The CIA museum has a rather interesting exhibit - instructions for officers on how to be picked up from the ground by a flying plane equipped with the Skyhook system, which was developed and tested in the interests of American military intelligence in 1957-58 by designer Robert Fulton.
The system works as follows: before taking on board a person or cargo, a container with rescue equipment is dropped from the aircraft, which includes a special suit and a special "harness" that the scout had to put on, a helium balloon, a mini-balloon inflated with this helium, and a 150 meter long nylon rope. One end of the cord is attached to the mini-balloon, and the other to the "harness".
Thus, the evacuee is firmly connected to the mini-balloon, the sole task of which is to keep the nylon cable upright in a taut state. A mini-balloon cannot lift a person off the ground.
In the nose of the aircraft fuselage, there are sliding "mustache" bars, which in cruise flight fall along the sides of the fuselage, and before picking up the load, they are spread apart. The plane at a speed of about 240-270 km / h comes to catch below the height of the ball so that the cable is in the alignment of the "mustache".
The whisker rods fold automatically to clamp the cable. The lower part of the cable under the action of the high-speed pressure deviates to the rear of the fuselage, where it is captured by a special device by the aircraft crew members and the person is pulled into the cargo compartment using a winch.
Reducing the impact of overload on a person when lifting with this system is achieved through the use of a special suit and the elastic properties of the nylon rope.
Promotional video:
For the first time such a system of non-stop receiving of cargo from the ground was demonstrated in August 1958, then a converted B-17 bomber took part in the experiments. The first person to board a plane under "near-combat conditions" was US Marine Sergeant Levi Woods. It happened on August 12, 1958.
The Skyhook has been tested in various conditions of use: on the water, in the mountains, in the forest. The reviews were positive. The system was adopted and used by US special forces during military and covert CIA operations.
In the summer of 1962, the system was tested in the Arctic during the US Navy's Coldfeed operation to retrieve intelligence from an abandoned Soviet drifting station that was supposed to track American submarines.
Somewhat later, similar experiments were carried out using the Grumman S2F1 Sentinel and P2V Neptune aircraft. Two P2V-equipped Fulton Skyhooks were based in Europe and two more in Taiwan.
