Fulton Surface to Air Recovery System | Hacker News Reader

Fulton Surface to Air Recovery System

en.wikipedia.org

63 pointsjacquesm22 comments

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.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/CORONA_f...

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.

No mention of the Fulton should go without mentioning its being heavily featured in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Gear_Solid_V:_The_Phanto..., which is also a fantastic game.

The "In Popular Culture" section does bring it up. Although it is used differently than the real Fulton.

Peace Walker and Portable Ops, too, as I recall.

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

http://metalgear.wikia.com/wiki/Fulton_surface-to-air_recove...

MGS3 too, it's how Naked Snake escapes Tselinoyarsk at the end of the Virtuous Mission (the prologue).

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.

This technology has been used by James Bond, Batman and many such bad-asses!

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_surface-to-air_recovery...

I always thought that was SFX, highly surprised to see that it is real so hence this post. Low expectations :)

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.

I presume that you've heard about the glorious Project Acoustic Kitty?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_Kitty

What the hell, why not?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb

The Russians developed that first.

</pavel_chekov>

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_of_Kiev

> you'd think the whole research directorate was dipping into the Ultra program's LSD supply.

You say this as if it isn't an extremely decent possibility, heh.

Similar to the Fulton, but for a glider instead. Talk about a ride.

http://www.pointvista.com/WW2GliderPilots/gliderretrieval.ht...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-EFmKr7P0w

What happens next to the extracted person once they are successfully caught by the yoke and the plane is now flying along with them attached?

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.

Found this on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsTIeZ03Hk8

The three entire minutes between pickup and being fully winched into the plane must be the longest of your life.

This would be a super cool amusement park ride.

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