Aviation and the transportation system : progress, profits and the public interest : transcript of a symposium in the public interest / sponsored by Connecticut General Life Insurance Company
Author:
Connecticut General Life Insurance Company Search this
This collection consists of material relating to Francis Gary Powers's flying career in the Air Force, Central Intelligence Agency, and later pursuits. The majority of the documents deal with the May 1960 U-2 incident, in which Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union during a reconnaisance mission and imprisoned. Materials include: logbooks; flight records from his military and civilian careers; a pocket diary and journal he kept during his Soviet imprisonment; letters to his parents; materials collected by his parents as his father attempted to visit him including a telegram from Nikita Khrushchev and a New Testament given to Powers by his mother during his Soviet trial; Congressional hearing material; newspaper articles; Life magazine; and several photographs of Powers.
Scope and Contents:
This collection consists of documents relating to Francis Gary Powers and his aviation career, particularly the 1960 U-2 incident with the Soviet Union. Materials include: logbooks; flight records from his military and civilian careers; a pocket diary and journal he kept during his Soviet imprisonment; letters to his parents; materials collected by his parents as his father attempted to visit him including a telegram from Nikita Khrushchev and a New Testament given to Powers by his mother during his Soviet trial; Congressional hearing material; newspaper articles; Life magazine; and several photographs of Powers.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged into three series: Early Career, the U-2 Incident, and Post U-2 Incident Life and Career.
Series 1 contains materials relating to Francis Gary Power's early career with the United States Air Force before resigning to join the CIA, including his birth certificate, military orders and forms, and his individual flight records.
Series 2 contains materials relating to the U-2 incident, in which Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union and imprisoned. The first set of materials relates to Powers' imprisonment, including his prison journal, pocket diary, New Testament, correspondence, and the subsequent congressional hearing. The second set of materials relates to the Powers family during the incident, including correspondence and telegrams with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and the United States government and Oliver Powers' passport. The third set of materials relates to the media reactions to the incident, including complete newspapers, article clippings, a television script, and artwork.
The Soviet Prison Journal and Soviet Prison Pocket Diary were on display in the Looking at Earth Gallery when the collection was digitized. The photocopies were scanned for digital access.
Series 3 contains materials from Powers' life and career after his return to the United States, including logbooks, public relations documents, flight training and insurance records, an employment application, and memorial items.
Documents with personally identifiable information (PII) have been redacted or not digitized.
Biographical/Historical note:
Francis Gary Powers (1929 -1977) learned to fly during high school. He enlisted in the United States Air Force after graduating from Milligan College in 1950. In 1956, he resigned from the Air Force to become a "civilian employee" of Lockheed on loan to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, authorized to fly Air Force aircraft. In reality, he was a covert employee of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), training for Operation Overflight—U-2 reconnaissance missions.
Powers was captured and imprisoned after his U-2 was shot down over the Soviet Union during an aerial reconnaissance mission on May 1, 1960. Powers was placed on trial and exchanged nearly two years later for Rudolf Abel, a Soviet agent. After his return to the United States, Powers continued to work for the CIA, but then left to work at Lockheed. Powers was working for NBC's Los Angeles affiliate KGIL in 1977, when his helicopter ran out of fuel and crashed, causing his death.
Provenance:
Claudia Sue Powers, Gift, 1994, NASM.1994.0010.
Restrictions:
No restrictions on access.
Rights:
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.
Topic:
United States -- Foreign relations -- Soviet Union Search this
The status and economic significance of the airline equipment investment program, a report, by Paul W. Cherington, prepared for [E. R. Quesada the President's special assistant for aviation.]
[Technical reports on aviation forecasts, costs of aircraft noise reduction programs, costs of transport aircraft operation, costs of recruiting pilots, policy statement of the FAA, air traffic control costs, and airport planning]
Author:
United States Federal Aviation Administration Office of Policy Development Search this
United States Federal Aviation Agency Office of Policy Development Search this
This small collection contains working documents from the President's Air Policy Commission. Folder 1 includes 1947 drafts and memoranda. Folder 2 includes undated drafts and memoranda.
Biographical / Historical:
The President's Air Policy Commission Collection was formed after World War II to gather relevant data and consider various critical issues facing contemporary aviation. The donor of this collection, Edward S. Prentice, trained fighter pilots in World War II and subsequently was a participant in the Commission. He later worked in the fields of international transportation and economics.
General:
NASMrev
Provenance:
Edward S. Prentice, gift, 1997, 1997-0053, Public Domain
Restrictions:
No restrictions on access
Rights:
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests
The collection consists of correspondence, reports, brochures, articles and a scrapbook dealing with this effort. Much of the correspondence is concerned with efforts to obtain support and funding for the project from private industry and the United States Congress. The scrapbook, with index, is a collection of newspaper and magazine clippings about the SST project and includes technical, political, financial and public relations articles.
Biographical / Historical:
During the 1960s and 1970s there was an effort to establish a program to produce a supersonic transport in the United States. William Scholl Whitehead of the firm Ives, Whitehead and Co., was heavily involved in this endeavor.
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests
United States. Navy. Bureau of Aeronautics [BuAer] Search this
Extent:
0.45 Cubic feet ((1 legal document box))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pamphlets
Drawings
Date:
1942
Scope and Contents:
This collection consisits of the complete set of the Navy WWII model drawings and a booklet explaining the project.
Biographical / Historical:
Accurate scale model aircraft have often been helpful in training recognition of aircraft, range estimation and determination of cones of fire. In December 1941, the Secretary of the Navy asked the US Commissioner of Education for the schools to make 500,000 scale model airplanes. This alliance resulted in a joint project between the US Navy, Bureau of Aeronautics, who supplied the authoritative drawings and plans, and the US Office of Education, who perepared educational and informational material.
General:
NASMrev
Provenance:
Paul E. Garber, Gift, unknown, XXXX-0438, Public Domain
Restrictions:
No restrictions on access
Rights:
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests