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
This collection consists of ten 22.5 by 11 inch drawings from Northrop Aircraft, Inc. Included here are eight drawings of the RB-49A and two drawings of the FB-49A.
Biographical / Historical:
In March 1948, a proposal was made to the United States Air Force by Northrop Aircraft, Inc. for a photographic reconnaissance version of the "flying wing." This proposed aircraft was referred to as the RB-49A and the FB-49A, and officially known as the Northrop YRB-49A. This proposal grew out of the failed XB-35 program, and the USAF desperately hoped for the success of this aircraft. However, shortly after an agreement was made in August 1948, the project was abandoned. Disagreements and indecision led to a rocky beginning and only preliminary plans for this aircraft were completed. Once the RB-49A project was abandoned, Northrop focused their efforts on the YRB-49A as a conversion of the YB-35A.
Provenance:
John Keen Miller, Gift, 1995
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
This collection documents the development and testing of the f/4 achromatic lens system. The material includes test data, photographs, and drawings, as well as correspondence detailing Baker's successful fight to secure a patent on the lens system.
Scope and Contents:
This collection documents the development and testing of the f/4 achromatic lens system. The material includes test data, photographs, and drawings, as well as correspondence detailing Baker's successful fight to secure a patent on the lens system.
Arrangement:
Arrangement: (by type of material) 1) Contract specifications 2) Purchase orders and receipts 3) Correspondence 4) Patent applications 5) Camera operations manual 6) Performance and environmental tests final report 7) Lens drawings 8) Performance analysis printouts and calculations
Biographical / Historical:
In the mid-1950s the Defense Department requested a system for achieving better quality photographic intelligence using smaller and lighter cameras on high-speed aircraft at high altitudes. In response Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation designed the KS-25 High Acuity Camera System, an integrated camera/lens system using a wide-angle 24' focal length lens capable of producing transparencies with resolutions of 140 lines/mm on a high contrast target or 90 lines/mm on a low contrast target. The lens for the KS-25 was designed by Dr. James G. Baker of Spica, Inc. and represented new optics technology to allow wide-angle viewing at daylight illumination on high speed cameras, yet capable of producing a resolution that was effectively diffraction limited.
Provenance:
Don Welzenbach, Gift, 1986, NASM.1986.0028.
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:
Fairchild KS-25 High Acuity Camera System Search this
John Guy Gilpatric (1896-1950) was one of America's earliest aviators. Although not officially an Early Bird, he first learned to fly in 1912 at the age of sixteen. That same year he gained notoriety by setting a new American record when he reached an altitude of nearly 5,000 feet with a passenger on board. During his teenage years, Gilpatric gave flying lessons and flew in air exhibitions, eventually becoming employed as a test-pilot. He later worked as an aviation instructor in Toronto, Canada, teaching the Royal Canadian Air Cadets. Following the United States' entry into World War I in 1917, Gilpatric enlisted in the Army Air Service as a First Lieutenant, where he was stationed overseas as Engineering Officer, First Aero Squadron, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). The collection contains four scrapbooks, photographs, correspondence, licenses and identity cards, newspaper clippings, newsletters, and periodicals, which chronicle his aviation career and military service.
Scope and Contents:
The collection contains four scrapbooks, photographs, correspondence, newspaper clippings, newsletters, and periodicals. The collection also includes Gilpatric's Aero Club of American issued pilot license and his American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) identity and pilot identity card. Correspondence includes three letters from Glenn H. Curtiss and Jimmy Doolittle. The scrapbooks contain photographs, clippings and ephemera, including the follow subjects: Gilpatric's early aviation career as both an aviator and an instructor with the Moisant Flying School, Sloane Aviation School, the Royal Canadian air cadets; early aircraft such as the Sloane Flying Boat, the Nieuport 27, Curtiss JN-2, as well as Wright, Bleriot, Farman, and Deperdussin aircraft; and early aviators Charles Niles; DeLloyd Thompson; Art Smith; Bert Acosta; Claude Grahame-White; George W. Beatty; William Knox Martin; George M. Dyott; John E. Sloane; and Robert Y. Hoshino, a Japanese aviator. One scrapbook focuses on Gilpatric's service in the AEF in World War I with photographs of zeppelins, soldiers and aviators, aerial reconnaissance photography, destroyed villages, and graves. Photographs found in the videodisc prints are most likely copied from the scrapbooks or smaller images that had been removed from albums.
Note: Where indicated, the digital images in this finding aid were repurposed from scans made by an outside contractor for a commercial product and may show irregular cropping and orientation in addition to color variations resulting from damage to and deterioration of the original objects.
Arrangement:
Materials were arranged by physical location.
Biographical / Historical:
John Guy Gilpatric (1896-1950) was one of America's earliest aviators. Although not officially an Early Bird, he first learned to fly in 1912 at the age of sixteen. That same year he gained notoriety by setting a new American record when he reached an altitude of nearly 5,000 feet with a passenger on board. During his teenage years, Gilpatric gave flying lessons and flew in air exhibitions, eventually becoming employed as a test-pilot. He later worked as an aviation instructor in Toronto, Canada, teaching the Royal Canadian Air Cadets. Following the United States' entry into World War I in 1917, Gilpatric enlisted in the Army Air Service as a First Lieutenant, where he was stationed overseas as Engineering Officer, First Aero Squadron, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). Upon returning to the United States in 1919, he left the world of aviation behind and worked in advertising. Gilpatric is probably best known, however, for his subsequent career as a writer, during which time he wrote the Saturday Evening Post series, "Colin Glencannon," among numerous other books and articles.
Provenance:
Unknown, gift, unknown, NASM.XXXX.0220
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 United States' first photographic reconnaissance satellites were designed, launched, and operated as the Corona program by the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Science and Technology, and by the US Air Force. Operating between 1959 and 1972, Corona KH (Keyhole) series satellites provided worldwide photographic coverage, surveying ballistic missile development and nuclear sites of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. This collection consists of fifteen 20 x 24 inch photographic prints used in a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) conference or press event in 1995, the year that the Corona program was declassified, 35 years after the first successful mission.
Scope and Contents:
This collection consists of fifteen 20 x 24 inch color photographic prints (predominantly reproducing black and white aerial photography) which were used in a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) conference or press event in 1995, the year that the Corona program was declassified, 35 years after the first successful mission.
Arrangement:
Materials are presented in original order received.
Biographical / Historical:
The United States' first photographic reconnaissance satellites were designed, launched, and operated as the Corona program by the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Science and Technology, and by the US Air Force. Operating between 1959 and 1972, Corona KH (Keyhole) series satellites provided worldwide photographic coverage, surveying ballistic missile development and nuclear sites of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. Images were shot on film canisters which were ejected from the satellite, and were then recovered by specially modified aircraft during parachute descent. The Corona program was declassified by executive order in 1995, making over 800,000 photographs available to the public.
Provenance:
National Reconnaissance Office, Transferred from the Space History Department, 2013
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
This collection includes 75 photographs of Word War II bombings of France, specifically of Cologne. Aerial reconnaissance photographs make up the majority of the collection, although there are also photographs of a mapping room as well as a few pictures taken on the ground of the bombing damage. This collection also includes two prints of a Lockheed P-38 in flight.
General:
NASMrev
Provenance:
James A Hedgpeth, Jr., Gift, 1989, 1989-0078, unknown
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:
World War, 1939-1945 -- Aerial operations Search this
