For me, one of the highlights of the era that conceived the skyhook was the CORONA program. The spy satellites in this early era would use film and, unlike their civilian counterparts, they didn't want to rely on a low resolution copy that had been transmitted to the ground. So they would shoot the canisters out, deorbit them, and then snatch them mid-air with a plane.
That's just insane from any reasonable perspective. I can't imagine how they made it work even once let alone dozens of times.
My grandfather piloted some of the CORONA recoveries, and was part of the group flying Fulton recoveries in Vietnam, although he says he never flew an operational mission in country. It's pretty cool to hear him talk about it.
Also, the Fulton system and the CORONA system were slightly different. The CORONA system required you to fly over the parachute, while the Fulton system had you fly into the line between the ground and the balloon. My grandfather says that the Fulton system was much easier to do for this reason.
Did Portable Ops use the Fulton? I remember the soldier recruitment mechanic being dragging them back to either a hiding spot or the truck at which you started your mission.
I should put that back on my Vita. Peace Walker had a better story, but Portable Ops was more fun. IMO.
It's used, but not sure if it's used for recruitment:
> The player's squad in the online mode for Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, as well as the expansion pack, Portable Ops Plus could use the Fulton system to escape their current mission
I remember watching James Bond get recovered that way in one of his movies and doing a bit more research. Apparently people who had been recovered that way often had spinal trauma. There was a write up in one of the technical reports about changing the compliance of the pick up line to spread the acceleration of the "passenger" over a long enough time without there being a bounce effect of the line jumping off the front of the plane.
I wondered if you could do something with trains where they lifted a net in front, over, and then behind them. The idea being to lift off people who were in front of them in a way that was gentle enough to not kill them.
It is impractical of course because pretty much any system would impart enough kinetic energy into the person that they would fly off and kill them selves anyway when they hit where they landed. Of course the train wouldn't have to stop but that was small comfort.
CIA was pretty out there in general between the end of World War II and the end of Vietnam. This is actually pretty prosaic for them in that period - the sort of nonsense they got up to, you'd think the whole research directorate was dipping into the Ultra program's LSD supply.
The flight crew captures the line and reels the person onboard.
> As the line was caught between the forks on the nose of the aircraft, the balloon was released and a spring-loaded trigger mechanism (sky anchor) secured the line to the aircraft. After the initial pickup, the line was snared by the pickup crew using a J-hook and attached to a powered winch and the person or cargo pulled on board.
As the retrieved you’d really be hoping that the “sky anchor” was well built.
That's just insane from any reasonable perspective. I can't imagine how they made it work even once let alone dozens of times.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/CORONA_f...