Lockheed U-2
The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed the "Dragon Lady", is an American single-engine, high–altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force and the Central Intelligence Agency since the 1950s. Designed for all-weather, day-and-night intelligence gathering at altitudes above, the U-2 has played a pivotal role in aerial surveillance for decades.
Lockheed Corporation originally proposed the aircraft in 1953. It was approved in 1954, and its first test flight was in 1955. Between 1956 and 1962, U-2 aircraft conducted covert reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, and Cuba, gathering critical imagery intelligence throughout the Cold War. In 1960, CIA pilot Gary Powers was shot down in a U-2C over the Soviet Union by a surface-to-air missile. Major Rudolf Anderson Jr. was shot down in a U-2 during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
U-2s have taken part in post-Cold War conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and supported several multinational NATO operations. Beyond tactical surveillance, U-2s have supported the development of electronic sensors, calibrated space-based instruments, conducted high-altitude atmospheric experiments, and tested line-of-sight and over-horizon communications systems. The U-2 is one of a handful of aircraft types to have served the USAF for over 50 years, along with the Boeing B-52, Boeing KC-135, Lockheed C-130 and Lockheed C-5. The newest models entered service in the 1980s, and the latest model, the U-2S, had a technical upgrade in 2012. The U-2 is currently operated by the USAF and NASA.
Development
Background
After World War II, the U.S. military desired better strategic aerial reconnaissance to help determine Soviet capabilities and intentions, and to prevent being caught off-guard as it had been in the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Air Force commissioned the 'Beacon Hill Report' from Project Lincoln at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which was researched in 1951–1952 and delivered in 1952. The committee was led by Carl F. P. Overhage and was overseen by the Air Force's Gordon P. Saville, and included James Gilbert Baker and Edwin H. Land, who would design the specialized optics in the U-2.During the early 1950s, the best intelligence the American government had on facilities deep inside the Soviet Union were World War II German Luftwaffe photographs taken during the war of territory west of the Ural Mountains, so overflights to take aerial photographs of the Soviet Union would be necessary. The committee suggested a plane with advanced optics, flying above.
After 1950, Soviet air defenses consistently intercepted all aircraft near the country's borders—sometimes even those in Japanese airspace. Existing US reconnaissance aircraft, primarily bombers converted for reconnaissance duty such as the Boeing RB-47, were vulnerable to anti-aircraft artillery, missiles, and fighters. Richard Leghorn of the United States Air Force suggested that an aircraft that could fly at should be safe from the MiG-17, the Soviet Union's best interceptor aircraft, which could barely reach. He and others believed that Soviet radar, which used American equipment provided during the war, could not track aircraft above.
At the time, the highest-flying aircraft available to the US and its allies was the English Electric Canberra, which could reach. The British had already produced the PR3 photo-reconnaissance variant, but the USAF asked for English Electric's help to further modify the American-licensed version of the Canberra, the Martin B-57, with long, narrow wings, new engines, and a lighter airframe to reach. The U.S. Air Research and Development Command mandated design changes that made the aircraft more durable for combat, but the resulting RB-57D aircraft of 1955 could only reach. The Soviet Union, unlike the United States and Britain, had improved radar technology after the war, and could track aircraft above.
Lockheed proposal
It was thought that an aircraft that could fly at would be beyond the reach of Soviet fighters, missiles, and radar. Another Air Force officer, John Seaberg, wrote a request for proposal in 1953 for an aircraft that could reach over a target with of operational radius. The USAF decided to solicit designs only from smaller aircraft companies that could give the project more attention. Under the code name "Bald Eagle", it gave contracts to Bell Aircraft, Martin Aircraft, and Fairchild Engine and Airplane to develop proposals for the new reconnaissance aircraft. Officials at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation heard about the project and decided to submit an unsolicited proposal. To save weight and increase altitude, Lockheed executive John Carter suggested that the design eliminate landing gear and not attempt to meet combat load factors for the airframe. The company asked Clarence "Kelly" Johnson to come up with such a design. Johnson was Lockheed's best aeronautical engineer, responsible for the P-38 and the P-80. He was also known for completing projects ahead of schedule, working in a separate division of the company, informally called the "Skunk Works".Johnson's design, named CL-282, was based on the Lockheed XF-104 with long, slender wings and a shortened fuselage. The design was powered by the General Electric J73 engine and took off from a special cart and landed on its belly. It could reach an altitude of and had a radius. The reconnaissance aircraft was essentially a jet-powered glider. In June 1954, the USAF rejected the design in favor of the Bell X-16 and the modified B-57. Reasons included the lack of landing gear, use of the J73 engine instead of the more proven Pratt & Whitney J57 used by the competing designs, and not using multiple engines, which the USAF believed to be more reliable. General Curtis LeMay of Strategic Air Command walked out during a CL-282 presentation, saying that he was not interested in an airplane without wheels or guns. Having guns could pose a greater risk of exposing the aircraft during flight, and having missiles could expose it to thermal sensors.
Approval
Civilian officials including Trevor Gardner, an aide to Secretary of the Air Force Harold E. Talbott, were more positive about the CL-282 because of its higher potential altitude and smaller radar cross-section, and recommended the design to the Central Intelligence Agency's Office of Scientific Intelligence. At that time, the CIA depended on the military for overflights, and Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles favored human over technical intelligence-gathering methods. However, the Intelligence Systems Panel, a civilian group advising the USAF and CIA on aerial reconnaissance, had recognized by 1954 that the RB-57D would not meet the requirement that panel member Allen F. Donovan of Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory believed was necessary for safety. The CIA told the panel about the CL-282. The design elements that the USAF considered to be flaws appealed to Donovan. He was a sailplane enthusiast who believed that a sailplane was the type of high-altitude aircraft the panel was seeking.Edwin Land, the developer of instant photography and another member of the panel, proposed to Dulles through Dulles' aide, Richard M. Bissell Jr., that his agency should fund and operate this aircraft. Land believed that if the military, rather than the CIA, operated the CL-282 during peacetime, such action could provoke a war. Although Dulles remained reluctant to have the CIA conduct its own overflights, Land and James Killian of MIT told President Eisenhower about the aircraft; Eisenhower agreed that the CIA should be the operator. Dulles finally agreed, but some USAF officers opposed the project because they feared it would endanger the RB-57D and X-16.
The USAF's Seaberg helped persuade his own agency to support the CL-282, albeit with the higher-performance J57 engine, and final approval for a joint USAF-CIA project came in November 1954. Lockheed had meanwhile become busy with other projects and had to be persuaded to accept the CL-282 contract after its approval.
Manufacture
Bissell became head of the project, which used covert funding; under the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949, the CIA's director is the only federal government employee who can spend "unvouchered" government money. Lockheed received a $22.5 million contract in March 1955 for the first 20 aircraft, with the first $1.26 million mailed to Johnson's home in February 1955 to keep work going during negotiations. The company agreed to deliver the first aircraft by July of that year and the last by November 1956. It did so, and for $3.5 million under budget. The Flight Test Engineer in charge was Joseph F. Ware Jr.Initial design and manufacturing was done at Lockheed's Skunk Works factory in Burbank, California, with engineers embedded in the manufacturing area to address problems quickly. Procurement of the aircraft's components occurred secretly. When Johnson ordered altimeters calibrated to from a company whose instruments only went to, the CIA set up a cover story involving experimental rocket aircraft. Shell Oil developed a new low-volatility, low vapor pressure jet fuel that would not evaporate at high altitudes; the fuel became known as JP-7. Manufacturing several hundred thousand gallons for the aircraft in 1955 caused a nationwide shortage of Esso's FLIT insecticide.
Realizing the plane could not be tested and flown out of Burbank Airport, they selected what would become Area 51. It was acquired and a paved runway constructed for the project. The planes were dismantled, loaded onto cargo planes, and flown to the facility for testing. The aircraft was renamed the U-2 in July 1955, the same month the first aircraft, Article 341, was delivered to Groom Lake. The "U" referred to the deliberately vague designation "utility" instead of "R" for "reconnaissance", and the U-1 and U-3 aircraft already existed. The CIA assigned the cryptonym AQUATONE to the project, with the USAF using the name OILSTONE for their support to the CIA.
James Baker developed the optics for a large-format camera to be used in the U-2 while working for Perkin-Elmer. The new camera had a resolution of from an altitude of. The aircraft was so crowded that when Baker asked Johnson for of space for a lens with a focal length, Johnson replied "I'd sell my grandmother for six more inches!"; Baker instead used a f/13.85 lens in a format for his final design.