Although no relic, the U-2 is certainly synonymous with the Cold War
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Satellites — and drones — were intended to replace it. But the 65-year-old Lockheed U-2 is still at the top of its game, flying missions in an environment no other aircraft can operate in.

early twice as wide as it is long, the Lockheed U-2 spy plane is one of the most distinctive aircraft in the United States Air Force — and the hardest aircraft to fly, earning itself the nickname “The Dragon Lady”.

The U-2’s 63ft-long (19m) thin fuselage, two high-aspect, un-swept glider-like wings, and powerful engine are designed to rocket the plane higher than 70,000ft (21km) — and, crucially, keep it there.

The U-2 operates at such height and at such a wafer-thin margin between its maximum speed and its stall speed that pilots call its cruising altitude “coffin corner”. The missions there last hours at a time.

The aircraft’s slender design is sometimes difficult to see. Often, it is covered in pods, spiky antennae, mysterious bulges and nosecones hiding the sensors, radar, cameras and communications equipment it needs to complete its missions. These different sensors can be plugged into the plane almost as if someone was building a model kit. There is an urban myth that one such bulge or pod contains a cloaking device — an electronic signal that renders it invisible to radar.

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At 70,000ft and above, the “Dragon Lady” still has the stratosphere largely to itself, just as it did 65 years ago on its first flight. At these altitudes, the pilot is more astronaut than aviator. In the cocoon-like, pressurised cockpit of the U-2, wrapped in a bulky pressure suit with a large spherical helmet, the pilot breathes 100% oxygen. Some of the features of this kit can still be found on spacesuits in use today.

In air this thin the margins between living and dying are narrow. Indeed, the pilot faces the constant danger of hypoxia (lack of oxygen) and altitude-induced decompression sickness. Like any plane, the U-2 has to fly fast enough that the plane doesn’t stall and not so fast that the plane breaks up — the challenge for the U-2 pilot is that at 70,000ft there may be only a few miles an hour difference. An accidental nudge on the controls could spell disaster.

“The U-2 really attracts the kind of pilots who want to say ‘I fly the most difficult aeroplane in the inventory’,” says Greg Birdsall, Lockheed Martin’s U-2 deputy programme manager. “They take a pilot candidate and put him in a trainer aircraft with a seasoned instructor pilot in the backseat to see how they take to the peculiar handling characteristics of the aeroplane.” Only around 10–15% of pilots who apply to join the programme are accepted.

In the age of automation and algorithms it is easy to imagine that these spy planes and their pilots with the “right stuff” are a relic from the Cold War — but that would be wrong. For the 31 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the U-2 has been intercepting speech or text, acquiring electronic signals, taking photographs and using a special form of radar to capture digital imagery.

The U-2 has also acquired new roles, like that of a data relay. Its ability to fly high in the sky meant that it was in the perfect position to relay information from the battlefield to headquarters. In the process it has outlasted rival planes and seen off the surveillance satellites that were supposed to make it redundant.

Although no relic, the U-2 is certainly synonymous with the Cold War

Now the 31 operational U-2s in the USAF fleet are about to undergo a $50m (£37.8m) update and acquire a new mission which could see them fly on for another 30 more years. It may also see them go head-to-head with a drone so secret that its existence has yet to be officially acknowledged.

“We are not going away as a programme and we are investing heavily to bring the U-2 into its new mission environment,” says Lockheed Martin U-2 programme director Irene Helley. “In this new era there is no sunset date planned.”

Although no relic, the U-2 is certainly synonymous with the Cold War. In the 1950s, President Dwight D Eisenhower’s administration received several shocks over the Soviet Union’s nuclear capabilities. This was due to its intelligence gap. The Soviet Union was a closed society that was difficult for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to penetrate. The lack of spies in the right places meant that the president needed a high-altitude spy plane to tell him exactly what the Soviet Union was up to. And he needed it quickly.