Here’s how Skyhook worked: From the air-dropped package, the officer on the ground used a helium balloon to lift a 500-foot cable into the air. Then he would strap himself to a harness connected to the other end of the cable, and sit with the wind to his back and arms crossed. A low-flying, slow-moving plane, such as a B-17, would snag the cable with the Skyhook device on its nose, sweeping the person off the ground. The plane’s crew then pulled the officer aboard the aircraft within a matter of minutes. Note that the Skyhook instruction card urges users to “act carefully rather than quickly” because their safety depended on it. Skyhook was first used operationally to extract CIA officers and materials from an abandoned Soviet ice station. Read about it here: 1.usa.gov/1pWkdkJ Skyhook was also used used by Batman in The Dark Knight, James Bond in Thunderball, and John Wayne in The Green Berets!
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 21:30:22 +0000