United States Pilot selection and training Though the USAF and the Navy would eventually fly the U-2, the CIA had majority control over the project, code-named Project DRAGON LADY. Despite SAC chief LeMay's early dismissal of the CL-282, the USAF in 1955 sought to take over the project and put it under SAC until Eisenhower repeated his opposition to military personnel flying the aircraft. Nonetheless, the USAF substantially participated in the project; Bissell described it as a "49 percent" partner. The USAF agreed to select and train pilots and plot missions, while the CIA would handle cameras and project security, process film, and arrange foreign bases. Beyond not using American military personnel to fly the U-2, Eisenhower preferred to use non-U.S. citizens. Seven Greek pilots and a Polish expatriate were added to the U-2 trainees although only two of the Greek pilots were subsequently allowed to fly the aircraft. Their flight proficiency was poor. The language barrier and a lack of appropriate flying experience proved problematic; by late 1955, foreign pilots had been dropped from the program. USAF pilots had to resign their military commissions before joining the agency as civilians, a process referred to as "sheep dipping", amazing LeVier who, as he later said, "had no intentions whatsoever of flying". The lake bed had no markings, making it difficult for LeVier to judge the distance to the ground, and the brakes proved too weak; he bounced the U-2 once before it stopped rolling, but the aircraft suffered only minor damage. LeVier again found landing the U-2 difficult during the first intentional test flight three days later. On his sixth try, he found that landing the aircraft by touching down on the rear wheel first was better than making the initial touchdown with the front wheel. Pilots continued to have difficulty during landing because the ground effect held the aircraft off the runway for long distances. On a test flight on 8 August, the U-2 reached , proving that Johnson had met his promised specifications and deadline. By 16 August, the prototype flew at , an altitude never before reached in sustained flight; by 8 September, it reached . By January 1956, the U-2 had so impressed the USAF that it decided to obtain its own aircraft. The USAF purchased a total of 31 U-2s through the CIA; the transaction's code name, Project DRAGON LADY, was the origin of the aircraft's nickname. Meanwhile, U-2s conducted eight overflights of the U.S. in April 1956, convincing project overseers that the aircraft was ready for deployment. As often happens with new aircraft designs, there were several operational accidents. One occurred during these test flights when a U-2 suffered a
flameout over Tennessee; the pilot calculated that he could reach New Mexico. Every air base in the continental U.S. had sealed orders to carry out if a U-2 landed. The commander of
Kirtland Air Force Base near
Albuquerque, New Mexico, was told to open his orders, prepare for the arrival of an unusual aircraft making a
deadstick landing, and get it inside a hangar as soon as possible. The U-2 successfully landed after gliding for more than , and its strange, glider-like appearance and the space-suited pilot startled the base commander and other witnesses. . Not all U-2 incidents were so benign, with three fatal accidents in 1956 alone. The first was on 15 May 1956, when the pilot stalled the aircraft during a post-takeoff maneuver that was intended to drop off the wingtip outrigger wheels. The second occurred on 31 August, when the pilot stalled the aircraft immediately after takeoff. On 17 September, a third aircraft disintegrated during ascent in Germany, also killing the pilot. There were other non-fatal incidents, including at least one that resulted in the loss of the aircraft.
Cover story A committee of Army, Navy, USAF, CIA,
NSA, and
State Department representatives created lists of priority targets for U-2 and other intelligence-gathering methods. The U-2 project received the list and drew up flight plans, and the committee provided a detailed rationale for each plan for the president to consider as he decided whether to approve it. The CIA's Photo Intelligence Division grew in size to prepare for the expected flood of U-2 photographs. Before the aircraft became operational, however, USAF's
Project Genetrix, which used high-altitude balloons to photograph the Soviet Union, China, and eastern Europe, led to many
diplomatic protests from those countries and for a while, CIA officials feared that the U-2 project was at risk. While Genetrix was also a technical failure—only 34 of the 516 balloons returned usable photographs—the balloon flights gave the United States many clues on how the Communist countries used radar to track overflights, which benefited the U-2 program. With approval from the
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)'s director
Hugh Dryden, Bissell's team at the CIA developed a cover story for the U-2 that described the aircraft as used by NACA for high-altitude weather research; the cover story would be used if the aircraft were lost over hostile territory. U-2s flew some real weather-related missions, taking photographs that appeared in the press, and sometimes had civilian government decals, but few believed in the cover story; in May 1957 the UK's
Daily Express newspaper reported the U-2 operating east of the
Iron Curtain. The civilian advisers Land and Killian disagreed with the cover story, advising that in case of an aircraft loss, the United States forthrightly acknowledge its use of U-2 overflights "to guard against surprise attack". Their advice was not followed, and the weather cover story led to the disaster that followed the May 1960 U-2 loss.
Initial overflights of International territory The British government in January 1956 approved the U-2's deployment from
RAF Lakenheath. NACA announced that the USAF
Air Weather Service would use a Lockheed-developed aircraft to study the weather and cosmic rays at altitudes up to 55,000 feet; accordingly, the first CIA detachment of U-2s ("Detachment A") was known publicly as the 1st Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, Provisional (WRSP-1). The death in April 1956, however, of British agent
Lionel Crabb while examining Soviet ships in
Portsmouth harbor embarrassed the British government, which asked the United States to postpone the Lakenheath flights. To avoid delays, in June 1956, Detachment A moved to
Wiesbaden, Germany, without approval from the
German government, while
Giebelstadt Army Airfield was prepared as a more permanent base. Eisenhower remained concerned that despite their great intelligence value, overflights of the Soviet Union might cause a war. While the U-2 was under development, at the
1955 Geneva Summit he proposed to
Nikita Khrushchev that the Soviet Union and the United States would each grant the other country airfields to use to photograph military installations. Khrushchev rejected the "Open Skies" proposal. The CIA told the president that the Soviets could not track high-altitude U-2 flights; this belief was based on studies using old Soviet radar systems and American systems that were not as effective at high altitudes as current Soviet systems, of which the U.S. was not aware. Knutson later said that "the U-2 was really quite invisible to American radar, but Russian radar were a little different—better, you might say". Although the Office of Scientific Intelligence issued a more cautious report in May 1956 that stated that detection was possible, it believed that the Soviets could not consistently track the aircraft. Dulles further told Eisenhower, according to presidential aide
Andrew Goodpaster, that in any aircraft loss the pilot would almost certainly not survive. With such assurances and the growing demand for accurate intelligence regarding the alleged "
bomber gap" between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, in June 1956 Eisenhower approved 10 days of overflights. The first U-2 overflight had already occurred, using the existing authorization of air force overflights over Eastern Europe. On 20 June 1956, a U-2 flew over Poland and East Germany, with more flights on 2 July. When Eisenhower refused to approve the U-2's flight over Soviet airspace, the CIA turned to a foreign power,
MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service, to request authorization from
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Harold Macmillan, who approved the flights. The fact that radar had—contrary to the CIA's expectations—successfully tracked the aircraft worried Eisenhower, but he approved the first Soviet overflight, Mission 2013 on 4 July. U-2 Article 347's main targets were the Soviet submarine construction program in
Leningrad, and counting the numbers of the new
Myasishchev M-4 "Bison" bomber. Soviet radar monitored the U-2 incursion into Soviet airspace in real-time, with radar tracking starting from the time the aircraft crossed into East German airspace. Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev was informed immediately. While contemplating appropriate retaliatory steps, he ordered Soviet Ambassador to Washington,
Georgy Zarubin, to protest vehemently to the U.S. State Department that very day, explaining that the recent trust-building to ease tensions between the two countries was undermined by the overflight provocations. A second flight on 5 July continued searching for Bisons, took photographs of Moscow (the only ones taken by the program), and flew over cloud-covered rocket factories at Kaliningrad and Khimki. Eisenhower knew from the earlier overflights that his hope of no Soviet detection was unrealistic, but ordered that the overflights stop if the aircraft could be tracked. The CIA found that the Soviets could not consistently track the U-2s and therefore did not know that Moscow and Leningrad had been overflown. The aircraft's photographs showed tiny images of MiG-15s and MiG-17s attempting and failing to intercept the aircraft, proving that the Soviets could not shoot down an operational U-2. Knutson recalled that the "constant stream of Russian fighters" trying to shoot down the U-2 during overflights was sometimes "so thick" that they interfered with photographs. Repeatedly failing for years to stop the aircraft embarrassed the USSR, which made diplomatic protests against the flights but did not publicize the penetration of Soviet territory. U-2 missions from Wiesbaden would depart westward in order to gain altitude over friendly territory before turning eastward at operational altitudes. The NATO Air Defence mission in that area included
No. 1 Air Division RCAF (Europe), which operated the
Canadair Sabre Mark 6 from bases in northeastern France. This aircraft had a service ceiling of 54,000 feet and numerous encounters between the U-2 and RCAF 'ZULU' alert flights have been recorded for posterity.
"Bomber gap" disproven On 10 July, the Soviets protested what they described as overflights by a USAF "twin-engine medium bomber", apparently believing that it was a
B-57 Canberra. The U.S. replied on 19 July that no American "military planes" had overflown the Soviet Union, but the fact that the Soviets' report showed that they could track the U-2s for extended periods caused Eisenhower to immediately halt overflights over eastern Europe. Beyond the Soviet protests, the president was concerned about the American public's reaction to the news that the U.S. had violated international law. To avoid project cancellation, the CIA began
Project Rainbow to make the U-2 less detectable. The eight overflights over communist territory, however, had already shown that the bomber gap did not exist; the U-2s had not found any
Myasishchev M-4 Bison bombers at the nine bases they had visited. Because the Eisenhower administration could not disclose the source of its intelligence, however, Congressional and public debate over the bomber gap continued.
Suez Crisis and aftermath The presidential order did not restrict U-2 flights outside eastern Europe. In May 1956, Turkey approved the deployment of Detachment B at
Incirlik Air Base, near
Adana, Turkey. Before the new detachment was ready, however, Detachment A in late August used Adana as a refueling base to photograph the Mediterranean. The aircraft found evidence of many British troops on
Malta and
Cyprus as the United Kingdom prepared for its forthcoming
intervention in Suez. The U.S. released some of the photographs to the British government. As the crisis grew in seriousness, the project converted from a source of strategic reconnaissance, which prioritized high quality over speed (the film was processed by its maker, then analyzed in Washington), to a tactical reconnaissance unit that provided immediate analysis. The Photo Intelligence Division set up a lab at Wiesbaden; as Detachment B took over from A and flew over targets that remain classified , the Wiesbaden lab's rapid reports helped the U.S. government to predict the Israeli-British-French attack on Egypt three days before it began on 29 October. On 1 November a flight flew over the Egyptian air base at Almaza twice, 10 minutes apart; in between the British and French attacked the base, and the visible results of the attack in the "10-minute reconnaissance" impressed Eisenhower. Beginning on 5 November, flights over Syria showed that the Soviets had not sent aircraft there despite their threats against the British, French and Israelis, a cause of worry for the U.S. In the four years following the Suez Crisis, repeated U-2 missions over the Middle East were launched, particularly in times of tension. The end of the
1958 Lebanon crisis saw a decline in U-2 operations, although Detachment B U-2s operating from Turkey still sometimes overflew the Middle East along with occasional missions over Albania to check for Soviet missile activity. Israel was a major target of U-2 missions during this period, with U-2 missions detecting the construction of the
Negev Nuclear Research Center in 1958, first bringing
Israel's nuclear program to the attention of the US. The overflights drew the attention of the
Israeli Air Force. Its radars detected and tracked the overflights, and on numerous occasions, Israeli fighter aircraft were scrambled to intercept them but were unable to reach their altitude. The Israeli government was baffled by the overflights. However, Israeli fighter pilots were twice able to spot the intruding aircraft. On 11 March 1959, two Israeli
Super Mystère fighters were directed to intercept a U-2 detected over Israel by Israeli ground-based radar. Although the aircraft were unable to make an intercept, the formation leader, Major
Yosef Alon, managed to get a good look at the aircraft. He subsequently identified it out of a book as a U-2, registered as a weather reconnaissance aircraft to the US Weather Service. On 22 July 1959, after an overflight was detected, an Israeli Air Force
Vautour jet was deployed to photograph the mysterious aircraft. The Vautour came within visual range and the U-2 was successfully photographed. In spite of this, it was not until the 1960 shootdown of a U-2 over the Soviet Union and its subsequent public exposure as a spy plane that the Israeli government understood the identity of the mystery aircraft.
Renewal of Eastern Bloc overflights Eisenhower refused CIA pleas in September 1956 to reauthorize overflights of Eastern Europe but the
Hungarian Revolution in November, and
his reelection that month, caused the president to permit flights over border areas. Soviet interceptors could still not reach the U-2s but, after the Soviets protested a December overflight of Vladivostok by RB-57Ds, Eisenhower again forbade communist overflights. Flights close to the border continued, now including the first
ELINT-equipped U-2s. In May 1957, Eisenhower again authorized overflights over certain important Soviet missile and atomic facilities. He continued to personally authorize each flight, closely examining maps and sometimes making changes to the flight plan. By 1957, one of the European units was based at Giebelstadt, and the far eastern unit was based at the
Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Japan. Part of the reason for the May reauthorization was that the CIA promised that improvements from Project RAINBOW would make the majority of U-2 flights undetected. On 2 April 1957, a RAINBOW test flight crashed in Nevada, killing the pilot. The U-2's large wingspan slowed its descent during crashes, often leaving its remains salvageable; Lockheed was able to rebuild the wreckage from the incident into a flyable airframe, but that it could do so should have been evidence to the CIA that its cover story might not be viable after a crash in hostile territory. The RAINBOW anti-radar modifications were not very successful, and their use ended in 1958. Soviet overflights resumed in June 1957 from
Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska to the
Russian Far East, which had less effective radar systems. Others originated from
Lahore, Pakistan. A Lahore flight on 5 August provided the first photographs of the
Baikonur Cosmodrome near
Tyuratam: the CIA had been unaware of its existence until then. Other flights examined the
Semipalatinsk nuclear test site and the
Saryshagan missile test site. After a few more overflights that year, only five more took place before the May 1960 incident because of Eisenhower's increasing caution. The president sought to avoid angering the Soviets as he worked to achieve a
nuclear test ban; meanwhile, the Soviets began trying to shoot down U-2 flights that never entered Soviet airspace, and the details in their diplomatic protests showed that Soviet radar operators were able to effectively track the aircraft. To reduce visibility Lockheed
painted the aircraft in a blue-black color that helped them blend in against the darkness of space, and the CIA aircraft received the more powerful
Pratt & Whitney J75-P-13 engine that increased maximum altitude by , to . In April 1958, CIA source
Pyotr Semyonovich Popov told his handler
George Kisevalter that a senior KGB official had boasted of having "full technical details" of the U-2, leading Bissell to conclude the project had a leak. The source of the leak was never identified, although there was speculation that it was
Lee Harvey Oswald, then a radar operator at a U-2 base in Japan. The Soviets developed their own overflight aircraft, variants of the
Yak-25, which in addition to photographing various parts of the world through the early 1960s acted as a target for the new
MiG-19 and
MiG-21 interceptors to practice for the U-2.
The "missile gap" The successful launch of
Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957 gave credence to Soviet claims about the progress of its
intercontinental ballistic missile program, and began the
Sputnik crisis in the United States. The U-2 intelligence caused Eisenhower to state in a press conference on 9 October that the launch did "not raise my apprehensions, not one iota", but he refused to disclose the U-2's existence as he believed that the Soviets would demand the end of the flights. In December 1958
Khrushchev boasted that a Soviet missile could deliver a 5-megaton warhead . Although the Soviets'
SS-6 Sapwood missile program was actually stalled by technical failures, subsequent boasts—and U.S. secretary of defense
Neil McElroy's statement in February 1959 to Congress that the Soviets might have a three-to-one temporary advantage in ICBMs during the early 1960s—caused widespread concern in the U.S. about the existence of a "missile gap". The American intelligence community was divided, with the CIA suspecting technical delays but the USAF believing that the SS-6 was ready for deployment. Khrushchev continued to exaggerate the Soviet program's success; the missile gap concerns, and CIA and State Department support, caused Eisenhower to reauthorize one Communist territory overflight in July 1959 after 16 months, as well as many
ELINT flights along the Soviet border. British U-2 overflights were made in December and February 1960. The first one targeted a large segment of the railways in the Tyuratam test range area as ballistic missiles were expected to be deployed close to rail lines, as well as nuclear complexes and missile test sites. No sites were found. Neither flight proved or disproved the existence of a "missile gap". The British flights' success contributed to Eisenhower's authorization of one overflight in April. By 1960 U-2 pilots were aware, Knutson recalled, that Soviet
surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) had improved and that overflights had become much riskier, but did not worry because "dumb fighter pilots always think it's the other guy that's going to get hit". By this time the CIA had also concluded internally that Soviet SAMs had "a high probability of successful intercept at providing that detection is made in sufficient time to alert the site". Despite the much-increased risk, the CIA did not stop the overflights as they were overconfident following the years of successful missions, and because of the strong demand for more missile-site photographs, the U-2 was the major source of covert intelligence on the Soviet Union and had photographed about 15% of the country, producing almost 5,500 intelligence reports. The April flight was indeed tracked quickly, and Khrushchev said in his memoir that it should have been shot down by new SAMs, but the missile crews were slow to react.
May 1960: U-2 shot down Eisenhower authorized one more overflight, which was to be made no later than 1 May because the important Paris Summit of the
Big Four Conference would begin on 16 May. The CIA chose for the mission—the 24th deep-penetration Soviet overflight—Operation GRAND SLAM, an ambitious flight plan for the first crossing of the Soviet Union from
Peshawar, Pakistan to
Bodø,
Norway; previous flights had always exited in the direction from which they had entered. The route would permit visits to
Tyuratam,
Sverdlovsk,
Kirov,
Kotlas,
Severodvinsk, and
Murmansk. It was expected, given good weather, to resolve missile, nuclear and nuclear submarine intelligence issues with one flight.
Francis Gary Powers, the most experienced pilot with 27 missions, was chosen for the flight. After delays, the flight began on
May Day, 1 May. This was a mistake because, as an important Soviet holiday, there was much less air traffic than usual. The Soviets began tracking the U-2 15 miles outside the border, and over Sverdlovsk, four and a half hours into the flight, one of three
SA-2 missiles detonated behind the aircraft at 70,500 feet, near enough to cause it to crash; another hit a Soviet interceptor attempting to reach the American aircraft. Powers survived the near miss and was quickly captured; the crash did not destroy the U-2 and the Soviets were able to identify much of the equipment. Bissell and other project officials believed that surviving a U-2 accident from above 70,000 feet was impossible, so they used the pre-existing cover story. On 3 May, the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, the successor to NACA) announced that one of its aircraft, making a high-altitude research flight in Turkey, was missing; the government planned to say, if necessary, that the NASA aircraft had drifted with an incapacitated pilot across the Soviet border. By remaining silent, Khrushchev lured the Americans into reinforcing the cover story until he revealed on 7 May that Powers was alive and had confessed to spying on the Soviet Union. Eisenhower turned down Dulles' offer to resign and publicly took full responsibility for the incident on 11 May; by then all overflights had been canceled. The Paris Summit collapsed after Khrushchev, as the first speaker, demanded an apology from the U.S., which Eisenhower refused. U-2 pilots were told, Knutson later said, if captured "to tell them everything that they knew", because they were told little about their missions other than targets on maps. Otherwise, Powers had little instruction on what to do during an interrogation. Although he had been told that he could reveal everything about the aircraft since the Soviets could learn what they wanted from it, Powers did his best to conceal classified information while appearing to cooperate. His trial began on 17 August 1960. Powers—who apologized on the advice of his Soviet defense counsel—was sentenced to three years in prison, but on 10 February 1962 the USSR exchanged him and American student
Frederic Pryor for
Rudolf Abel at
Glienicke Bridge between West Berlin and Potsdam, Germany. Two CIA investigations found that Powers had done well during the interrogation and had "complied with his obligations as an American citizen during this period". Although the government was reluctant to reinstate him to the USAF because of its statements that the U-2 program was civilian, it had promised to do so after CIA employment ended; Powers resolved the dilemma by choosing to work for Lockheed as a U-2 pilot. The debris of Powers's aircraft was used to design a copy under the name
Beriev S-13. That was then discarded in favor of the
MiG-25R and reconnaissance satellites. The search for operational ballistic missile sites continued focusing on the Soviet railway system using
Corona satellite images, with a resolution of twenty to thirty feet compared to two to three feet from U-2 cameras.
Restructuring The U-2 shootdown in 1960 paralyzed the U.S. reconnaissance community and forced changes in policy, procedures, and security protocol. The United States also had to move swiftly to protect its allies: for example after the Soviets announced that Powers was alive, the CIA evacuated the British pilots from Detachment B as Turkey did not know of their presence in the country. The end of Soviet overflights meant that Detachment B itself soon left Turkey, and in July Detachment C left Japan following a Japanese governmental request. Both detachments merged into Detachment G, under the command of Lt. Col. William Gregory, at
Edwards Air Force Base, California where the CIA had relocated the U-2 program after nuclear testing forced it to abandon Groom Lake in 1957. The CIA sought to determine if the U-2 could, from a fixed base at North Edwards, rapidly deploy to an advanced American base and complete reconnaissance flights on a largely self-sustaining basis. A proving exercise was arranged with Gregory and the new Detachment G unit to simulate deploying a U-2 unit overseas, taking two or three aircraft, and conducting three reconnaissance missions with no resupply. The exercise was critical to continued CIA operation of the U-2, since basing the aircraft in a foreign country was no longer an option. The exercise was completed with excellent results, and actual reconnaissance missions began to be scheduled immediately. On 4 January 1961, the CIA U-2 reconnaissance effort, which was formerly known as CHALICE, was redesignated IDEALIST. This program codeword by the end of the decade was being used to describe the U.S. reconnaissance along the Chinese coastline, while Taiwanese missions into the Chinese country would be known as the IDEALIST program From October 1960, Detachment G made many overflights of Cuba from
Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas. Although Lockheed modified six CIA aircraft into the
aerial refueling-capable U-2F model in 1961, permitting some Cuba missions to originate from Edwards, pilot fatigue limited flights to about 10 hours. An August 1962 flight showed Soviet SA-2 SAM sites on the island; later overflights found more sites and MiG-21 interceptors. The increasing number of SAMs caused the United States to more cautiously plan Cuban overflights. USAF U-2s did not conduct overflights, but officials believed that it would be better for a military officer to be the pilot in case he was shot down. Following one last Cuba overflight that originated from Edwards and ended at
McCoy Air Force Base, Florida, on 14 October 1962, all further U-2 operations over Cuba originated from a detachment operating location that was established at McCoy.
Cuban Missile Crisis After receiving hasty training on the more powerful U-2F under the cognizance of the Weather Reconnaissance Squadron Provisional (WRSP-4) at Edwards AFB, Major
Richard S. Heyser flew over western Cuba on 14 October 1962 in a U-2F; his aircraft was the first to photograph Soviet
medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) in
San Cristóbal before returning to
McCoy AFB, Florida. Prior to the launch of all Cuban sorties, the two U-2F aircraft possessed by WSRP-4 and flown by 4080th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing personnel had USAF insignia and tail numbers. SAC received permission to fly as many Cuban overflights as necessary for the duration of the resulting
Cuban Missile Crisis. On a 27 October sortie from McCoy AFB, one of the U-2Fs was shot down over Cuba by an
SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile, killing the pilot, Major
Rudolf Anderson; he posthumously received the first
Air Force Cross. Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev was dismayed, warning President
John F. Kennedy in a private message that U-2 overflights could inadvertently cause
WWIII: "Is it not a fact that an intruding American plane could be easily taken for a nuclear bomber, which might push us to a fateful step?" Fulfilling CIA officials' fears of a USAF takeover, CIA pilots never again flew over Cuba; SAC retained control over Cuban overflights,
Hickman incident On 28 July 1966, a U-2 piloted by USAF Captain Robert Hickman departed from
Barksdale Air Force Base to conduct a reconnaissance mission; Hickman's orders included the requirement that he not enter Cuban airspace. As determined later by USAF investigators, trouble with the aircraft's oxygen system caused Hickman to lose consciousness. U.S. Navy pilot John Newlin, flying an
F-4B assigned to VF-74, was scrambled from
Naval Air Station Key West, ordered to intercept Hickman before he violated Cuban airspace, and, if necessary, shoot him down. Newlin could not reach the U-2 before flying closer than 12 miles from the Cuban coastline and so had to turn back. Hickman probably died from oxygen deprivation before the intercept was attempted. Hickman's U-2 flew across Cuba, ran out of fuel and crashed into a mountainside near Llanquera, Bolivia. The Bolivian military gave his remains an
honor guard at a nearby chapel. The US embassy to Bolivia sent a team to investigate the crash site. From 1960 to 1965, U-2 flights originated or terminated on a nearly daily basis at
Albrook USAF base. In 1966, elements of the USAF's
4080th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing flew U-2s from Albrook to perform atmospheric sampling as the French detonated a nuclear device in the South Pacific.
Asia CIA overflights of Asian targets began in spring 1958 when Detachment C moved from Japan to
Naval Air Station Cubi Point in the Philippines to overfly Indonesia during an uprising against
Sukarno's "
Guided Democracy" government. The CIA's
Civil Air Transport, aiding the rebels, so badly needed pilots that it borrowed two CIA U-2 pilots despite the high risk to the U-2 program if one were captured. The Indonesian government soon defeated the rebels, however, and the U-2s returned to Japan. That year, Detachment C also flew over the Chinese coast near
Quemoy during the
Second Taiwan Strait Crisis to see if Communist Chinese forces were preparing to invade, and in 1959 aided CIA operations during the
Tibetan uprising. The unit was collecting high-altitude air samples to look for evidence of Soviet nuclear tests when it was withdrawn from Asia after the May 1960 U-2 incident. On 24 September 1959, an unmarked U-2, Article 360, crash landed to of Japan. Armed American security forces in plainclothes soon arrived and moved away locals at gunpoint, increasing public interest in the crash. The unlawfulness of the was criticized in Japan's House of Representatives. The same Article 360 was later shot down in the May 1960 U-2 incident. A month before the incident, another U-2 crash landed in rural Thailand. Locals helped the US remove the aircraft without publicity. After the Vietnamese ceasefire in January 1973 prohibited American military flights, CIA pilots again used the unmarked Detachment H U-2 over North Vietnam during 1973 and 1974. Several U-2s were lost over China. In 1963, the CIA started project Whale Tale to develop carrier-based U-2Gs to overcome range limitations. During the development of the capability, CIA pilots took off and landed U-2Gs on the aircraft carrier and other ships. The U-2G was used only twice operationally. Both flights from
Ranger occurred in May 1964 to observe France's development of an
atomic bomb test range at
Moruroa in
French Polynesia. In reality, as of that date (May 1964), no development work had yet begun on the Moruroa atoll. The first infrastructure will not be built until the end of 1964.
Vietnam War In early 1964, SAC sent a detachment of U-2s from the 4080th to
South Vietnam for high altitude reconnaissance missions over
North Vietnam. On 5 April 1965, U-2s from the 4028th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron (SRS) took photos of SAM-2 sites near
Hanoi and
Haiphong harbor. On 11 February 1966, the 4080th Wing was redesignated the
100th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing (100 SRW) and moved to
Davis-Monthan AFB,
Arizona. The detachment at
Bien Hoa AB, South Vietnam, was redesignated the 349th SRS. The only loss of a U-2 during combat operations occurred on 9 October 1966, when Major Leo Stewart, flying with the 349th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron, developed mechanical problems high over North Vietnam. The U-2 managed to return to South Vietnam where Stewart ejected safely. The U-2 crashed approximately east-northeast of
Saigon in
Viet Cong (VC) territory. A
Special Forces team was later sent to destroy the wreckage. One member stated that they retrieved classified radar jammers from the wreckage before they could be captured by the VC and possibly transferred to the USSR. In July 1970, the 349th SRS at Bien Hoa moved to Thailand and was redesignated the
99th SRS in November 1972, remaining there until March 1976.
U-2 carrier operations At one time, in an effort to extend the U-2's operating range and to eliminate the need for foreign government approval for U-2 operations from USAF bases in foreign countries, it was suggested that the U-2 be operated from aircraft carriers. Three aircraft were converted for carrier operations by the installation of arrester hooks, and carrier-qualified naval aviators were recruited to fly them. It turned out to be possible to take off and land a U-2 from a carrier. Testing in 1964 with the
USS Ranger and in 1969 with the
USS America proved the concept. The only operational carrier use occurred in May 1964 when a U-2, operating from USS
Ranger, was used to spy on a French atomic test in the Pacific. The
Lockheed C-130 was also tested for carrier use to support U-2 sea deployments. In 1969, the larger U-2Rs were flown from the carrier . The U-2 carrier program is believed to have been halted after 1969.
1970–2000 In August 1970, two U-2Rs were deployed by the
National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to cover the Israeli-Egypt conflict under the code name
EVEN STEVEN. In June 1976, the U-2s of the 100 SRW were transferred to the
9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing (9 SRW) at
Beale Air Force Base, California, and merged with
Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird operations there. When the
Strategic Air Command (SAC) was disbanded in 1992, the wing was transferred to the new
Air Combat Command (ACC) and redesignated the
9th Reconnaissance Wing (9 RW). In 1977, a U-2R was retrofitted with an upward-looking window so that it could be used for high altitude astronomical observations of the
cosmic microwave background (CMB). This experiment was the first to measure definitively the motion of the galaxy relative to the CMB and established an upper limit on the rotation of the universe as a whole. In 1984, during a major
NATO exercise, RAF Flight Lieutenant Mike Hale intercepted a U-2 at a height of , where the aircraft had previously been considered safe from interception. Hale climbed to in his
Lightning F3. In 1989, a U-2R of 9th Reconnaissance Wing (RW), Detachment 5, flying from
Patrick Air Force Base, Florida successfully photographed a space shuttle launch for
NASA to assist in identifying the cause of tile loss during launch, which had been discovered in the initial post-
Challenger missions. On 2 January 1993, an Iraqi
MiG-25 Foxbat attempted to intercept a USAF U-2 taking part in UN operations over Iraq. The
R-40 (AA-6 Acrid) missile missed the U-2 and the MiG was 'chased off' by
F-15 Eagles. On 19 November 1998, a NASA ER-2 research aircraft set a world record for altitude of in horizontal flight in the weight class.
21st century The U-2 remains in front-line service more than 60 years after its first flight, with the current U-2 beginning service in 1980. This is due primarily to its ability to change surveillance objectives on short notice, something that surveillance satellites cannot do. In the mid-1990s, it was converted from the U-2R to the U-2S, receiving the
GE F118 turbofan engine. The U-2 outlasted its Mach 3 replacement, the
SR-71, which was retired in 1998. A classified budget document approved by
the Pentagon on 23 December 2005 called for the U-2's termination no earlier than 2012, with some aircraft being retired by 2007. In January 2006, Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld announced the U-2's pending retirement as a cost-cutting measure during a larger reorganization and redefinition of the USAF's mission. Rumsfeld said that this would not impair the USAF's ability to gather intelligence, which would be done by satellites and a growing supply of unmanned
RQ-4 Global Hawk reconnaissance aircraft. ,
United Arab Emirates, ca. 2017 In 2009, the USAF stated that it planned to extend the U-2 retirement from 2012 until 2014 or later to allow more time to field the RQ-4. Upgrades late in the War in Afghanistan gave the U-2 greater reconnaissance and threat-detection capability. By early 2010, U-2s from the
99th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron had flown over 200 missions in support of Operations
Iraqi Freedom and
Enduring Freedom, as well as
Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa. A U-2 was stationed in Cyprus in March 2011 to help in the enforcement of the
no-fly zone over Libya, and a U-2 stationed at
Osan Air Base in South Korea was used to provide imagery of the
Japanese nuclear reactor damaged by the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. ,
South Korea, circa June 2006 In March 2011, it was projected that the fleet of 32 U-2s would be operated until 2015. In 2014, Lockheed Martin determined that the U-2S fleet had used only one-fifth of its design service life and was one of the youngest fleets within the USAF. In January 2012 the USAF reportedly planned to end the RQ-4 Block 30 program and extend the U-2's service life until 2023. The RQ-4 Block 30 was kept in service under political pressure despite USAF objections, stating that the U-2 cost $2,380 per flight hour compared to the RQ-4's $6,710 as of early 2014. Critics have pointed out that the RQ-4's cameras and sensors are less capable, and lack all-weather operating capability; however, some of the U-2's sensors may be installed on the RQ-4. The RQ-4 Block 30's capabilities were planned to match the U-2's by
FY 2016, the replacement effort is motivated by decreases in the RQ-4's cost per flying hour. The U-2's retirement was calculated to save $2.2 billion. $1.77 billion will have to be spent over 10 years to enhance the RQ-4, including $500 million on a universal payload adapter to attach one U-2 sensor onto the RQ-4. USAF officials fear that retiring the U-2 amid RQ-4 upgrades will create a capability gap In the
House Armed Services Committee's markup of the FY 2015 budget, language was included prohibiting the use of funds to retire or store the U-2; it also requested a report outlining the transition capabilities from the U-2 to the RQ-4 Block 30 in light of capability gap concerns. In late 2014, Lockheed Martin proposed an unmanned U-2 version with greater payload capability, but the concept did not gain traction with the USAF. In early 2015, the USAF was directed to restart modest funding for the U-2 for operations and research, development, and procurement through to FY 2018. The former head of the USAF
Air Combat Command, Gen. Mike Hostage helped extend the U-2S to ensure commanders receive sufficient
intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) coverage; stating "it will take eight years before the RQ-4 Global Hawk fleet can support 90% of the coverage of the U-2 fleet." In 2015, the RQ-4 was planned to replace the U-2 by 2019, though Lockheed states the U-2 can remain viable until 2050. In February 2020, the U.S. Air Force submitted budget documents with confusing language suggesting that it could begin retiring U-2s in 2025 but clarified afterwards that no retirement is planned. On 20 September 2016, a TU-2S trainer crashed upon takeoff from Beale Air Force Base, killing one pilot and injuring the other. In early August 2018, NASA flew two missions using infrared sensors to map the
Mendocino Complex Fire. The flights used the
Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and
Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) satellite instruments. In 2020, the U-2 made history as the first military aircraft to integrate
Artificial Intelligence on a mission. The AI program, code-named ARTUμ, was developed by the U-2 Federal Laboratory. In the
2023 Chinese balloon incident, the U.S. Air Force used U-2 aircraft to monitor a Chinese balloon that crossed the United States and Canada. U-2 flights confirmed the balloon's surveillance package was outfitted with multiple antennas capable of conducting
signals intelligence collection operations and that the craft had large
solar panels to power them. In 2025,
Air Force Chief of Staff General
David Allvin confirmed that the U-2 was being used to surveil the
US-Mexico border. The U-2 and
RC-135 Rivet Joint were used for
ISR operations to track
cartels located in Mexico. Also in 2025, as fleet retirement is being discussed, a TU-2S trainer set an endurance record for the class, by flying in 14 hours over
all 48 lower US states.
United Kingdom Bissell suggested bringing the British into the program to increase the number of overflights. Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan agreed with the plan, and four RAF officers were sent to Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas for training in May 1958. On 8 July, the senior British pilot,
Squadron Leader Christopher H. Walker, was killed when his U-2 malfunctioned and crashed near Wayside, Texas. This was the first death involving the U-2, and the circumstances were not disclosed for over 50 years. Another pilot was quickly selected and sent to replace Walker. After training, the group of RAF U-2 pilots arrived in Turkey in November 1958, shortly after the CIA's Detachment B from Adana provided valuable intelligence during the
1958 Lebanon crisis with both the United States and United Kingdom involvement. Since the September 1956 disclosure of Mediterranean photographs, the United Kingdom had received U-2 intelligence, except during the Suez Crisis. The CIA and Eisenhower viewed using British pilots as a way of increasing
plausible deniability for the flights. The CIA also saw British participation as a way of obtaining additional Soviet overflights that the president would not authorize. The United Kingdom gained the ability to target flights toward areas of the world the United States was less interested in, and possibly avoid another Suez-like interruption of U-2 photographs. and was run directly by the CIA with USAF assistance. Each of the 35th Squadron's operational missions had to be approved by both the U.S. and the ROC presidents beforehand. A further layer of security and secrecy was enforced by all U.S. military and CIA/government personnel stationed in Taoyuan assigned to Detachment H having been issued official documents and IDs with false names and cover titles as Lockheed employees/representatives in civilian clothes. The ROCAF personnel would never know their U.S. counterparts' real names and rank/titles, or which U.S. government agencies they were dealing with. A total of 26 of 28 ROC pilots sent to the U.S. completed training between 1959 and 1973, at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas. On 3 August 1959, a U-2 on a training mission out of Laughlin AFB, piloted by ROCAF Major Mike Hua, made a successful unassisted nighttime emergency landing at
Cortez, Colorado, that became known as the
Miracle at Cortez. Major Hua was awarded the USAF Distinguished Flying Cross for saving the aircraft. In January 1961, the CIA provided the ROC with its first two U-2Cs, and in April the squadron flew its first mission over mainland China. In the wake of the Gary Powers incident, the Taiwanese program of China overflights was redesignated TACKLE, a subset of the new IDEALIST program. Other countries were occasionally overflown by the 35th Squadron, including North Korea, North Vietnam and Laos; however, the main objective of the 35th Squadron was to conduct reconnaissance missions assessing the
PRC's nuclear capabilities. For this purpose, the ROC pilots flew as far as
Gansu and other remote regions in northwest China. Some missions, to satisfy mission requirements including range, and to add some element of surprise, had the 35th Squadron's U-2s flying from or recovered at other U.S. air bases in Southeast Asia and Eastern Asia, such as
Kunsan Air Base in South Korea, or
Takhli in Thailand. All U.S. airbases in the region were listed as emergency/alternate recovery airfields and could be used besides the 35th Squadron's home base at Taoyuan Air Base in Taiwan. Initially, all film taken by the Black Cat Squadron would be flown to Okinawa or Guam for processing and development, and the U.S. forces would not share any mission photos with ROC. In the late 1960s, the USAF agreed to share complete sets of mission photos and help set up a photo development and interpretation unit at Taoyuan. In 1968, the ROC U-2C/F/G fleet was replaced with the newer U-2R. However, with the overwhelming threats from
SA-2 missiles and
MiG-21 interceptors, along with the
rapprochement between the U.S. and the PRC, the ROC U-2s stopped entering Chinese airspace, only conducting electronic intelligence-gathering and photo-reconnaissance missions using new Long Range Oblique Reconnaissance (LOROP) cameras on the U-2R from above international waters. The last U-2 mission over mainland China took place on 16 March 1968. After that, all missions had the U-2 fly outside a buffer zone at least around China. During his visit to China in 1972, U.S. president
Richard Nixon promised the Chinese to cease all reconnaissance missions near and over China, though this was also practical as by 1972 U.S. photo satellites could provide better overhead images without risking losing aircraft and pilots, or provoking international incidents. The last 35th Squadron mission was flown by Sungchou "Mike" Chiu on 24 May 1974. By the end of the ROC's U-2 operations, a total of 19 U-2C/F/G/R aircraft had been operated by the 35th Squadron from 1959 to 1974. The squadron flew some 220 missions, with about half over mainland China, resulting in five aircraft shot down, with three fatalities and two pilots captured; one aircraft lost while performing an operational mission off the Chinese coast, with the pilot killed; and another seven aircraft lost in training with six pilots killed. ==Variants==