As we speak now we have a visitor submit from the CIA! Of their archives, researching one thing utterly totally different, I discovered the reply to a query I by no means thought to ask. I instantly knew you’d have an interest too. It was initially revealed on cia.gov in 2019 and reprinted with permission.
I did my finest to recreate the photographs, that are barely legible on the CIA website, and the captions are mine, not theirs (particularly the corpse bit)
Flying with Sharks: A Plan for Each Final result
Think about this: it’s early 1961 and also you’re a pilot in CIA’s U2 aerial reconnaissance program. Your U2 unit, Detachment G, is answerable for overflight pictures and intelligence assortment on targets of curiosity in Asia.
Detachment G, presently stationed in California, has simply been referred to as into motion by the Eisenhower Administration, which stays cautious of the U2 program given the current, and notably public, incident involving the downing of Francis Gary Powers’ U2 aircraft over the Soviet Union.
However, you and 4 different pilots have been tasked with a singular and daring mission: covertly seize high-altitude regional imagery to substantiate Laotian claims of an imminent North Vietnamese invasion. Policymakers want the most recent data, so plan for frequent regional overflights.
And do all of it with the “cowl” of altitude. Seventy thousand toes ought to do the trick (for reference, that’s double the altitude of a modern-day industrial airliner).
That’s rather a lot to consider, isn’t it?
Past the inherent dangers of working extremely complicated equipment 13 miles within the air, all whereas touring at speeds north of 500 mph, U2 pilots confronted a substantial amount of hazard upon getting into the cockpit.
The downing of Powers’ U2 aircraft in 1960 revealed anti-aircraft weaponry might now attain heights that had been inconceivable only a few years earlier than.
Pilots knew their missions have been essential and failure was not an choice. However in addition they knew their high-flying missions had been publicly outed, and that adversaries can be trying to the skies in hopes of catching one other U2 within the act.
Pilots educated to be the perfect, however ready for the worst: what to do within the occasion of a mechanical failure or profitable anti-aircraft offensive.
Because it seems, CIA had considered every thing, even… sharks.
There’s One thing within the Water
Whereas unlikely, the specter of shark assault was a really actual (and grotesque) one for U2, and later A12, pilots conducting excessive threat surveillance routes that may take them over miles and miles of shark-infested waters.
Actual sufficient, actually, that CIA grew to become uniquely motivated to defeat the risk.
After contemplating numerous choices, and given the blended outcomes of a shark repellant developed by CIA’s predecessor, the Workplace of Strategic Companies (OSS), CIA determined {that a} bodily barrier may be the most suitable choice. In 1968, the Company positioned an order for 50 “Shark Screens.”
Created by Dr. Clarence Scott Johnson, a Challenge Supervisor with the Naval Undersea Analysis and Growth Middle, within the spring of 1969, the Shark Display was a small, expandable, protecting system {that a} pilot might carry and deploy within the occasion of a water touchdown.
When packed, the display was sufficiently small to suit right into a flight go well with pocket or field roughly the scale of a pack of cigarettes.
Within the unlikely occasion of a water touchdown, the pilot would have the ability to take away the vacuum-packed Shark Display, which might unfurl into a big bag. From there, the pilot would inflate a big tube across the opening of the bag, then climb inside. As soon as inside, they might fill the bag with water, utterly extending the bag and thus defending themselves inside.
The inflatable tube on the opening of the bag would hold the Shark Display afloat and supply its construction, and a standard-issue life vest would hold the pilot afloat inside the bag. Their head would float simply above sea degree, giving the pilot a low profile on the floor, additional defending them from doable enemy combatants.
Sharks, often attracted by dangling appendages, maybe mistaking them for fish, would see a big, cumbersome object as an alternative. Hopefully, this would go away the shark disinterested, but when not, the Shark Display meant that there can be no easily-accessible point-of-attack.
The bodily barrier created by the Shark Display additionally served one other objective: to maintain the blood of any wounds sustained within the crash from spreading and attracting marine life.
Paint it Black
Preliminary prototypes of the Shark Display have been product of neoprene, however calls for for weight discount and pack-ability pushed designers in direction of aluminized mylar and polyester, a powerful material mixture that was each light-weight and resilient.
The design was modified within the early Nineteen Seventies to alter the colour of the submerged part to a uninteresting tone.
Boring tones, in keeping with researchers, have been “approached way more reluctantly by sharks searching for bait than have been lighter-colored, extra reflective ones.”
In mild of the brand new data, the CIA Workplace of Particular Actions issued a service bulletin to officers with a easy instruction: paint the underwater portion of your Shark Display flat black. It might save your life.
The “Swiss-Military Knife” of Shark Limitations
Seems that the Shark Display’s life-saving prospects prolonged past its sea-faring intent.
Researchers on the Naval Missile Middle, whereas conducting preliminary exams of the prototype in 1969, discovered that the system proved helpful on land as nicely, and issued steering for potential use as a sleeping bag, pup tent, lean-to (short-term shelter), stretcher, and photo voltaic nonetheless.
This little pocket-sized shark barrier appeared to pack a giant punch.
The Verdict
So, on to the true query; did it work?
Fortunately, U2 and A12 pilots by no means reported use of the Shark Display within the line of responsibility, however in keeping with researchers on the US Division of Navy, Cornell College, and the College of Hawaii, the Shark Display was “confirmed to be the best shark assault deterrent but examined.”
They got here to this conclusion after thorough exams in opposition to numerous harmful shark species in each the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
Paperwork additional show that the Shark Display was the popular technique of protection in opposition to shark assault, even over the OSS-developed “Shark Chaser” repellant, which had been adopted for deployment by the US Navy.
Effectively, there you might have it, the CIA answer to defeating the shark risk. Nonetheless not satisfied? To not fear, contract paperwork present that CIA even sprang for the guarantee, simply in case.
Now good luck, pilot!
Aviation historical past has a behavior of manufacturing splendidly inconceivable true tales. Of all of the issues a U2 pilot anticipated to fret about, being eaten by a shark after surviving every thing else was in all probability pretty low on the record. Someplace in a warehouse, there’s in all probability nonetheless a Shark Display with a lifetime of not getting used.
However it may very well be comforting to know that when you ever end up ejecting from a spy aircraft over shark-infested waters, somebody considered your predicament half a century in the past.
