kiltedtaco
Member
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2011
- Messages
- 4
While reading the declassified NSA document "American Cryptology during the Cold War, 1945-1989", Volume II, I found some passages that may be of interest here. The book discusses the shootdown of a EC-121 reconnaissance flight by North Korea in 1968, including a discussion of why there was no early warning provided to the crew of the North Korean MIGs approaching them. Quoting from the book,
This usage of sky king as a tactical warning seems consistent with the precedence given to Sky King messages on HF-GCS. The very short length of the messages suggests that the message cannot contain any information about the nature of the warning. The length is only sufficient to identify the target of the warning, and presumably there must be some predefined action for the target unit to take in event of a "Sky King" message. In the case of the White Wolf warning system for reconnaissance flights, predefined conditions would cause the aircraft to drop back to orbits further from the target country, or cause a complete mission abort. A similar system for Sky King messages seems plausible.
This also raises the question of what units are listening for Sky King, to better understand the types of warnings they might need. Some scattered google results suggest that the Chrome Dome B-52s had a crew member listening for Sky King. The utility of an early warning system for these missions (with predefined actions) for any sort of Russian aircraft activity seems quite obvious.
(Page 464, in the PDF it's page 184.)
This usage of sky king as a tactical warning seems consistent with the precedence given to Sky King messages on HF-GCS. The very short length of the messages suggests that the message cannot contain any information about the nature of the warning. The length is only sufficient to identify the target of the warning, and presumably there must be some predefined action for the target unit to take in event of a "Sky King" message. In the case of the White Wolf warning system for reconnaissance flights, predefined conditions would cause the aircraft to drop back to orbits further from the target country, or cause a complete mission abort. A similar system for Sky King messages seems plausible.
This also raises the question of what units are listening for Sky King, to better understand the types of warnings they might need. Some scattered google results suggest that the Chrome Dome B-52s had a crew member listening for Sky King. The utility of an early warning system for these missions (with predefined actions) for any sort of Russian aircraft activity seems quite obvious.
