Area 51 Palmdale facility. A search for a suitable testing site for the U-2 was conducted under the same extreme security as the rest of the project. He notified Lockheed, who sent an inspection team out to Groom Lake. According to Lockheed's U-2 designer Kelly Johnson: The lakebed made an ideal strip from which they could test aircraft, and the Emigrant Valley's mountain ranges and the NTS perimeter, about north of Las Vegas, protected the test site from visitors. The CIA asked the AEC to acquire the land, designated "Area 51" on the map, and add it to the Nevada Test Site.
Oklahoma State Highway 51 area. In Sand Springs, SH-51 crosses the Arkansas River with SH-97 before merging onto the Sand Springs Expressway (U.S. Highway 412/U.S. Highway 64). When this freeway ends at I-244 near downtown Tulsa, Highway 51 merges onto I-244 southbound only to exit one mile (1.6 km) later, where it overlaps US-64/US-75. This freeway is actually Interstate 444, but the interstate designation is not shown on signs. After one more mile, SH-51 leaves the interstate with US-64 and becomes the Broken Arrow Expressway, a freeway running northwest-southeast through Tulsa which is known as "The BA" by locals and local media. US-64 leaves