Fulton surface-to-air recovery system
The Fulton surface-to-air recovery system (STARS) is a military system for taking up people on the ground by an aircraft during flight.
development
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From 1950 onwards, the CIA and the US Air Force began capturing a rope-attached weather balloon with a modified Lockheed P-2 . Later the C-130 Hercules and the MH-47 Chinook helicopter were also used as air transporters . A V-shaped fork was attached to the nose of the aircraft to catch the rope. A rope is also tied between the nose and the wings to prevent the balloon from getting caught in the propellers. The recorded object or person is then pulled on board using a winch.
First, dummy dolls were pulled on board, then tests were carried out on pigs to test the effects of the pick-up on the human organism. The first person to be pulled on board was Staff Sergeant Levi W. Woods in 1958. The duration of the flight on the rope was about 6 minutes and the physical strain was similar to that of a parachute jump.
Calls
STARS was used in Project COLDFEET in 1962, during which two CIA agents recovered information from an abandoned Soviet ice drift station . These first jumped off with the parachute and were evacuated by STARS after the mission was completed.
In fiction
The STARS system was shown in a modified form in the movies The Dark Knight , the final sequence of James Bond 007 - Fireball and the Metal Gear series.