Td Barnes Bücher

CIA Project OXCART, Project Gusto produced the program code-named Oxcart to develop the stealthy A-12 Archangel as a new U-2 follow-on aircraft. Under CIA Project Oxcart, the stealthy A-12 Archangel was flight-tested at Area 51, Nevada, under a shroud of secrecy. Flying at 95,000 feet and 2,221 mph or Mach 3.35, the A-12 was the fastest, highest-flying jet-powered, piloted aircraft ever, faster than the Air Force's SR-71, who officially holds the speed record. Selecting a place called Area 51 in Nevada and beneath a shroud of secrecy, the Central Intelligence Agency first flew the U-2, the Angel knowing at the time that the Russians would most likely shoot it down within 18 months. To replace the U-2, the CIA designed America's first stealth plane, using the slide rule to produce what today remains the highest flying and fastest crewed, air-breathing aircraft ever flown, the A-12 Archangel. The agency named it the Oxcart, the first of a family of four Blackbird planes. Unknown for decades, the A-12 flew 2,850 sorties out of Area 51, some faster than a rifle bullet and up to 90,000 feet. Now declassified, Area 51 veteran TD Barnes can now tell the OXCART story.

In 1955, the Central Intelligence Agency established a clandestine base of operations in the Nevada desert with a mission to protect the United States from a growing communist threat. Special projects at Area 51 were shrouded in mystery, and the first was one of the world's most famous spy planes, the U-2. It fueled half-truths, rumors and legends for more than half a century. Now with many details of that endeavor declassified, the real story can finally be told. Author and Area 51 veteran TD Barnes sifts fact from fiction in one of America's most protected origin stories.