{"id":738,"date":"2009-11-21T13:35:35","date_gmt":"2009-11-21T05:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/?p=738"},"modified":"2009-11-21T13:35:35","modified_gmt":"2009-11-21T05:35:35","slug":"black-shield-and-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/?p=738","title":{"rendered":"Black Shield and China"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/blackshield_0.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This memo signaled the beginning of Project <b>Black Shield<\/b>, although the operational missions were not forthcoming.  During 1965 and 1966, several proposals for the A-12 deployment had been sent to the 303 Committee; none were approved.  Those who opposed did not think the intelligence requirements were so urgent as to justify the political risks of basing this &#8220;spy plane&#8221; in Okinawa or revealing the capabilities of the A-12 to China or the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n<p>It was not until May 1967 that President Johnson approved a &#8220;Go&#8221;.  But China was not the target this time.  The plan was to collect photo intelligence whether the North Vietnamese could deploy surface-to-surface missiles:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/blackshield_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The first Black Shield mission (BSX-001) took place on May 31, 1967.  Although the deployment plan did not call for overflight of China, the mission track shows how closely the A-12 flew past China&#8217;s  Hainan Island:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/blackshield_2.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And the &#8220;take&#8221; did cover some parts of the island as the following <i>Mission Coverage Index<\/i> indicates:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/blackshield_3.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Some Chinese targets covered by BSX-001 were:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/blackshield_4.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/blackshield_5.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/blackshield_6.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This is not the only time that the A-12 photographed Chinese targets.  During Black Shield, several other missions also covered Hainan Island.  Actually in some cases, the wide turn profile of the A-12 forced the mission aircraft to intrude into Chinese airspace.  Luckily the Chinese did not attempt to intercept.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This memo signaled the beginning of Project Black Shield, although the operational missions were not forthcoming. During 1965 and 1966, several proposals for the A-12 deployment had been sent to the 303&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,6],"tags":[209,210,155,99,215,216,213],"class_list":["post-738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blackbird","category-history","tag-a-12","tag-black-shield","tag-china","tag-cia","tag-kadena","tag-north-vietnam","tag-oxcart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taiwanairpower.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}