May Be Based At Harewood

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30959, 15 January 1966, Page 1

May Be Based At Harewood

A Lockheed U2 reconnaissance and research plane may be flying high above Christchurch next June on a scientific mission investigating high atmospheric turbulence.

A United States Air Force advance group, led by Colonel H. Andonian, of the Edwards Air Base, California, visited Christchurch Airport yesterday to determine its facilities and general suitability as a base for such research.

The group is from the research and technological division of the United States Air Force. Its presence at Christchurch Airport next June is still subject to final approval by the New Zealand Government.

The U2, which the group would use, became world famous in 1960 when one piloted by Captain Gary Powers was shot down by the Russians high above Sverdlovsk, on the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains, on May 1 of that year. The “U2 incident,” as it became known, led to the cancellation of a summit conference between Khrushchev and President Eisenhower.

The U2, which can fly at a height of nearly 14 miles and cruise at 460 miles an

hour, was first developed in 1954, the prototype flying for the first time in 1955. Some of the 25 single-seater versions built were delivered to the 4028th and 4080th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadrons of .the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command, and were also operated by Lockheed for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Central Intelligence Agency.

At least nine had been lost up to 1963, including the one shot down near Sverdlovsk and another shot down over China on September 9, 1962. The latter was said to be one of two bought by Nationalist China in July, 1960. U2 aircraft have been used to gather data on clear air turbulence, jet streams, cosmic radiation, and the concentration of certain elements in the atmosphere, including ozone and water vapour. Three U2s spent 18 months on meteorological research over the Argentine in 1958-59. The research group at Christchurch airport would also use two other planes—a 847 Stratojet, which is a highaltitude photographic and weather reconnaissance version of a medium bomber, and a search-and-reseue aircraft. The 847 can fly at a height of nearly eight miles and cruise at 495 miles an hour.

The group proposes to

make experimental flights in the New Zealand area to gather data on high atmospheric turbulence. Such work in New Zealand, it is understood, is a phase of a programme aimed at providing correct turbulence design information for advanced aircraft and flight trial systems. Such information would

also be used in structural modifications to, and life determination of, existing flight vehicles, and to aid meteorological agencies in verifying, changing, and establishing new techniques for forecasting critical atmospheric f turbulence, according to a statement given to “The Press” yesterday.