STRATOSPHERIC BALLOON SITES IN THE WORLD

Adana Air Base (now denominated Incirlik Air Base) is an air base occuping an area of slightly more than 1300 hectares located in the Incirlik quarter of the city of Adana, Turkey. The base is within an urban area of 1.7 million people, 10 km east of the city core, and 32 km inland from the Mediterranean Sea. The United States Air Force and the Turkish Air Force are the primary users of the air base, although it is also used by the Royal Air Force and by Royal Saudi Air Force.

The history of the military installation goes back to spring 1951 when U.S. Engineering Group began construction of the base. The U.S. Air Force initially planned to use it as an emergency staging and recovery site for medium and heavy bombers. The Turkish General Staff and the U.S. Air Force signed a joint use agreement for the new base in December 1954.

It was officially named Adana Air Base, and inaugurated on February 21, 1955, with the 7216th Air Base Squadron as host unit. Soon after completion, Adana would prove the value of Incirlik's location, in countering the then looming Soviet threat.

As construction progressed in the base, in the United States, one of the most secrets operations of the time was in the final stages of preparation. Code named "Grayback" and later re-denominated "Genetrix" its objective was to obtain photographic reconnaissance of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and its satellites using Weapons System 119L or WS-119L, which consisted basically in a stratospheric balloon, to which was attached through a special bar assembly an automatic photographic system, denominated DMQ-l, composed by a duplex camera which had two 6-inch lenses on opposite sides. The camera was capable of obtaining about 500 pictures, covering 50 miles on either side of the balloon path. On the bottom of the box a photo cell turned on and off the camera according to the illumination below. Additional items were a thermal box containing batteries and electronic gear, two ballast boxes and parachutes for descent and recovery.

After launched, the balloon would transit the target zone carried by eastward winds until exiting enemy territory where a signal would be transmited to terminate the flight. While the gondola would descent by parachute it would be catched in mid-air by a specially fitted C-119 plane, or if this failed, the package also could be snatched by that same plane from the water, or recovered later by boat.

In early stages of development of the project, it was considered that all balloons should be launched from Scotland, but three factors affected that initial scheme:

• A further study of meteorological data indicated that more complete coverage could be obtained if sites were wide dispersed in western Europe;
• Surface weather in Scotland was expected to be unsuitable for launch activities a large part of the time; and
• The distance from the target zone resulted in a day or so of balloon travel before the photographic mission could be started, an important factor when the criticality of balloon life expectancy is considered.

Thus, taken account of the factors mentioned above and based on studies of trajectory and surface weather, the general areas selected for the location of launch detachments for the project were Eastern Norway, West Germany, and Turkey. Then, under responsability of the Command in Chief of the United States Air Forces in Europe the specific sites were selected: besides Adana, whose location close to the Soviet border was specially valuable for the project, the other sites were Gardermoen, Norway, Evanton, Scotland and Giebelstadt and Oberpfaffenhofen both in Germany.

An on-site inspection was performed around July 1955, by members of the 1st. Air Division Survey Team. The survey -replicated in all designated launch sites of the project- was made to conduct coordination of launch sites and to promote a thorough understanding of requirements and anticipated problem areas. The unit assigned to Adana was denominated Detachment 2, was composed by 7 officers, 119 airmen and 6 civilians and was deployed along with all the material needed to perform more than 500 balloon launches between August and October 1955.

Balloons were launched using a heavy truck with a specially fitted metal frame -denominated the fisher launcher- wich served to hoist the payload at launch, as can be seen in the above right image. The balloons launched from Adana were pre-programmed to automatic turn-on it's location beacon after 50 hours of flight, which was the estimated time it would took them to cross the sino/soviet territory. Below this lines can be seen a map showing the forecated trajectory (full-line) and the real one (dotted) for two balloons launched from Adana.

The first eight balloons from Adana -also the first ones for the program- were launched on January 10, 1956, with one bursting during ascent and one gone stray, never entering the target zone. The six remainder entered the soviet territory and crossed it in three days, average. Of these, three were mid-air recovered by the C-119 planes of the 456th Troop Carrier Wing over the Pacific, one was retrieved from the ocean by a japanese fishing boat, one was terminated east of Honshu, but the payload was never recovered and one probably was taken down by elements of the PVO Strany, the Soviet Air Defence Forces.

Operations in Adana continued during the rest of January, and the next month. Meanwhile in February 4th, the Soviets strongly protested about the operation. As a result President Eisenhower decided to stop the launches and instructed accordingly to the Air Force to halt the operations. However, before arrival of the shutdown instructions the Adana detachment was able to launch the last nine balloons from the site. Althought all these balloons succeded to enter Soviet Territory none reached the recovery zone.

Since February 6, the launch team at Adana stood on alert in case orders could arrive to resume operations, but instead, informally on 29 February and by message on 1 March 1956, USAF directed termination of the operational phase of the project and on 26 March 1956, by Headquarters USAF directive, lst Air Division and Strategic Air Command relinquished operational control of operational units to parent commanders, thus starting the return of each detachment and disposition of surplus material.

A brief review of the numbers from Adana follows:

• Total of balloon launches performed: 165
• Succesful balloon launches: 151
• Failed balloon launches: 14
• Balloons surviving transit and entering the recovery zone: 45
• Total number of gondolas recovered: 30
• Total feets of films exposed from Adana recovered gondolas: 10.725
• Total photo frames obtained from Adana recovered gondolas: 9.035

By far, Adana was the most productive site of the entire program. The mild climate and the closeness to the target zone were key factors for its success.

Following Genetrix balloon operations end, the base was also used to perform covert overflight missions over the Soviet Union using the U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance planes. This missions would continue until until May 1960 when Francis Gary Powers' U-2 aircraft was shootdown by surface-to-air missiles over Sverdlovsk, and the overflights were called off.

Along his history, the base would play a fundamental role, in several actions in Middle East, including the 1958 Lebanon crisis, in several scenarios throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and more recently in Operation Desert Storm, Operation Northern Watch, Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. Also provided support for humanitarian efforts after earthquakes, or refugee crisis in countries of the region.