Open Skies, American Spy Planes. the Treaty That Was Rejected By The Soviets | History Documentary
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ต.ค. 2024
- American spy planes and the Open Skies treaty that was rejected by the Soviets.
North American RB-45C Tornado, Lockehhed SR-71 Blackbird, Lockheed U-2 Dragon Lady, Hughes XF-11, Republic XF-12 Rainbow, Convair RD-36B Peacemaker, and North American RB-47 reconnaissance plane.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower presents his “Open Skies” plan at the 1955 Geneva Summit meeting with representatives of France, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. The plan, though never accepted, laid the foundation for President Ronald Reagan’s later policy of “trust, but verify” in relation to arms agreements with the Soviet Union.
Eisenhower met with Prime Minister Anthony Eden of Great Britain, Premier Edgar Faure of France, and Premier Nikolai Bulganin of the Soviet Union (acting for Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev) in Geneva in July 1955. The agenda for the summit included discussions on the future of Germany and arms control. As it became clear that no consensus could be reached on the issue of possible German reunification or the precise configuration of an arms control agreement, Eisenhower dramatically unveiled what came to be known as his “Open Skies” proposal. It called for the United States and the Soviet Union to exchange maps indicating the exact location of every military installation in their respective nations. With these maps in hand, each nation would then be allowed to conduct aerial surveillance of the installations in order to assure that the other nations were in compliance with any arms control agreements that might be reached. While the French and British expressed interest in the idea, the Soviets rejected any plan that would leave their nation subject to surveillance by a Western power. Khrushchev declared that Eisenhower’s “Open Skies” was nothing more than an “espionage plot.”
Indeed, “Open Skies” was much less than an “espionage plot.” Eisenhower himself was later quoted as saying that he knew the Soviets would never accept the plan but thought that their rejection of the idea would make the Russians look like they were the major impediment to an arms control agreement. For the Soviets, the idea of U.S. planes conducting surveillance of their military bases was unthinkable. They did not want it known that the Soviet Union was far behind the United States in terms of its military capabilities. The United States soon found that out anyway-just a few months after the Soviet rejection of “Open Skies,” the Eisenhower administration approved the use of high-altitude spy planes (the famous U-2s) for spying on the Soviet Union.
Specifications ( North American B-45A)
North American B-45 Tornado 3-view line drawing.svg
Cutaway view of XB-45. Note the intended radar-sighted tail gun position, later replaced by a conventional manned position.
Data from U.S. Standard Aircraft Characteristics[19]
General characteristics
Crew: 4 (Pilot, Co-Pilot, Bombardier-Navigator and Tail Gunner)
Length: 75 ft 4 in (22.96 m)
Wingspan: 89 ft 0 in (27.13 m)
Height: 25 ft 2 in (7.67 m)
Wing area: 1,175 sq ft (109.2 m2)
Airfoil: root: NACA 66-215; tip: NACA 66-212[20]
Empty weight: 45,694 lb (20,726 kg)
Gross weight: 81,418 lb (36,931 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 91,775 lb (41,628 kg)
Powerplant: 4 × General Electric J47-GE-13 turbojet engines, 5,200 lbf (23 kN) thrust each
Performance
Maximum speed: 566 mph (911 km/h, 492 kn)
Cruise speed: 365 mph (587 km/h, 317 kn)
Range: 1,192 mi (1,918 km, 1,036 nmi)
Ferry range: 2,170 mi (3,490 km, 1,890 nmi)
Service ceiling: 46,000 ft (14,000 m)
Rate of climb: 5,200 ft/min (26 m/s)
Wing loading: 69.3 lb/sq ft (338 kg/m2)
Thrust/weight: 0.26
Specifications (convair B-36)
3-view line drawing of the Convair B-36
1:11
Video clip of the construction and features of the B-36 bomber
Data from the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force[68]
General characteristics
Crew: 13
Length: 162 ft 1 in (49.40 m)
Wingspan: 230 ft 0 in (70.10 m)
Height: 46 ft 9 in (14.25 m)
Wing area: 4,772 sq ft (443.3 m2) [47]: 54-55
Airfoil: root: NACA 63(420)-422; tip: NACA 63(420)-517[69]
Empty weight: 166,165 lb (75,371 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 410,000 lb (185,973 kg)
Powerplant: 6 × Pratt & Whitney R-4360-53 Wasp Major 28-cylinder 4-row air-cooled radial piston engines, 3,800 hp (2,800 kW) each for take-off
Powerplant: 4 × General Electric J47 turbojet engines, 5,200 lbf (23 kN) thrust each in pylon-mounted pods outboard of piston engines
Propellers: 3-bladed Curtiss Electric constant-speed fully-feathering pusher propellers
Performance
Maximum speed: 435 mph (700 km/h, 378 kn)
Cruise speed: 230 mph (370 km/h, 200 kn)
Combat range: 3,985 mi (6,413 km, 3,463 nmi)
Ferry range: 10,000 mi (16,000 km, 8,700 nmi) [47]: 54-55
Service ceiling: 43,600 ft (13,300 m)
Rate of climb: 1,995 ft/min (10.13 m/s)
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Used to work near the Mildenhall airbase in the uk when the scheduled SR71 overflights of the Soviet Union were being made to confirm the de commissioning weapons. These were every Thursday afternoon too and the hairs on the back of my neck tingle at the mere thought of it even now. Those diamond shockwaves are an amazing sight. I later had the privilege of working with an SR71 crew chief and he was of an exceptional calibre too.
The Republic XF-12 Rainbow is likely the most beautiful prop aircraft ever built …
Our P3C Orion hangar was next door to the “Habu”. Kadena AFB deployments, 1979, 80, & 81.
Hughes H-1 is the single engine holder of most beautiful plane. It sits on the DC Air and Space museum floor….
"Howard Hughes--- a pair of glasses and a smile..." & a few bottles of codeine and pss! 🤣
Ever heard of the Aurora Spy Plane?, It is a plane that the government says doesn’t exist and some thought it was a successor to the SR-71.
SHHHhhh!! 😂
But we had excellent Spy satellites by then. Why bother with the fabled “Aurora”?
U-2 HIGH ALTITUDE BAILOUT TALE: At 14:45 the narrator describes the U-2's "coffin corner" fairly accurately, but left out a tiny detail about the 10 knot window of airspeed vulnerability. Exceeding the top number of the U-2's safe airspeed band causes aerodynamic "mach tuckunder", a downward pitch of the nose, which if not quickly corrected would lead to catastrophic structural failure of the aircraft. For that reason, at maximum mission altitudes the U-2 was always flown by a very sensitive autopilot capable of minute corrections of pitch to maintain exacting airspeed parameters.
In the early 1970s, while flying an operational night mission over Southeast Asia, Major John Little, USAF, experienced an uncommanded autopilot failure that unexpectedly pitched the aircraft's nose down and tore the aircraft's tail off. Almost instantaneously finding himself in a violently tumbling airplane at near supersonic speeds, Major Little was forced to eject.
The U-2's canopy jettisoning system was designed to unlock and open the canopy just enough to allow the slipstream to finish removing it from the aircraft before the ejection seat was propelled upwards and out of the cockpit. Unfortunately the out of control U-2 was in a flight attitude that did not provide a slipstream strong enough to complete the forcible removal of the canopy. The sturdy canopy frame was stalled directly over John's head. After a tiny programmed delay, as designed, Major Little's seat fired upward, propelling him directly into the partially opened canopy's frame, fracturing the face shield of his now fully inflated pressure suit, instantly deflating it and rendering him unconscious.
Free falling nearly 60,000 feet, the egress system functioned automatically, separating him from his seat, and deploying his parachute, dropping his lanyard-attached survival kit, and inflating his life raft. Still unconscious, Major Little plunged into the ocean below. Seawater contact activated his "Mae West" personal flotation vest. Restored to consciousness by his immersion in chilly seawater, he found himself barely afloat, his pressure suit filled with water that had entered through his broken faceshield. This was further complicated by the fact that he was thoroughly entangled in his parachute shroud lines, all in the early morning pitch blackness.
John's survival training kicked in. He methodically disentangled himself from the parachute and hundreds of shroud lines. Next, he reeled in his raft and began the slow and arduous process of boarding, hindered significantly by the fact that his pressure suit was completely inundated with heavy seawater.
Through automated alerting technology, search and rescue forces had been activated shortly after John's bailout, and soon he observed the lights of a SAR KC-135 circling his position. At sunrise the big tanker made a low pass to verify that he had so far survived his ordeal. The Stratotanker made another fly-by and dropped him more survival equipment and a larger liferaft. Rocking its wings, the SAR bird climbed away, again leaving John alone, bobbing on the swells of a very empty ocean. But within hours he was plucked from the water by the SAR forces of a friendly allied nation. A day or so later, John was back at his home station, Davis-Monson AFB in Tucson.
In 1974 or '75, I had a chance encounter with John at the DM officers club, where he related his harrowing tale to me. (In 1969 I had briefly known him at Laredo, AFB where he was a T-37 instructor and I was a Marine student going through USAF UPT). Later, after his harrowing U-2 bailout ordeal, he had been medically grounded due to the severe hypoxia he had suffered resulting from his extremely high altitude bailout and compromised pressure suit. After an extended period of observation and testing at the Air Force's Wilford Hall Aeromedical Center in San Antonio, the docs had given him a full medical clearance to fly again. When I ran into him, he was back at his old U-2 squadron for requalification training in the Dragon Lady. I don't know what has happened to him since that memorable breakfast together so long ago. It would be interesting to know about the rest of his Air Force career.
When Gary Powers was famously shot down about a decade or so earlier, in 1960, he may well have had an egress experience similar to John's. Perhaps because of the extremely embarrassing circumstances of his shootdown, and the fact that at the time of the incident, Powers was technically a CIA employee and not officially in the Air Force, I have never seen a detailed firsthand account of his bailout, descent, and subsequent capture by the Soviets. If there is one, please post a link here. I would love to read it. 🐻🇺🇲
46.04 Many secrets remain classified till the year 2010.
Twenty ten ?? Did I hear that right ?
I had to check when this was uploaded ( just yesterday ) Was that a typo ?
Funny how they missed out the Canberra
This video is largely click bate. There is very little footage or talke about the RB45 or RB36.
What was the RB45 anyway?
Do you know if the USA ever bought Canberra bombers and fitted them with a longer wing for high altitude?