I remember as a young boy in the early 60’s seeing silver-colored U-2s on Barksdale AFB in Bossier City, Louisiana where my father was stationed. I even made a model of one back them. Many years later, when I worked at Sacramento International Airport, I saw U-2s from Beale AFB perform very slow low approaches over the runway and then go almost straight up at a high rate of speed – a most impressive show!
The U-2 is a single-seat, single-engine, high-altitude, reconnaissance aircraft. Long, wide, straight wings give the U-2 glider-like characteristics. It can carry a variety of sensors and cameras, is an extremely reliable reconnaissance aircraft, and enjoys a high mission completion rate. However, the aircraft can be a difficult aircraft to fly due to its unusual landing characteristics. Because of its high altitude mission, the pilot must wear a full pressure suit.
The U-2 provides continuous day or night, high-altitude, all-weather, stand-off surveillance of an area in direct support of U.S. and allied ground and air forces. It provides critical intelligence to decision makers through all phases of conflict, including peacetime indications and warnings, crises, low-intensity conflict and large-scale hostilities. When requested, the U-2 also has provided photographs to the Federal Emergency Management Agency in support of disaster relief.
Early Operations:
The product of a remarkable collaboration between the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States Air Force, Lockheed Corporation, and other suppliers, the U-2 collected intelligence that revolutionized American intelligence analysis of the Soviet threat. The Lockheed Skunk Works CL-282 aircraft was approved for production by the CIA, under the code-name AQUATONE, with Richard M. Bissell as the CIA program manager. President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized Operation OVERFLIGHT -- covert reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union -- after the Soviets flatly rejected his Open Skies plan, which would have allowed aircraft from both countries to openly overfly each other's territory.
An unusual single-engine aircraft with sailplane-like wings, it was the product of a team headed by Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson at Lockheed's "Skunk Works" in Burbank, CA. The U-2 made its first flight in August 1955, with famed Lockheed test pilot Tony LeVier, at the controls, and began operational service in 1956.
Members of a unit innocuously designated 2nd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron (Provisional), began to arrive at Adana Air Base in Turkey in August 1956. The extremely sensitive nature of the mission dictated the construction of a secure compound within the base, which did not yet have a perimeter fence. Detachment 10-10 under the Turkey Cover Plan arrived to support a new operation, Project TL-10. The Air Force provided the squadron commander and logistical support, while the Central Intelligence Agency provided the operations officer, pilots, and mission planners. The unit's mission, contrary to its name, had nothing to do with weather. It flew U-2 aircraft at extremely high altitudes to gather photographic imagery and electronic signals for intelligence purposes. The main target of these flights was the Soviet Union.
The American intelligence community would come to rely on this information to assess Soviet technological advances. However, the Soviet Union was not the sole objective of the operation. For instance, in September 1956, Francis Gary Powers flew over the eastern Mediterranean to determine the position of British and French warships poised to assist Israel's invasion of Egypt after Egyptian forces seized the Suez Canal. Other flights followed to gather data on military activity during crises involving Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Yemen. By late 1957, Adana AB (renamed Incirlik AB on 28 February 1958) had become the main U-2 operating location, having absorbed the resources of a unit in Germany. One of the tasks the unit performed involved flying over missile sites in the Soviet Union from forward operating locations at Lahore and Peshawar in Pakistan. For every mission that penetrated Soviet airspace, there was at least one surveillance flight along the border to divert Soviet air defense attention from the intruder. These diversionary flights typically departed Adana AB traveling over Van (in eastern Turkey), Iran, and the southern Caspian Sea to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border; they returned along a similar route. These periphery missions usually collected communications and electronic signals instead of photographic imagery.
The U-2 operation continued at the base for several years in the utmost secrecy, until 1 May 1960. On that morning Francis Gary Powers, then a veteran of 27 missions, took off from Peshawar destined for Bødo, Norway. He was to overfly and photograph two major intercontinental ballistic missile test sites in the Soviet Union en route, one at Sverdlovsk, the other at Plesetsk. Heavy antiaircraft missile concentrations guarded both sites.
Powers took off on time, as did the diversionary flight from Incirlik, and the mission continued as planned until he reached Sverdlovsk. While on the photo run at 67,000 feet, the Soviets launched a volley of 14 SA-2 surface-to-air missiles at Powers' aircraft. Although the SA-2s could not achieve the same altitude as the U-2, the aircraft disintegrated in the shock waves caused by the exploding missiles. Soviet authorities subsequently arrested Powers after he successfully ejected from the plane. Powers was tried for espionage, pleaded guilty and was convicted and sentenced to three years' imprisonment and seven years of hard labor. He served one year and nine months of the sentence before being exchanged for Soviet spy William Fischer (alias Rudolf Abel) on February 10, 1962. The Turkish, Pakistani, and Norwegian governments claimed to have no knowledge of the American U-2 overflights, and shortly afterwards all U-2s and support personnel quietly returned to the United States.
On October 15, 1962, Maj. Richard S. Heyser piloted a U-2 over Cuba to obtain the first photos of Soviet offensive missile sites. Major Rudolph Anderson, Jr. was killed on a similar mission on October 27, 1962, when his U-2 was shot down.
Sensors:
The U-2's modular payload design allows the aircraft to be reconfigured to perform various missions which include; mapping studies, atmospheric sampling, and collection of crop and land management photographic data for the Department of Energy. The U-2 is capable of collecting multi-sensor photo, electro-optic, infrared and radar imagery, as well as performing other types of reconnaissance functions. An Air Force initiative following Desert Storm demonstrated the ability to locate relocatable targets from the U-2 all weather reconnaissance platform and transfer the data to a precision weapon platform within minutes enabling accurate targeting among multiple items.
Variants:
Current models are derived from the original version that made its first flight in August 1955. The U-2R, first flown in 1967, is 40 percent larger than the original U-2 designed by Kelly Johnson in the mid fifties. Current U-2R models are being reengined and will be designated as a U-2S/ST. The Air Force accepted the first U-2S in October, 1994. The last R model trainer was converted to an S model trainer in 1999.
A tactical reconnaissance version, the TR-1A, first flew in August 1981 and was delivered to the Air Force the next month. Designed for stand-off tactical reconnaissance in Europe, the TR-1 was structurally identical to the U-2R. Operational TR-1A's were used by the 17th Reconnaissance Wing, Royal Air Force Station Alconbury, England, starting in February 1983.
U-2s are based at Beale Air Force Base, California and support national and tactical requirements from four operational detachments located throughout the world. U-2R/U-2S crew members are trained at Beale using three U-2ST aircraft.
The last U-2 and TR-1 aircraft were delivered to the Air Force in October 1989. In March 2011, it was projected that the US's fleet of 32 U-2s would be operated until 2015. The Obama administration requested $91 million to maintain the U-2 program.
Facts and General Characteristics of the U-2S:
Contractor: Lockheed Aircraft Corp (Skunk Works)
Type: High-altitude reconnaissance
Crew: One (two in trainer models)
Wingspan: 103 ft. (31.4 m)
Length: 63 ft. (19.2 m)
Height: 16 ft. (4.88 m)
Weight: Empty 14,300 lb. (6,760 kg), Max. Takeoff: 40,000 lb. (18,100 kg)
Power Plant: One General Electric F118-101 turbofan
Max thrust: 19,000 lbf (84.5 kN)
Max speed: 500 mph (805 km/h)
Ceiling: 70,000+ ft. (21,300+ m)
Range: 6,405 miles (10,300 km)
Facts and General Characteristics of the Model:
Manufacturer: Testors
Scale: 1/48
Wingspan: 19.5"
Length: 12.2"
Height: 3.5"
Hours to build and paint: 9.5
