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Author Topic: SKYKINGs, SKYBIRDs, etc  (Read 727 times)

Offline Josh

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SKYKINGs, SKYBIRDs, etc
« on: November 05, 2019, 1932 UTC »
This fine pdf from our good friends at CIA reveals some interesting info on SKYKINGs, SKYBIRDs, and etc.
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP69B00041R001900130012-2.pdf


To wit; as CIA is a int agency we can rationally expect this pdf to be related to 1, spying, and 2, a USAF/NSA airborne int mission.

Going by the lat/lon coords (one point is several hundred miles east of the Taiwan coast, the other is much closer to being just south of the Japan coastline) we can assume this mission targeted an Asian country or possibly foreign Pacific ocean naval activity. If the lat/lon coords are legit and not "sanitised"" per CIA.

Paying attention to the units involved, we have DUCK BUTTs and SKYBIRDS, and forms for sending and receiving SKYKINGS and SKYBIRDS. I suppose the DUCK BUTTs are the air elint units, SKYBIRDS being the various USAF bases involved directly in this mission.

The forms reveal that SKYKINGS are messages sent to elint aircraft that are threatened or soon to be threatened by enemy activity such as a fighter launch or missile alert being sent out to air defense units of the target country.

If you're in a elint bird about to cross or have crossed the border into some nefarious country and your callsign comes up in a SKYKING, you need to gtfo before you get intercepted. In this case if you get a SKYKING for QUINCY, your duck is cooked.

On receipt of a valid SKYKING you, as the aborted mission, must acknowledge said SKYKING with your authentication via a SKYBIRD message. In this case you authenticate the SKYBIRD with BACK 42. Then you might be instructed to divert to a specific base, say they direct you to ALLOCATE, looking at the table it shows Wake Island as ALLOCATE.

You will also note in the pdf specific discrete channels on hf (13267 primary, 11243 secondary) and uhf for the operation. Also the specific SKYBIRD bases and their alternate callsigns.
Emergency channels for the mission is 2182 (internationally allocated for emergency use) primary and 8364 secondary.

All of this per the forms contained in the pdf.

Or if your orders are to proceed with the mission rather than abort/divert, say over a hostile Nicarazuela, you get the latest copy of Playboy ready, for when the fighter pilot pulls alongside your flying spy machine and flips his belly up so you can see all those nice soviet made missiles dangling from his pylons you can put the centerfold of said Playboy up to the closest window in an effort to buy off or al least amuse the fighter pilot.



« Last Edit: November 05, 2019, 1936 UTC by Josh »
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