Bomber gap The " bomber gap " was the unfounded belief in the Cold War - era United States that the Soviet Union had gained an advantage in deploying jet - powered strategic bomber s . Widely accepted for several years , the gap was used as a political talking point in order to justify greatly increased defense spending . One result was a massive buildup of the United States Air Force bomber fleet , which peaked at over 2 , 500 bombers , in order to counter the perceived Soviet threat . Surveillance flights utilizing the Lockheed U - 2 aircraft indicated that the bomber gap did not exist . Realizing that mere belief in the gap was an extremely effective funding source , a series of similarly nonexistent Soviet military advances were constructed in a tactic now known as " policy by press release . " These included claims of a nuclear - powered bomber , supersonic VTOL flying saucers , and only a few years later , the " missile gap . " The gap appears . On February 15 , 1954 , " Aviation Week " published an article describing new Soviet jet bombers capable of carrying a nuclear bomb to the United States from their bases in Russia . The aircraft they referred to was the Myasishchev M - 4 " Bison " . Over the next year and a half these rumors were debated publicly in the press , and soon after in the United States Congress . Adding to the concerns was an infamous event in July 1955 . At the Soviet Aviation Day demonstrations at the Tushino Airfield , ten Bison bombers were flown past the reviewing stand , then flew out of sight , quickly turned around , and flew past the stands again with eight more , presenting the illusion that there were 28 aircraft in the flyby . Western analysts extrapolated from the illusionary 28 aircraft , judging that by 1960 the Soviets would have 800 . At the time , the USAF had just introduced its own strategic jet bomber , the B - 52 Stratofortress , and the shorter - range B - 47 Stratojet was still suffering from a variety of technical problems that limited its availability . USAF staff started pressing for accelerated production of the B - 52 , but it also grudgingly accepted calls for expanded air defense . The Air Force was generally critical of spending effort on defense , having studied the results of the World War II bombing campaigns and concluding that Stanley Baldwin ' s pre - war thinking on the fruitlessness of air defense was correct : the bomber almost always did get through . Like the British , they concluded that money would better be spent on making the offensive arm larger , deterring an attack . The result was a production series consisting of thousands of aircraft . Over 2 , 000 B - 47s and almost 750 B - 52s were built to match the imagined fleet of Soviet aircraft . The gap disproven . President Dwight D . Eisenhower was skeptical of the gap from the start . With no evidence one way or the other , he agreed to the development of the Lockheed U - 2 to answer the question . The first U - 2 flights started in 1956 . One early mission , Mission 2020 flown by Martin Knutson on July 4 , 1956 , flew over Engels airfield near Saratov and photographed 20 M - 4 Bison bombers on the ramp . Multiplying by the number of Soviet bomber bases , the intelligence suggested the Soviets were already well on their way to deploying hundreds of aircraft . Ironically , the U - 2 had actually photographed the " entire " Bison fleet ; there wasn ' t a single bomber at any of the other bases . Similar missions over the next year finally demonstrated this beyond a doubt , and at least in official circles the gap disappeared . As it was later learned , the M - 4 was unable to meet its original range goals and was limited to about 8 , 000 km . Unlike the United States , at that time the Soviets lacked overseas bases in the Western Hemisphere and therefore the M - 4 would not be able to attack the US and land at a friendly airbase . Interest in the M - 4 waned , and a total of only 93 were produced before the assembly lines were shut down in 1963 . The vast majority of these were used as tankers or maritime reconnaissance aircraft ; only the original 10 shown at the air show and nine newer 3MD13 models served on nuclear alert .