[Boatanchors] How the KWM-1 fit into the U-2

[Michael OBrien]

Below is a portion of an article I wrote for QST as a sidebar to an article tracing the history of the KWM-1's development. It was published in January 2007 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the KWM-1. This excerpt deals with the KWM-1's use in U-2s assigned to the U.S. Air Force's Strategic Air Command -- and it includes a description of how the KWM-1 was mounted and operated in the SAC U-2 aircraft. I hope it answers some of the great questions posed by this thread...Mike K0MYW

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 	... SAC's most exotic application of the KWM-1 went unpublicized at first because the transceivers were installed aboard U-2 spy aircraft -- and the U-2 itself was kept secret from the American public until one piloted by Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the USSR in 1960.
	Powers’ plane was not operated by SAC but rather by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Contrary to ham lore, Powers' plane wasn't equipped with a KWM-1. The CIA fleet of U-2s carried no long-range radios “for fear that any HF transmission from an overflying U-2 would give away its position to the unfriendlies on the ground below,” says Chris Pocock, author of “50 Years of the U-2,” the recently published comprehensive history of the spy plane.
	After Powers’ shootdown, the CIA did install an HF rig, the Collins 618T avionic transceiver, in the agency’s U-2s, but only to transmit automatic bursts of data that indicated aircraft performance during flights over hostile territory.
	Meanwhile, the mission of U-2s assigned to SAC was not to invade enemy airspace but rather to sniff for high-altitude traces of nuclear testing while staying in friendly or international skies. So, says Pocock, in late 1957 SAC began installing KWM-1s in its U-2s to allow pilots “to communication during their long, lonely sampling flights across remote wastelands.”
	The choice of the KWM-1 for that role probably came from Ray Meyers, W6MLZ (SK), who at the time was manager of radio operations for Lockheed Aircraft Co., which created the U-2 in its clandestine “Skunkworks.” Generals LeMay and Griswold (both SK), avid Collins buffs, no doubt readily concurred.
	The only spot in the cramped U-2 that initially could be found for the KWM-1 was a pressurized compartment called the Q-bay, located behind the pilot, says Joe Donoghue, who served with an overseas CIA U-2 detachment in the 1960s and more recently has researched declassified U-2 documents in the National Archives. Later space was found to mount the KWM-1 in the U-2’s “cheek” behind the rightside engine intake, although that installation required addition of a pressurized box to house the transceiver to assure proper operation at the U-2’s extreme operating altitudes (70,000+ feet).
	Because the KWM-1 was out of the pilot’s reach in either configuration, there has been speculation in ham circles that mechanical extensions must’ve been fashioned to allow the pilot to operate at least some of the transceiver’s panel controls. However, Lockheed documentation specifies only an electrical wiring harness.
	Both Pocock and Donoghue describe the KWM-1’s setup aboard the SAC U-2s as “fixed channel.” With the KWM-1 pre-tuned to a locked frequency, all the pilot would need was a push-to-talk microphone – and not even that if VOX were used – and receiver audio plumbed to his helmet.
	In that light, it seems likely that a couple of rare KWM-1 accessories made available to amateurs by Collins may have been rooted in the transceiver’s mission aboard the SAC U-2s. The 399B-1 was billed as a “DX Adapter” that allowed split-frequency operation of the KWM-1. (An “export model” was labeled the 399B-2.) And the 399B-3, described as a “Novice Adapter,” provided crystal control of the KWM-1 transmitter section to comply with restrictions imposed upon Novice class licensees for 15-meter CW operation in the 1950s.
	The KWM-1s in the U-2s operated by SAC apparently remained in operation until the mid-1960s, when they were replaced by the more cockpit-friendly 618T.