The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance; The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974

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Chapter 6
SUMMARY OF THE OXCART PROGRAM
fntended to replace the U-2 as a collector of strategic intelligence, the
OXCART was never used for this purpose. Its brief deployment was
strictly for obtaining tactical intelligence and its photographic product
contributed very little to the Agency's strategic intelligence mission.
By the time OXCART became operational, photosatellite systems had
filled the role originally conceived for it. The most advanced aircraft
of the 20th century had become an anachronism before it was ever
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used operatwna y.
The OXCART did not even outlast the U-2. the aircraft it was
supposed to replace. The OXCART lacked the quick-response capa­
bility of the smaller craft: a U-2 unit could be activated overnight. and
within a week it could deploy abroad. fly sorties. and return to home
base. The OXCART planes required precise logistic planning for fuel
and emergency landing fields, and their inertial guidance systems
needed several days for programming and stabilization. Aerial tankers
had to be deployed in advance along an OXCART's flight route and
b_e _p.rovisioned with the highly specialized fuel used by the J58 en­
gines. All of this required a great deal of time and the effort ·or several
hundred people. A U-2 mission could be planned and flown with a
third fewer personnel.
Although the OXCART program created a strategic reconnais­
sance aircraft with unprecedented speed, range. and altitude. the pro­
gram's most important contributions lay in other areas: aerodynamic
design, high-impact plastics, engine performance, cameras, electronic
countermeasures, pilot life-support systems, antiradar devices. use of
nonmetallic materials for major aircraft assemblies. and improve­
ments in milling, machining. and shaping titanium. In all of these ar­
eas, the OXCART pushed back the frontiers of aerospace technology
and helped lay the foundation for future "stealth" research.
"'On 26 January 1967 Kelly Johnson noted in his "Archangel log":
I think buck to /959, beji,re we sturred this airplu11e, to disc11ssio11.1· with Dick !Jis.\'ell
where we seriously considered the problem of 11'/zerlzer there would he one more mum! of
aircraji be}<Jrl! the sute/lites took over. We jointly agreed there would be just one round.
and nor rwo. That seems ro huve heerz a 1·ery accurate evaluariim, as it seems rlrcll JO
SR-71 '.I· !(ive us erwugh overflight recormais.1·a11t·e capahi/iry and we dort 't need tlze adcfi­
tional IV Oxcart aircraft.
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