Drones

CIA Reveals Details Of Bird-Like 1970s Stealth Drone — With Planned Nuclear Propulsion

The CIA’s Project Aquiline was a drone with a ten-foot wingspan which would carry out spy missions deep into the Soviet Union. The CIA has declassified a new stash of documents about the project from the early 1970s, revealing among other things, plans to fit nuclear propulsion and have it operating out of the celebrated Area 51.

Project Aquiline never became operational, for reasons which we will explore. But, as the CIA notes in a preface to the new release, “the concept proved invaluable as a forerunner to today's multi-capability UAVs [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles].”

The project originated in the 1960s. After the shooting down of Gary Powers U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union, manned flights were becoming politically too risky. Satellites could peer over the Iron Curtain, but only provided grainy long-range photographs. What was needed was a small, unmanned aircraft for strategic reconnaissance from close-up.

The solution was a propeller-driven drone disguised as a soaring bird. From a distance, it was indistinguishable from an ordinary vulture of buzzard.