Re: New Area 51 Show


Message posted by TD Barnes on February 19, 2012 at 8:40:30 PST:

You certainly got to see some neat stuff over that period. I was at the Beatty tracking station during the flights of the X-15, XB-70, Lifting Bodies, LLRVs, YF-12. I was the only one cleared to participate in the occasional tracking of the A-12 out of Groom to provide velocity verification as they advanced in their flight testing. Few people, even at CIA ever knew of the Seven Sisters, my radar site being the Seventh. The other six were Air Force ADC SAGE sites. None of us were allowed to record the flights in any way except I would provide the velocity strip chart on the special flights. The SAGE sites and FAA radar were notified of the flights with instructions to monitor location in case something happened, but to not mention or record the flights in any way. Anything flying above 60,000 feet in our flight paths they were instructed to ignore. This was to protect the secrecy of the existence of the Mach 3, high altitude planes that we were developing. The NASA High Range was much more interesting than Groom Lake ever was except for the brief time we were doing the tactical evaluations of the MiGs.


In Reply to: Re: New Area 51 Show posted by greatguess on February 19, 2012 at 7:14:51 PST:

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