October 23, 2005
Celebrations Planned as Spy Plane Turns 50
The U-2 was created by Lockheed Corp. in secret to photograph the Soviet Union's nuclear missile sites and bomber bases during the Cold War. It made its first flight in August 1955 from a hidden dry lake bed in the Nevada atomic testing grounds.
Enlarged and upgraded over the years, equipped with new sensors and communication gear to beam data around the world, 28 U-2s and five trainers are still on duty with the U.S. Air Force.
In Palmdale, nearly 600 Lockheed Martin workers are busy overhauling and modernizing the Air Force's remaining U-2s.
The (Blackbird) airpark's U-2 was built in 1956 at Lockheed Corp.'s Burbank plant. U-2 56-6721 did flight-test work for 24 years, including programs in which it tested at high altitude devices designed to be fitted to orbiting satellites.
The devices included an infrared sensor for detecting the
exhaust plume of Soviet nuclear missiles, cameras for weather satellites and dummy capsules ejected at high altitude to give Air Force crews practice at catching parachuting spy satellite payload capsules.
[above illus from Edwards AF Spy Planes]
>*see also U-2 Pages
~An oeuvre of fifty years and counting.
Posted by Cieciel at October 23, 2005 05:52 AM