 During the Second World War, the Soviet Union and the United States were united against a common enemy, but that cooperation deteriorated once that enemy was defeated. With the war over, the nation's ideological differences surfaced. The United States' democracy marked by capitalism and the Soviet Union's communist system, and a new conflict was born. The Cold War became a standoff, as both nations positioned themselves as technological leaders, in both needed ways to check and see if the other was telling the truth. This became harder once the Iron Curtain cut off communication between the Soviet bloc and the Western world. Classical forms of espionage with embedded spies became impossible, and rumors swirled that the Soviets were building an arsenal of high performance interceptor planes, bombers, submarines, missiles, and potentially even nuclear weapons under its shroud of secrecy. Russia needed to know what was really happening to prepare for the possibility of the Cold War turning hot, and for the first time, talk turned to peacetime aerial photo reconnaissance. Hello everyone, I'm Amy, this is The Vintage Space, my little home on the internet where we talk about all things mid-century that, quite frankly, interest me. Today we're starting something fun. I've wanted to really dig into Cold War aerial espionage for a while now, so this is part one of a series I'll be rolling out in the weeks to come, meaning now would be an excellent time to subscribe so you don't miss this deep dive that will cover the U-2, the Corona satellites, and the A-12 slash Oxcart slash SR-71. The story is huge, and I don't want to skip details and not do it justice. And I want to give you a heads up before we start. This is largely focused on American-Soviet relations. I know the plane flew in other regions, and we'll mention those, but we're looking primarily at Cold War and Soviet applications. Speaking of, let's get started at the very beginning of the story. During the American Civil War, Union forces had aeronauts rise above the countryside to get a sense of the enemy army's artillery and plans. The advent of aviation in the early 20th century meant members of the Air Corps could scope out enemy setups in planes rather than balloons in the First World War. The development of dry film meant these aerial crews could carry cameras to photograph enemy camps, taking that information back to their commanders who could plan the next move accordingly. Photo reconnaissance proved valuable, and advances in both aviation and photography in the 1920s and 1930s meant better cameras could fly in more sophisticated planes. In the Second World War, better aerial photos helped generals identify key targets for air raids and planned their forces' movements into enemy territory. But overflights in World War II were done over enemies, not allies, meaning the United States had no data about the Soviet Union. The countries were united during the war. So when the Cold War began, the United States had no idea what Soviet installations looked like or even where they were. Sparse insight came from interrogating prisoners returning from Soviet captivity and defectors from Germany who had flown recon missions over Russia. The information was useful, but quickly became dated. By the late 1940s, both the newly independent U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy were trying to update U.S. intelligence by flying RB-47s, the reconnaissance version of the B-47 bomber equipped with a camera. Using electronic ferret equipment, they'd find gaps in radar coverage along the border then dart into Soviet airspace to photograph their targets on these sensitive, intelligent or sense-it missions. But these penetration flights became significantly riskier in 1950 when the Soviet Union adopted a more aggressive policy about airspace violations and began attacking aircraft flying over the borders. The outbreak of the Korean War that same year extended this aggressive policy into the Far East over Soviet-backed North Korea. It marked a turning point in the Cold War. Faced with an increasingly aggressive enemy bent on expanding its area of influence, America's need for intelligence became more pressing, both for the sake of political decision-making and preparedness in the event that the Cold War turned hot. But how to carry out that reconnaissance wasn't immediately obvious. The increasing barriers and hostility in the airspace meant the Air Force's strategic air command couldn't gather data. So the Beacon Hill study group was formed to step in and explore what other options the U.S. government had to fill in its knowledge gaps. Members spent the first months of 1952 visiting bases, labs, and firms to look at new reconnaissance technologies. The resulting classified report, published on June 15, 1952, advocated radical approaches, including developing high-altitude reconnaissance airplanes with one major caveat. Avoiding political involvement was paramount. Missions would either have to gather intelligence while operating in friendly airspace, or the vehicle in question would somehow have to avoid detection or be impervious to interception. Ideally, though, it would be both, impervious to interception and invisible on radar. One of the strongest Air Force proponents for high-altitude reconnaissance was Richard S. Leghorn, one of the few men with first-hand experience in the matter. During the Second World War, Leghorn had commanded the Army Air Force's 67th Reconnaissance Group in Europe, and among his missions had been gathering pre-D-Day information. He'd spent weeks flying over the beaches at Normandy before the Allied invasion to help General Eich Eisenhower plan the Allied landing. The resulting June 6 invasion was stunningly successful in large part because of the photo reconnaissance. Now head of the Reconnaissance Systems Branch of the Right Air Development Command in Dayton, Ohio, Leghorn viewed the Cold War like another D-Day in a state of perpetual planning. Getting the upper hand was vital, quite literally. He knew altitude was key. The best Soviet interceptor of the day, the MiG-17, had an operational ceiling of 45,000 feet if the plane was pushed to its limits. Adding the range of the plane's artillery, Leghorn'd reason that a photo of Reconnaissance plane and it flying at 60,000 feet would be able to gather information while staying safe from counterattacks. But that was only half the argument in favor of high-flying planes, the other being evading detection. As far as America knew, the Soviet Union was using American-built radar acquired under the Lend-Delize program during the war in conjunction with a high-altitude tracking system. The best U.S. intelligence had determined the Soviets weren't using that high-altitude system as an early warning system. In short, the U.S. military knew the Soviet system's limitations and could exploit known gaps. The big unknown was whether the Soviets had updated the system. Flying into Soviet airspace at or above 65,000 feet represented a best guess on avoiding radar, but there was a chance that it was wrong. Leghorn directed the Right Air Development Command to start modifying the English electric company's Canberra into a photo of Reconnaissance plane called the PR-3. And before long, an all-new single-pilot Canberra with a high-lift wing, a Rolls-Royce Avon 109 engine, and a less stressed and therefore lighter airframe was in the works that, on paper, could reach 67,000 feet. But Air Force Brass wasn't interested in a specially built aircraft that only had peacetime uses. The service wanted a Reconnaissance plane that was also combat-ready, but that killed the altitude advantage. Modifying the PR-3 for combat, a version called the RB-57D added weight that translated to a 3,000-foot altitude penalty, which could be the difference between a safe flight and a flight intercepted by enemy weapons. When a British flight in a modified Canberra was detected and nearly shot down over Kaputstin Yar while flying at 65,880 feet, it became clear altitude wasn't worth sacrificing for combat readiness. Leghorn eventually grew so frustrated by his lack of support at the right air development command that he transferred to the Pentagon in early 1952 to work under Colonel Bernard Schreiber, assistant for development planning to the U.S. Air Force deputy chief of staff for development. Now Leghorn was responsible for planning the Air Force's Reconnaissance needs and it finally began serious research. In the second half of 1952, the Air Research and Development Command awarded the Martin Company a contract to study Leghorn's idea of adapting the B-57 bomber into a photo of Reconnaissance plane. At the same time, the right air development command in Ohio awarded study contracts to the Bell Aircraft Company and the Fairchild Engine and Airplane Company to design new planes with operational radii of 1,500 nautical miles and cruising altitudes of 70,000 feet. In January of 1953, Ike Eisenhower took office and brought new eyes to the issue of needing knowledge about goings on behind the Iron Curtain. He was disappointed in the quality of intelligence about the Soviet Block, the nearly decade-old photography that only covered the area west and the Ural Mountains, of all the massive land that is the Soviet Union. What little intelligence America had said the Soviet Union was taking strides rather than steps forward in its development of weapons. There was growing concern after the Soviets detonated an atomic bomb in the summer of 1949, then a lithium-deuterium bomb in August of 1953 that was technologically more advanced than anything the U.S. had. In the summer of 1954, U.S. intelligence found a new Soviet long-range bomber called Myasezhchev-4, or named Bison by NATO, that presented a threat to U.S. bases. The perception of a gap thus evolved over Eisenhower's first year in office and it left him greatly unnerved. He wanted less guesswork and more solid reconnaissance to figure out how he should position the United States policy and prepare for possible Soviet action. Director of Central Intelligence Alan Dulles was also keen for Eisenhower to take a more aggressive stance in the face of a powerful enemy threatening peace throughout the world. By now, the president had a few options to choose from. The U.S. Air Force had proposals for three new reconnaissance planes. Their child submitted the M195, Bell presented the Model 67, renamed X-16 in an attempt to hide its true purpose, which is a very strange use of the X designation, and Martin pitched the Model 294, which was a version of the B-57. They were all similar, but the Air Force favored Martin's plane as an interim design while Bell developed the X-16. Coincident with these three bids reaching the Air Force, the Lockheed Aircraft Company submitted its own wholly unsolicited design. The Air Force's pursuit of a high-altitude reconnaissance plane reached Lockheed through the grapevine in the fall of 1953. Assistant director of Lockheed's advanced development program, John H. Jack Carter, learned about it from Eugene Keifer, his old Air Force colleague who is now at the Pentagon. Speaking off the record, Keifer opined that the Air Force was wrong to pursue a plane that was both tactical and strategic. A purpose-built vehicle would be best all around. Carter brought the conversation back to officials at Lockheed who okayed his idea of drawing up a bid for the plane, and it wasn't long before Clarence L. Kelly Johnson joined the skeleton team. Kelly Johnson was already a highly regarded designer, with hugely popular planes to his name, including the P-38, the P-80, the F-104, and the Constellation. He loved the challenge of this high-altitude reconnaissance plane and immediately thought of the F-104. It was one of the most streamlined designs he'd ever worked on, and he reasoned that its body, paired with the high aspect ratio sailplane wings, could create the high flying plane of the Air Force's dreams. Without doing a detailed engineering study and ignoring some Air Force specifications that were more combat than reconnaissance, Johnson developed a conceptual design. He married the F-104's fuselage with large detachable wings and tail connected by tension bolts to keep the weight low. So to keep weight down, he designed a jettisonable wheeled dolly for takeoff, coupled with detachable pogos to stop the wings from dragging on the ground. For landing, he used skids paired with a reinforced belly rib. To free up as much space and weight as possible for photographic equipment, he left the cockpit unpressurized. He used the same General Electric J73 non-afterburning engine that powered the F-104. A single one was more than powerful enough for the plane. As per Johnson's initial design, the plane loaded with 600 pounds of sensors and camera equipment could reach 70,000 feet with a 2,000 mile range. Called the CL-282, the plane was, in effect, a jet-powered glider. In May of 1954, when Johnson finished his proposal, he attached a price tag of $28 million for 20 airplanes, each fitted with a GE J73 engine. The CL-282 proposal reached General Curtis LeMay, commander of the Air Force's strategic air command, and he wasn't interested. LeMay was happy enough to add a camera to the B-36 and just call it a day. The CL-282 made the rounds around Air Force groups in the first half of 1954 and was passed over again and again. Some people didn't like a plane that relied on the unproven J73 engine that had no track record flying above 70,000 feet. Some were put off by the lack of traditional takeoff and landing gear. Others didn't like the risk of a single engine design. But for all the detractors, there were a handful of Air Force brass who saw the value of the unconventional plane. Most vocal among them were three men with backgrounds in photoe reconnaissance. Special Assistant for Research and Development to the Air Force Secretary Harold E. Talbot Trevor Gardner, Gardner's assistant Frederick Ayers Jr., and one of Talbot's advisors, Garrison Norton. Knowing the Air Force wouldn't support the CL-282, but convinced the design was worth pursuing, they sought another path for approval and took it to the CIA. They met with Chief of Operations staff in the Office of Scientific Intelligence, Philip G. Strong, on May 12, 1954, six days before the Right Air Development Command started evaluating the proposal. Strong agreed to take the CL-282 to the newly hired Special Assistant for Planning and Coordination, Richard M. Bissell, who was also the CIA's leading advocate of technical over human intelligence gathering. Strong also took the CL-282 to Director of Central Intelligence, Alan Dulles, whose personal conviction was that classical forms of espionage with human agents were better than any new technological method. It seemed that, within the CIA, like with the Air Force, the CL-282 had its proponents, but the top-level brass wasn't on board with the radical design. Lockheed got a formal rejection letter from the Air Force on June 7, 1954, but the company kept honing the CL-282 design. In the latter half of 1954, advocates of the CL-282 increasingly thought of it as an integrated intelligence system, a cutting-edge plane and camera that, working in tandem, could answer questions about the Soviet's capabilities and, most notably, help answer the question of the bomber gap. At the same time, Eisenhower was increasingly in need of guidance on how to incorporate science into his policy and decisions. Motivated in part by the Air Force's lack of work on the photo reconnaissance issue, the president requested a new task force. The resulting technological capabilities panel brought together some key minds, including Eisenhower's science adviser James Killian as Director of the Steering Committee. The group existed to advise on Eisenhower's main concern about the possibility of a surprise attack from the Soviets, earning it the nickname of the Killian Surprise Attack Committee. From Eisenhower's perspective, he saw the open system of the United States as, quote, faced by a closed communist empire which has lost none of its ambitions for world conquest, but which now possessed an airplanes and guided missiles armed with nuclear weapons, an ever-growing capability for launching surprise attacks against the United States. The American system was so open that books designed to educate American citizens about its nuclear testing program contained maps and details about locations of testing sites. If an ordinary citizen could walk into a bookstore and gain that information, so too could any of the Soviet spies Eisenhower knew were in the country. The longer the American system remained open in the face of the closed communist system, the bigger the threat to America. And it wasn't just not knowing what weapons the Soviets had or where they were tested. Not being able to verify claims of number or kind of weapons meant the Soviet leaders could threaten action purely to elicit a reaction out of the United States. The Soviets could launch a dangerously effective propaganda campaign. To those responsible for America's security, it was a terrible arrangement. As Eisenhower put it, our relative position in intelligence compared to that of the Soviets could scarcely have been worse. The technological capabilities panel considered overflights, and when it found out about the CL-282, immediately saw it as the best option for a photo reconnaissance program. Not only was the plane revolutionary, members saw the potential of loading it with all kinds of esoteric photography equipment to get a complete picture of what was happening in the Soviet Union. It fell to a subgroup called Project 3 to undertake a detailed study of possible overflights. In October of 1954, under land's guidance, Project 3 drafted a whole proposal for a program using the CL-282, and the proposal defined the program as non-military. Project 3 wanted overflights done in civilian, unarmed, unmarked planes and thought the CIA was best suited to carry out this mission. But the idea was so sensitive it was omitted from the original report. Alan Dulles was reluctant to have the CIA run the overflight program. He didn't want the agency to get involved in what he felt was a military endeavor, especially because of his personal preference for human agents and secret communication. Land disagreed. In a letter to Dulles on November 5, 1954, he wrote that technological espionage is exactly, quote, the kind of action and technique that is right for the contemporary CIA, a modern and scientific way for an agency that is always supposed to be looking to do its looking. Dulles was also drawn to Kelly Johnson's proposed timeline. He said Lockheed could deliver the first plane by August 1955, which is almost a year sooner than Bell promised the Air Force it could have the X-16 in the air. In November of 1954, James Killian, Foster Dulles, Secretary of Defense Charlie Wilson, Alan Dulles, Air Force Chief of Staff Nathan Twining, Assistant Chief of Staff for Research and Development Donald Putt, and a handful of other advisors went to see Eisenhower for authorization for the overflight program. Their proposal was $35 million for 30 CL-282 planes, which Dulles flagged as a challenge. There was no way the CIA could spend that kind of money without revealing the program. People would follow the money and ask questions. That, however, wasn't considered an insurmountable issue. Go ahead and get the equipment, Eisenhower told the group, adding, but before initiating operations, come in to let me have one last look at the plans. Eisenhower's main stipulation was that the CL-282 program be carried out in an unconventional way to disassociate it from the bureaucracy of the Department of Defense or any other messy inter-service rivalry. Strong advocacy from Killian, the Air Force's refusal to develop the plane and Eisenhower's approval finally forced Dulles on board. He consented to have the CIA run the CL-282 overflight program. The last holdout was the Air Force, which finally agreed to support the CIA in development and applications, but it still wasn't giving up the X-16 as a backup system. As of November 19th, 1954, the overflight program using the CL-282 was on the books as a joint CIA Air Force program run by the agency but with military support as needed. And true to the project's secretive nature, things kicked off without fanfare. On November 26th, Dulles called Richard Bissell into his office, told him the program was his, and handed him a packet of sensitive documents to get him started. The new photo of reconnaissance program was officially underway, but there was a strange uncertainty hanging over the whole thing. There was an un-spoken understanding by all players that the international situation could change on a dime and negate the need for overflights entirely, or, alternatively, make overflights too dangerous both politically and for the pilot's safety. Everything about it was tenuous. Nevertheless, it was also now tangible. The program was finally given a name, Project Aquatone. Everyone involved in Aquatone knew security was paramount. Any leak at home or abroad could compromise the whole endeavor. To limit the number of people who knew it even existed, Richard Bissell made it completely self-contained. The program had its own contract management, admin personnel, financial department logistics, communications, and even security personnel made largely from his own staff. But the program quickly outgrew these minimalistic routes to include 357 people, between the CIA, the Air Force, and Lockheed as the prime contractor. On the Lockheed side, the go-ahead to build the CL-282 came via a phone call to Kelly Johnson on December 1, 1954. While engineers started on the flight article, negotiations got underway with un-vouchered funds. It was effectively a good faith arrangement wherein the contractor started building the plane under the understanding that money would come eventually. It was a mark of how seriously Lockheed, and specifically Kelly Johnson, took this project that work began with no money. In mid-December of 1954, Eisenhower authorized Allen Dallas $35 million from the agency's Reserve Contingency Fund for the CL-282 program, and with it offered a bit of a loophole. According to a 1949 law, the Director of Central Intelligence didn't have to account for these funds publicly or go through the process of competitive bidding with contractors and subcontractors. Thus Allen Dallas had access to the funding he needed, could expedite transferring those funds, and simplify production and procurement chains. On December 22, 1954, the first CIA Lockheed contract was signed under the code name Orphish. The agency gave Lockheed tech specs rather than performance specs, a semantic difference that gave the contractor far less rigid requirements, and therefore allowed for better use of available funds. Lockheed's portion of the overall program budget was $22.5 million to build 20 planes and a two-seat trainer and spares. The U.S. Air Force would provide the engines, saving the CIA the cost of the power plants. The balance of the CIA funds was allocated to other elements, including the camera and life support systems. To get things moving while negotiations finished on the contract, Bissell wrote Kelly Johnson a check for $1,256,000, and there's something right after that figure that's redacted in the report. On February 21, 1955, and popped it in the mail. The final contract was signed on March 2, 1955 and called for delivery of the first plane that July and the last one in November of 1956. From the start, Kelly Johnson housed the CL-282 in the Advanced Development Facility at Lockheed's Burbank offices, the famed Skunk Works Maximum Security Facility that was home to its black programs. Johnson also kept the team confined to a small space, both for security and workflow. He wanted the engineers and draftsmen no more than 50 feet from the assembly line, so if there were any problems or questions, the issue could be solved by walking over to the plane rather than a series of inter-office memos. With this somewhat informal setup in place, the Lockheed team got to work on the plane they soon nicknamed Angel because it was designed to fly so high. The CL-282 moved from concept to flight article. Reusing the fuselage from the F-104 meant Lockheed could also reuse the jigs and dies from this other plane, simplifying things. The only unique elements of the new plane were the wings and tail. It emerged towards the end of 1954 as an unconventional design, 63 feet long with a wingspan of 103 feet. The peak altitude of 70,600 feet raised a new challenge, finding a fuel that wouldn't evaporate. A solution came from Jimmy Doolittle, aviation pioneer and former Army General who was now VP of Shell Oil. He had the company develop a low-volatility, low-vapor kerosene known as LF1A, JPTS, or JP7 that had a boiling point of 300 degrees Fahrenheit at sea level. That fuel was stored in leak-proof compartments in the wings extending through all but the last six feet of space, meaning the CL-282 had wet wings rather than wing tanks. There was also a 100 gallon reserve tank in the nose. The plane's takeoff speed was 90 knots and was assisted by jettisonable reusable pogos under the wings to keep them level and off the ground. Landing speed was 76 knots and done on lightweight landing gear consisting of a single ollie of strut, two wheels toward the nose, and two solid-mount wheels under the tail. After touching down, procedure had the pilot gradually tilt the wings to rest on skids that kept them off the ground. The whole landing assembly weighed just 208 pounds but could support a 7-ton aircraft landing. The large sailplane-inspired wings gave the plane a total glide distance of 244 nautical miles from its peak altitude of 70,000 feet for a glide ratio of 21 to 1. The high aspect ratio and low drag of the wings that gave it such a formidable gliding ability were among the most challenging design elements in the CL-282. The plane needed a lot of fuel for its long journey but it also couldn't carry so much that the weight of that fuel impacted its ability to reach its peak operational altitude. To free up weight for fuel, Johnson designed the wings and tail assembly to connect to the fuselage with tension bolts, a row for the wings and just three for the whole tail assembly. This also freed up weight for instruments and cameras. The reconnaissance bay had a weight limit of 450 pounds. Though the tension bolt arrangement for the wings and tail was a great solution in terms of weight, it created a new problem. It made the plane vulnerable to gusts of wind at altitudes below 35,000 feet where the air pressure was strong enough to seriously damage the fragile connecting structure. The solution was a gust control mechanism, again inspired by sailplanes, that effectively set the ailerons and horizontal stabilizers in a position that kept the plane in a slightly nose-up attitude that offered protection against sudden stresses. But it wasn't just gusts of wind that presented a threat. Even on a nominal mission, if the plane flew too fast, too slow, or to slightly wrong attitude, stresses on the airframe could rip it apart. Pilots had to be immensely careful to keep the plane in that slightly nose-up attitude at operational altitude. If the nose dropped a degree or two in a nose-down pitch, the plane could gain speed and exceed the placarded limit in less than a minute, at which point it would come apart. Managing speed meant paying close attention to instruments because flying above 65,000 feet gives no physical sensation of speed, and there aren't objects like nearby clouds to use as a reference. It was theoretically easy for a pilot to overspeed and not even realize it before it was too late. On the flip side, if the plane slowed and stalled, the forces associated with its fall could also rip the plane apart. This is the famous, or maybe infamous, coffin corner. The difference between stall speed and overspeed was just six knots. Flying the CL-282 took serious concentration for the pilot to maintain aircraft trim as it consumed fuel since this affected weight as well as balance. The plane had a complex system of feedlines and valves that drained to a central sump, making it impossible for a simple fuel gauge to display levels. The pilot only had a mechanical counter to manage his consumption. Ground crews set the counter at the start of the mission and it automatically subtracted the amount of fuel as it was used in flight. The pilot kept a log of fuel readings and matched it to what planners said levels should be at given points in the mission. Another method was simply tracking airspeed and time to determine fuel usage. With all the pilot had to manage during the flight, Lockheed and the CIA needed to ensure his life support system didn't add to his task list. That job fell to Dr. William Randall Randy Lovelace and Don Flickinger, two pioneers of aviation medicine each with decades of experience. From a human factor standpoint, the challenge came from the cockpit being pressurized to just 28,000 feet, which is higher altitude than humans can survive without additional oxygen. Again, this was a decision designed to save weight. During the CL-282, meant the pilot would need some kind of pressure suit, and Lovelace and Flickinger suggested the David Clark Company as the manufacturer. The final solution was a partial pressure suit that, coupled with the pressure in the cabin, kept him safe from the dangers flying at high altitude. If the cabin pressure dropped, the suit would inflate to keep the pilot safe. He got a steady flow of oxygen through his helmet. Mission rules said he would pre-breathe the oxygen before a flight to purge his blood of nitrogen. An external bladder allowed him to urinate on the flight, and a low bulk, high-protein meal diet the day before and the morning of a mission reduced the likelihood of bowel movements. The pilot could drink sweetened water by a straw he could push through a small, self-healing hole in his faceplate. Ready to eat foods were on hand in squeezable containers, and many pilots opted for hard candies to keep their throats from getting dry. Another thing added to the cockpit for pilot safety was a suicide pill. No one expected Soviet missiles to be able to shoot down the CL-282 or expect the pilot to survive such an incident. The plane was so fragile, everyone involved in the project assumed it would disintegrate in the unlikely event that something knocked it out of the sky. Nevertheless, the decision was made to include suicide pills to spare the pilot torture in the very unlikely event he was captured. Dr. Alex Batlin of the Technical Services Division suggested a thin glass cyanide pill like the one Hermann Göring used to kill himself. It would have fatal effects within 15 seconds, and taking it on a mission was the pilot's choice. Some opted to take it, most did not. As Eisenhower wrote about the need for suicide pills in his memoirs, this was a cruel assumption, but I was assured that the young pilots undertaking these missions were doing so with their eyes wide open and motivated by a high degree of patriotism, a swashbuckling bravado, and certain material inducements. Their worry for pilot safety was ejecting, many worried that they could lose their legs below the knee ejecting because the suit made the cockpit so tight. The plane's technical development and human factors considerations were only part of the overall program. The final piece that was turned the CL-282 into a true reconnaissance platform was a camera. The important thing when talking about cameras for aerial photo reconnaissance is focal length. Focal length is the optical distance from the point where light entering into the lens converges to form a sharp image in the film that captures that image. The longer the focal length, the narrower the angle of view and the higher the magnification. Standard cameras measure focal length in millimeters. Photo reconnaissance cameras measure focal length in inches. To give you a sense of the difference, depending on the type of lens and distance to the target, the focal length for an SLR sits between 18 millimeters and 300 millimeters, which is 0.7 to 11.8 inches. Photo reconnaissance in the Second World War had primarily used the Fairchild K-19 and K-21 framing cameras that had lenses of focal lengths between 24 and 40 inches. The Tri-Metregon K-17 mapping camera came into use late in the war and debuted a setup with three cameras working simultaneously for vertical, oblique right, and oblique left pictures, revealing a wide swath underneath the plane. The problem with the setup was that it used a lot of film, and the oblique photographs didn't have a ton of definition. Advances post-war meant standard cameras could resolve things about 20 to 25 feet across from an altitude of 33,000 feet, but at twice that altitude, that resolution wouldn't be enough. For good intelligence, the images needed to resolve objects 10 feet across at the largest to determine what was going on at a missile installation or test site. Photos would need to be at least four times more powerful to make the CL-282 a viable system. James G. Baker took on the challenge of developing this new camera in October of 1954, before aquatome contracts were even in place. He knew time wasn't something the program had in excess. And he did it out in the open to avoid hang-ups of classified documents, in effect hiding his camera right in the open. He started with an existing camera for an interim model while he worked on something custom-built for the CL-282. This iteration, called the A1, used two 24-inch K38 framing cameras with lenses adjusted for acuity. One was mounted vertically to photograph a 17.2 degree swath below the plane using a 9.5-inch film. The other was set in a rocking mount, so we could alternatively photograph the right and left obliques out to 36.5 degrees onto separate rolls of 9.5-inch film. The film supplies unwound in opposite directions, so the forces didn't unbalance the plane in flight. The A1 also used a Perkin Elmer tracking camera with a 2.75-inch film and a 3-inch lens for continuous horizontal scanning photographs. The backup was a K17 6-inch 3-camera Trimetrgon using 9-inch film. An additional visual aid was a periscope to help pilots recognize targets. By the spring of 1955, the CL-282 was getting sufficiently close to flight tests. The question of where to test it was easier to solve than the larger question that haunted Eisenhower, would the plane be safe to use? And that's where we're going to end the story for this video. Like I said up front, this is the first in a series. Up next we're going to be looking at the first U2 missions, followed by a deep look into the powers incident and its effects, then moving into corona satellites and finally the A12 ox cart slash SR-71. Quick reminder that my new book, Fighting for Space, is available however you like to consume books, as is my first, Breaking the Chains of Gravity. I have links for both of those in the description below. I want to give a special shout out to my Patreon supporters and YouTube members. You guys truly make these videos possible, thank you so much for your ongoing support. If you want to help keep these videos going and want to have access to the vintage space discord, I've got the links you need in the description. I've also got links to connect on social media, that's the best way to keep up with what I'm doing, and that's it. Thank you guys so much for hanging out throughout this entire video, and I will see you next time.