The Origins Of The First Spy Planes | Secrets Of War | Timeline

one of the great privileges of working at history here and making films together with our team at timeline is the access we get to extraordinary historical locations like this one stonehenge i'm right in the middle of the stone circle now it is an absolutely extraordinary place to visit if you want to watch the documentary like the one we're producing here go to history hit tv it's like netflix for history and if you use the code timeline when you check out you'll get a special introductory offer see you there [Music] [Music] in the last half of the 20th century spy planes soared through the stratosphere at three times the speed of sound breaking records that remained to this day [Music] others lurked quietly at the very rim of hostile nations listening photographing transmitting overheard conversations on secret frequencies halfway around the world by century's end they ranged in size from nearly 300 000 pounds to a mere four ounces covert operatives on the ground were no match for these airborne agents unlike satellites that toddled around the globe in predictable orbits spy planes photographed enemy sites when and where they were needed usually surprising the enemy these eyes and ears in the sky came in all shapes and sizes some were operational in the gulf war others flew spy missions in bosnia and kosovo [Music] even now a curious array of spy planes are being developed and tested by a young generation of aeronautical geniuses spy planes small enough to take off from the palm of your hand the story of top secret reconnaissance aircraft really begins midway in the 20th century in the darkest days of the cold war [Music] the big difference between the super powers at this time was that the u.s was more or less an open book and the soviet union was a closed book the iron curtain had descended and in intelligence gathering terms it was a tough nut to crack the omaha nebraska headquarters of the strategic air command and in washington dc the belief was that the soviets had far surpassed the us in bomber production [Music] in fact this civil defense training film was required viewing for all american school children because of the fear of a soviet nuclear attack many americans believed that it was only a matter of time before a fleet of russian bison bombers would soar across the united states dropping nuclear bombs on every major american city every military installation every armament factory then by 1957 when the soviets launched the first man-made satellite sputnik these fears reached a fever pitch now it was believed the russians could deliver nuclear warheads from outer space but in truth all of these fears were based on very sketchy intelligence [Applause] even three years before sputnik was launched president eisenhower knew this challenge had to be met [Music] after a series of secret meetings with his closest advisors ike made the difficult decision to build something new a spy plane based on revolutionary technology [Music] it was codenamed aquitone and the cia was put in charge [Music] director alan dulles chose his assistant richard bissell to head the project from washington funding for aquatone would come from one of the cia's many secret accounts in fact the cia only recently allowed this top secret footage to be declassified the work began on december 9th 1954 in southern california in a little-known town called burbank the contractor was lockheed's advanced development company nicknamed skunk works after a wartime comic strip they were led by an aeronautical engineering genius clarence kelly johnson this spy plane eventually would carry the name u2 short for utility 2. it was given an elaborate cover story that it was a weather plane designed for scientific experimentation at the highest altitudes the top secret on-board camera was designed by edwin land the man famous for creating the polaroid camera in late august 1955 just eight months after work began the u2 was ready to fly it would need to be tested at a secret airfield nearby but at the time none existed so the u.s air force colonel who had been assigned to liaise between the pentagon and the cia chose a site not very far north of the nevada nuclear test range he knew that site because he'd flown over it during nuclear weapons tests [Music] it was a vast dry lake bed known as groom lake an innocuous piece of property that eventually became the single most secret air base in u.s history today it's known by another name area 51. surprisingly the entire u-2 project continued to remain a secret even from soviet spies considering the number of leaks emanating from the manhattan project it seems incredible that the soviets never infiltrated the black world of the u-2 that's not hard to understand the u2 program was fairly small it was conducted under conditions of extreme secrecy and it was developed very quickly with test pilot tony levier in the cockpit the aircraft tested well by july 4th 1956 it would attempt its first operational sortie deep into soviet airspace at six o'clock in the morning cia pilot harvey stockman took off from wiesbaden air force base in west germany while americans celebrated their independence day stockman carefully guided his aircraft over poland and into bella russia as he flew in the direction of leningrad stockman caught sight of mig fighters attempting an intercept below in that moment he chose to trust kelly johnson's promise that the u2 flying at an altitude of 70 thousand feet was too high to be shot down by migs or surface-to-wear missiles stockman held to the course and made it home safely with clear reconnaissance photographs of the forbidden territory of the soviet union but russian radar had locked on to the u2 on her maiden spy mission eisenhower understood that the u2 flights over the soviet union would be illegal they were plainly illegal in international law he was also worried that if they were detected the soviets might misinterpret them as being for instance a bomber coming to attack even so the president was pleased within a year the u2's cia pilots over flying and photographing this immense country proved one thing that the reports of the soviet's massive bomber production had been greatly exaggerated [Music] the united states always maintained the u2's cover story that these flights were strictly scientific designed to learn more about the weather [Music] to some extent the u.s got by with this ruse that is until may 1st 1960 may day was one of the most important holidays in the soviet union it was also the day that cia pilot francis gary powers was shot out of the sky in his u2 his aircraft destroyed powers survived the crash but on the ground the soviet military and the kgb awaited him years of hard-won secrecy for the u.s intelligence community were wiped out in a moment as photographs of power's capture eventually were carried by every news organization in the world [Music] it was not until literally the mayday incident that the americans were aware that it didn't just carry weather sampling equipment it carried cameras and its primary mission was not to find out if it's going to be nice and sunny tomorrow but if it's going to be nice and sunny over ballistic missile sites inside the soviet union powers was convicted of espionage and imprisoned an event that permanently slammed the door shut on u2 spy missions over the soviet union then in late summer 1962 a u2 captured the first images of the soviets military buildup in cuba [Music] experts believed the photos revealed the existence of medium range and intermediate range ballistic missiles that placed most major u.s cities within target range of a nuclear attack within days of the first u2 overflight a second u2 flew a spy mission over cuba it was shot down and the first american u2 pilot was killed flying over enemy territory as soviet ships headed towards havana bay with another shipment of armaments president john kennedy called soviet premier khrushchev's bluff good evening my fellow citizens this government as promised has maintained the closest surveillance of the soviet military buildup on the island of cuba he placed a quarantine around the cuban island khrushchev backed down the ships made a u-turn and headed back to their homeland today russian experts say that indeed there were atomic weapons in cuba in 1962 and the cubans did not have control over them had the american president sent in ground troops or attempted to bomb suspected missile sites the soviets could have retaliated with nuclear weapons photographs from the u-2 flights helped provide the information president kennedy needed in order to face down the soviet premier [Music] this resilient spy plane has literally overflown the entire world in fact there is no land mass the u2 has not overflown and photographed [Music] even so by the early 60s a new supersonic spy plane was being tested and refined in the nevada desert codenamed oxcart stealthy and sleek it would become the fastest aircraft on earth while the u-2 was still being tested in the nevada desert in 1955 richard bissell of the c.i.a and kelly johnson predicted it would fly undetected for a mere two years they believed that by then the soviets would have the technology to bring down any u2 in flight over their borders but in fact it took the soviets five years even so it was this concern that prompted president eisenhower and the cia to order the engineers at lockheed's skunk works to begin work on the next generation of spy plane codenamed oxcart the a-12 eventually would be known as the blackberry even before the u-2 was shot down president eisenhower had authorized its replacement with the a12 and ultimately the air force's successor to the a12 the sr-71 it would fly about 10 000 feet higher than the u2 but most importantly it would fly three times the speed of sound and the missile that shot down the u-2 could never catch the sr-71 in the summer of 1959 president eisenhower approved initial funding for the top secret aircraft the money would come from the cia a black budget of 4.5 million dollars because the u2 was so easily visible to soviet radar kelly johnson designed the a12 with a reduced radar signature its shape and configuration as well as the materials from which it was created all served to defeat radar detectability [Music] you could say this aircraft was the first stealth spy plane [Music] it was also the last plane developed with a slide rule instead of a computer this stealthy aircraft inhabited the black world of the cia the strategic air command and the air force for years [Music] the lockheed skunk works engineers who developed and built this unique spy plane never put the lockheed name on any document never stamped the drawings with the skunkworks logo there was no cover story there was no cover story because nobody would believe it would be anything other than what it was nobody was going to believe it was a weather plane or anything else as with most intelligence collection systems the sr-71 was born secret and stayed that way for a very long time even though thousands of people were working on it they all had to have special access clearances to learn about the program and if you did not need to know about it you didn't know about it by 1960 the cia tasked lockheed with finding the pilots to fly the a-12 names of potential candidates were drawn from air force files the cia was responsible for the intensive security background checks like the u2 pilots before them the men who finally were chosen were sheep dipped meaning they left the air force their military status was suspended then they became civilian employees of the central intelligence agency maintaining secrecy within the government was basically through this compartmented system where anybody who is going to be told about oxcart had to be approved how to go through security screening how to sign a special agreement in mid-february 1962 the a12 was ready to fly there was one problem in its time the a12 looked like an aircraft straight out of a science fiction film [Music] no one had ever seen anything like it anywhere the moment it was airborne the a12 secret existence would be revealed to the public so designer kelly johnson and his cia counterparts decided that the aircraft would have to be dissembled in the skunkworks plant in burbank california and then hauled to the nevada desert in a specially built trailer under cover of darkness and with secrecy assured on february 26 1962 the oxcart convoy arrived at the secret test site at one o'clock in the afternoon the cia worked out a plan with the federal aviation administration together they enlarged the restricted airspace around the groom lake a few civilian air traffic controllers received clearance for oxcart operations nearby military facilities were also briefed and ordered not to report radar sightings of any unusual aircraft first flight revealed that even in the hands of lockheed's most experienced test pilot the a-12 was temperamental and difficult to fly by the second flight in may the problems were minimal and the a12 went supersonic [Music] the plane was officially announced in the summer of 1964 by president lyndon johnson seven months after he assumed office [Music] the system will be used during periods of military hostilities and in other situations in which the united states military forces may be confronting foreign military forces further information on this major advanced aircraft system will be released from time to time at the appropriate military secret classification levels some believe his intention was to use the existence of the a12 to refute charges that he was soft on defense to this day there's controversy over how the a12 was used according to some experts in august of 1964 the cia needed several operational aircraft to overfly cuba by november 5th [Music] they reportedly had discovered that immediately after the u.s presidential election the soviets planned to use guided missiles to shoot down every u-2 flying over cuba without the u2's reconnaissance photographs the u.s intelligence community would never know if the soviet union redeployed their missiles to cuban soil they believed that the a12 was the answer the problem was that by november 5th there was no cia pilot qualified to fly the extremely temperamental a12 kelly johnson volunteered lockheed test pilots for the highly sensitive flights over cuba the cia record seems to dispute this story [Music] in his book skunk works author jay miller revealed that kelly johnson kept his own logs logs which suggest the caa accepted his offer and on november 10th the a12's first operational sorti over denied airspace was accomplished by a civilian commercial employee there's no evidence that it was detected by soviet-made radar in cuba besides nothing in the soviet arsenal could have shot it down in fact during its operational lifetime more than a hundred missiles were fired at the a-12 by then also known as blackbird but none of these aircraft was ever shot down one of the most interesting episodes was during the middle east war in 1973 when the u.s found it needed more photo intelligence than the satellites could apparently provide the blackbird was assigned the job but european nato allies refused to grant it basing rights so long missions were flown out of bases on the us east coast and the blackbird flew across the atlantic through the mediterranean over egypt israel syria and jordan and back out the way it came for the blackbird flying faster than mach 3 these missions from the east coast of the united states to the middle east and back were a mere 10 hours long [Music] but the supersonic speed also called for as many as five to six aerial refuellings blackbird flew this difficult mission at least nine times in just a few months [Music] in fact during its lifetime blackbird was used for aerial spy missions over vietnam central america libya the middle east and north korea but time politics and changing economic priorities began to affect this enigmatics pipeline's operational life spy satellites had become more sophisticated and the cia was out of the manned aerial reconnaissance business as a result the tremendously high cost of maintaining this supersonic aircraft fell largely to the us air force which eventually decided the price tag was just too steep [Music] in november 1989 the fastest aircraft on earth was retired from operational military service [Music] today remnants of this powerful fleet of spy planes are being housed in aircraft museums around the country no manned jet aircraft ever flew faster than blackbird but the changing times demanded more than speed quite simply the pentagon decision makers were interested in a spy plane that didn't attract as much attention and had a lower price tag after the u2 incident when francis gary powers was shot down over the soviet union no american president would approve a manned spy flight deep into soviet airspace the threat of a nuclear response was too great and so the american intelligence community found itself between a rock and a very hard place the u.s needed to know what the soviets were up to what kind of missiles they were testing what sorts of nuclear warheads they could deliver and where the u2 was out soviet sands could shoot it down and the a-12 wasn't operational spy satellites did offer clear and detailed photographs their presence didn't constitute an act of aggression but they had their own very serious drawbacks they were visible and predictable all an enemy nation needed to do is to camouflage its assets when the satellite passed overhead [Music] as early as 1948 both the british and the american intelligence agencies used retrofitted bomber airframes like the b-29 b-47 and d-50 to scout along the borders of the soviet union [Music] but it was difficult for a mig pilot to tell if the b-47 was a bomber or a reconnaissance airplane particularly for an inexperienced soviet pilot this made spying on the soviet union with reconditioned bombers far too provocative [Music] the air force needed a non-descript airframe it could fill with a cargo of listening devices electronic sensors and analysts by the early 60s they found the answer in boeing's kc-135 jet tanker a cousin of boeing 707 commercial jetliner it was given the name rc-135 [Music] this aircraft could fly at high altitudes it was large enough to carry all the necessary equipment and operators and with its onboard sensors if atmospheric conditions were almost perfect it could see within a 230 mile radius and here around the world [Music] best of all the rc-135 looked like an airborne tanker or even a commercial jetliner the air force in boeing could hide their new spy plane where no enemy would think to look in plain sight since on the exterior of the airplane it looked like a typical c-135 very few people paid attention to it it was what mattered inside that proved the airplane's capability inside were extremely sensitive top secret sensors so powerful in fact they could lock on to an enemy's radar or radio frequencies and literally eavesdrop on enemy conversations taking place on the ground originally this top-secret spy plane was designed to monitor the nuclear capabilities of enemy nations especially those of the soviet union but in 1961 even before the rc-135 was fully operational soviet premier nikita khrushchev announced to the world that soviet engineers had developed a 100 megaton nuclear bomb [Music] boy this was just a terrifying event because if the soviets could produce this then that meant ultimately that american minuteman missile silos and other very hardened shelters were quite vulnerable moreover cities like new york could be erased with a single bomb the u.s had to find out if khrushchev was bluffing a highly classified program called speedlight began immediately the rc-135s flew in very close proximity to what was purported to be a test of this 100 megaton bomb on board were extremely high-speed cameras sensors spectrometers they photographed and recorded detailed information not only about the blast but about the after effects when i talked to the crew members they said they looked at the side of the airplane that faced the atomic detonation and the paint had been burned off had the detonation which was not 100 megatons had in fact been 100 megatons the fireball would have been an area the size of maryland and the airplane would have been vaporized while few declassified details are available experts do know this that the crew survived to bring back information on the soviet's nuclear capability that no other aircraft could have managed as in the cuban missile crisis the soviet premiere was bluffing thanks to the inspiring display of courage on the part of the crew and to the intelligence-gathering abilities of the rc-135 the staff at the pentagon was aware of the bluff [Music] sometimes the high demand for secrecy actually inhibits the intelligence gathering process [Music] whether it's a spy plane a spy satellite or an operative on the ground the information must pass through several hands from the spy to the analyst and finally to the person who needs it some of the rc 135's missions under the operational name rivet joint were so highly classified that even on board the aircraft the flight crew was segregated from the electronics intelligence crew working at the back of the airplane the flight crew itself did not have the appropriate security clearance in one of the airplanes the the rivet amber the latrine was in the back of the airplane and for a pilot who had to go to the bathroom literally the crew in the back sort of had to stop what they were doing and put hoods over their equipment or you know whistle at something like that so that the man with lower security clearance could go to the latrine during the gulf war in 1991 this kind of secrecy became a severe liability to theater commanders it frustrated the rc-135 rivet joint crews and onboard observers who risked their lives to get this vital intelligence to the men and women on an already chaotic battlefield general schwarzkopf and his battlefield commanders in particular would say what is the rivet joint telling us what are the satellite photos telling us what are the youtube photos telling us and in a post cold war mentality the people who had those photos in their hands were still locked into this belief that i'm sorry you don't have a clearance you don't have a need to know and in fact those were people sitting in their cubicles at fort meade maryland or elsewhere who were thousands of miles distant from the battlefield desert storm and desert shield drew two other boeing 707 reconnaissance aircraft into battle the aywax an airborne warning and control system developed in the 70s and the newest spy plane named joint stars j stars was developed in the open it wasn't a black program like the u2 or the blackbird or the stealth fighter or stealth bomber however it does have its secrets in the radar processing and indeed four of the radar's 10 modes of operations are still classified while rivet joint eavesdropped on the enemy's conversations and listened in on their plans and aywax watched the airspace joint stars flew above and kept its eye in the sky on enemy troop and weapons movements working together these spy planes dogged the iraqis from one end of the desert to the other one particular j stars success was in providing warning of saddam hussein's only real offensive move with his armor at kafchi in the middle of the conflict during the battle for the town of kafji joint stars detected a force of 80 iraqi vehicles headed directly for the allies position this urgent information was relayed to the marine battle commander a tactical airstrike was called in in the advancing iraqis his early warning prevented a surprise attack and helped to assure a coalition victory rivets joint awax and joint stars provided this same kind of protective intelligence in 1994 in bosnia and in kosovo in 1999 theater commanders continue to thirst for instantaneous battlefield reconnaissance [Music] the american public the politicians and the military demand increased safety for soldiers in the field to satisfy everyone in the last decade of the 20th century unmanned remotely piloted spy planes made their debut in war in all shapes and sizes [Music] as american military forces deployed to the middle east for the gulf war in 1991 another kind of eye in the sky joined the u-2 rivet joint and joint stars it was an unmanned aerial vehicle or uav and it gave theater commanders an entirely new ability to see action on the battlefield almost as it occurred quite simply a uav is an aircraft that flies without a human pilot on board the american army began testing them in the 80s [Music] most military experts say that uavs were designed for missions that were either too dangerous too dull or too dirty in this case too dirty meant politically sensitive over 30 years it passed since francis gary powers was shot down in his u-2 spy plane over soviet airspace but the fear of another such event still lingered in the corridors of washington d.c during the 90s this concern and a low price tag pushed uav development center stage they are still being tested in the mid 90s lockheed skunk works and boeing created this intriguing uav called dark star [Music] dark star it was recently cancelled sikorsky aircraft corporation a pioneer in the helicopter industry designed this unique unmanned spy plane called cipher [Music] and there are many others but during the gulf war in 1991 and several years later in bosnia a uav called pioneer flew successful reconnaissance missions for the american army the navy and the marines [Music] the air force flew a uav named predator the political environment of the bosnia theater did not necessarily allow a armed manned aircraft to overfly parts of the country whereas an unarmed surveillance type assets such as the predator were more easily employed predator is actually flown by air force rated pilots from a ground station that includes a virtual cockpit the pilot has a stick a rudder and all the aircraft instruments that a normal pilot would use to fly an airplane carries an airborne video camera whose battlefield imagery is available to ground commanders in almost real time [Music] predator was using the balkan's theater of operations almost continually off and on since late 1995-96 to monitor convoy and troop movements amongst the roads to search out marshalling areas to find hidden arsenal such as tanks anti-aircraft artillery even airplanes in 1999 after the final hostilities it ceased and both the u.s and nato forces had moved in to maintain peace between serbian forces and nato in kosovo the soviets took over the pristina airfield this imagery was provided by predator russian migs are seen on the ramp trucks are loaded with russian aircrews and maintenance workers the nato theater commander tasked with securing this airfield got the information about the russian presence from predator quickly at a very politically sensitive time this imagery was also made available via satellite to nato headquarters in belgium and to the pentagon thousands of miles away in washington the detailed surveillance that predator provided may have helped to avoid a conflict with the russians by revealing the true extent of their assets [Music] no reconnaissance pilot's life was ever at risk [Music] in february 1998 as predator operated in the balkans another uav was being tested at edwards air force base in the mojave desert the global hawk you're talking about a vehicle that can stay aloft over 35 hours and be self-deployable we could fly from edwards air force base where we are right now and up to the state of illinois we could image the whole state of illinois over 40 000 square nautical miles and then fly back to edwards all in one mission while predator is flown by a virtual pilot from a ground station global hawks flight path is pre-programmed by computer and can be mostly autonomous in the typical scenario you're going to have three global hawks that are on station so 24 hours a day you're going to have one airborne image rings at battlefield level global hawk has an incredible array of high resolution sensors on board that can see through clouds and fog day or night all from an altitude of up to 65 000 feet like predator it offers almost instantaneous battlefield imagery to theater commanders experts believe it will be operational by the year 2003. roger global hawks onboard equipment is commercial off the shelf so it is unclassified in fact most uavs do not live in the world of black budgets and secret airfields even though their missions may be top secret aeronautical engineering firms across the country continue to create test and refine even newer unmanned aerial vehicles [Music] meanwhile an entirely new class of miniaturized almost undetectable spy planes are being created to patrol cities and suburbs with the threat of urban terrorism increasing tomorrow's battleground may include a city's skyscrapers or its water supply the enemy's weapons might contain chemical and biological agents that poison the air and water what kind of spy plane can warn of an enemy's movements in a federal office building the mall on a city street or near a reservoir and can this same aerial spy technology be used in the more traditional war fighting scenarios it would seem so as spy planes with no more than a six-inch wingspan are being developed and tested they're called micro aerial vehicles mavs and they're the brainchild of a little-known arm of the department of defense known as darpa the defense advanced research projects agency darpa has operated at the very edge of public awareness for years it funded the research and development for some of the most unique and farsighted defense technologies that in later years were used in the f-117 stealth the b-2 bomber and even the internet microair vehicle clearly falls in that category it's not clear today that the microwave vehicle is going to find operational utility anytime soon but it does show lots of promise and it's worth the small investment that's being made darpa defined a micro aerial vehicle as an aircraft with dimensions no larger than six inches in any direction and it had to perform a military mission these restrictions forced the creators to think outside the box in order to invent an entirely new species of aircraft [Music] mavs are small enough to be carried in a soldier's backpack the mav is potentially an ideal source of information visual information and maybe even acoustic information letting the foot soldier know where his opposition is and in what numbers during the vietnam war both vietcong and north vietnamese army forces camouflaged themselves in the foliage of the surrounding jungle the only way for the american soldier to detect them was to be close enough to see motion or to hear some small movement [Music] in a jungle setting armed with an mav the foot soldier would have instant reconnaissance he would know exactly where the opposition was how many were there and what sort of weapons they carried a micro vehicle is is really a revolution uh in soldier sensing the the idea of being able to to have something that you can project in the air that can fly where you want it when you want it there to be able to take pictures and transmit those pictures back to you in real time is a capability that is not in the current military structure but one that's truly needed combat in desert terrain will prove to be one of the greater challenges for the micro air vehicle it relies on its ability to blend against the backdrop of trees or buildings the flat endless monochromatic desert landscape offers no camouflage no place to hide but the chance to use these amazing spy planes in this desert environment does exist [Music] in the gulf war it's not out of the question for example that we might have taken mavs dropped them in numbers from a larger aircraft and allowed them to settle in on areas where we suspected illegal activity three two one launch [Music] experts say the micro air vehicle will have to earn its way into the soldier's bag of tricks once darpa proves they can fly and carry the necessary payloads the defense contractors who build mavs will have to soldier proof them [Music] how can i make a shell that is durable enough that i could hand it to a soldier they can run it through a river as they're doing a river crossing they can bang it around just like they bang around all of the rest of their things which is a normal thing to do when you're in the field and still be able to survive and be able to when i need it accomplish the mission that i need it for experts believe it will take another 20 years before mavs are operational in the meantime darpa has found no need to cloak microair vehicles in a veil of secrecy there are no closed doors hiding this new technology yet black programs have always been at the core of spy plane development as far back as the late 80s when the sr-71 blackbird was mothballed there was speculation about its successor [Music] today even trained observers in the u.s and europe report seeing lights in the sky unusual aircraft moving at mach speeds then suddenly changing directions much of this activity is reported near the legendary secret airfield at groom lake nevada known as area 51. how much of this is myth how much of it is reality is something that we simply don't know it's entirely possible that one or more unacknowledged aircraft were built flown and put into storage in the late 80s and early 1990s there's an intriguing story about one so-called mystery spy plane it is known by the name aurora just as blackbird was built to succeed the u2 some experts believed that this was the aircraft created to succeed blackbird that aurora inhabited the secret world of the cia and air force black budgets for years it was said to fly eight to ten times the speed of sound reportedly soaring at an altitude of well over a hundred thousand feet aurora was supposed to be able to take off from the united states fly reconnaissance mission over the soviet union and return without landing that's very ambitious maybe we're looking at aurora today when we look at the lockheed martin x-33 a lot of people have wondered where some of that advanced technology came from proof that these mystery spycrafts did or did not exist may lie hidden for generations to come [Music] there's a very large black budget still there's a very secret test site at groom lake still but on balance i don't believe that there's anything flying and going operational out there that we don't know about all the facts about these spy planes may never be known but who's to say 50 years ago no one believed that a lightweight single-engine glider would become the grandfather of modern aerial espionage it may be impossible to predict what form spy planes of the future will take [Music] but whatever aircraft this new generation of designers creates one thing is certain soldiers and generals will always rely upon them to patrol the skies of potential adversaries to photograph to listen and to transmit back their vital intelligence

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

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Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, aviation history, spy planes, spy technology, timeline, timeline world history, timeline channel, timeline world history documentaries

Id: kJBjTtkZVoA

Length: 51min 26sec (3086 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 13 2020