief/OSA Aircraft
Systems Division memorandum for the record, “Factors Affecting A-12 Flight Test
and Mach Number Extension,” 21 July 1963.
10. Johnson, “Archangel Log,”
98–99.
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