In September 2015, 60 years after the U-2 was introduced, Lockheed Martin said it would unveil a replacement for the venerable spy plane, called the TR-X. (Although, the kind of missile that could reach a U-2 is more likely to be in the repertoire of a major military power than a small group of militants in a remote area, Aboulafia noted.) The plane flies high enough to "peer in" to airspaces where they might not be allowed, as it's no longer a good assumption that radar can't detect the planes or that a surface-to-air missile can't hit them. The U-2 still conducts reconnaissance missions there are two flying in the Middle East on any given day to monitor the Islamic State, reported the Los Angeles Times. Air Force, the U-2 carries an "electro-optical infrared camera, optical bar camera, advanced synthetic aperture radar, signals intelligence and network-centric communication" for reconnaissance flights.īut the U-2 is still a notoriously difficult aircraft to fly, Aboulafia said, even though the only remaining part from the 1950s version of the plane is the airframe. "You can fit a lot more on them now than you could then," Aboulafia said. The engines, avionics and surveillance equipment have all been updated as technology has improved. The first U-2s carried large-format cameras, but the sensors on board have grown much more sophisticated over the years, as have the controls. While NASA no longer uses the original U-2 model, a modified U-2, called the ER-2, still flies for the agency. In 1971, NASA started using U-2s as part of the agency's Earth Resources Aircraft program, flying the plane over the United States to gather scientific data. (The Christian Scence Monitor reported that a U-2 was even stationed in Cyprus in 2011, to monitor the no-fly zone established in Libya). Even after the USSR shot down one of the planes in 1960, the aircraft was still used in a number of conflicts such as the Vietnam War, providing intelligence to the U.S. The U-2 was introduced into military service in 1957. Johnson's design also dispensed with conventional landing gear and a pressurized cabin. The airframe also wasn't as strong or as heavy as the usual military-grade models, allowing for higher flight with less fuel. To make the plane efficient at high altitudes, he adopted long and straight wings rather than a swept-back design, to improve lift at relatively low speeds (for a jet). Such specifications added weight, and made it more difficult to design a plane that could fly high enough. One of the changes to previous designs was that the plane didn't have to be equipped with the heavy armor or weaponry that were the hallmarks of military planes before, Pedlow and Walzenbach wrote. Air Force asked aircraft companies to submit designs for a plane that could reach altitudes of 65,000 to 70,000 feet (20,000 to 21,300 meters), and just as important, be able to stay there for long periods. Later that year, with the outbreak of the Korean War, Moscow adopted a policy of shooting down aircraft that violated its airspace. That changed in 1950, when the USSR shot down a U.S. Moscow protested these flights but didn't shoot any down (though they fired warning shots). Pedlow and Walzenbach said the USSR didn't have complete radar coverage of its borders or interior at that time, and modified B-47 bombers would fly in to take photos of sensitive targets, and then fly out. had been flying spy planes into the USSR as early as the 1940s, according to Gregory Pedlow and Donald Walzenbach, authors of "The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974" (Military Bookshop, 2013). government wanted a way to fly over what was then the Soviet Union without being detected or shot down. Spy planes were in operation as far back as World War I, when aircraft were used to take photos of enemy positions. By the time the first U-2 flew in 1955, the problem of gathering intelligence was becoming more acute.
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