When was the u-2 declassified?
25 June 2013
U-2 “GRAND SLAM” flight plan on 1 May 1960, from CIA publication ‘The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance; The U-2 And Oxcart Programs, 1954–1974’, declassified 25 June 2013.
What was the U-2 program?
U-2, single-seat, high-altitude jet aircraft flown by the United States for intelligence gathering, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Perhaps the most famous spy plane ever built, the U-2, also known as the Dragon Lady, has been in service since 1956.
Does the US still use u2 spy planes?
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. 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.
What replaced the Blackbird?
Lockheed Martin SR-72
The Lockheed Martin SR-72, colloquially referred to as “Son of Blackbird”, is an American hypersonic UAV concept intended for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance proposed privately in 2013 by Lockheed Martin as a successor to the retired Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.
What replaced the SR-71?
What’s new in the U-2 declassified data?
The latest release is notable for the significant amount of newly declassified material with respect to the U-2 — with regard to names of pilots, codenames and cryptonyms, locations, funding and cover arrangements, electronic countermeasures equipment, organization, cooperation with foreign governments, and operations, particularly in Asia.
Who is writing about the U-2 spy plane?
British author Chris Pocock has been writing about U-2 history for years, beginning with Dragon Lady: The History of the U-2 Spy Plane (1989) and more recently Fifty Years of the U- 2 (2005).
When was the U-2 approved by the US government?
See p133 of 50 YEARS OF THE U-2 Formal Presidential and State Dept approval received on 26 August 1960 per W/P (but a declassified DPD memo suggests this date should be mid-November 1960). Photo of U-2R at Taoyuan (this is from the early 1970s. Like me, W/P evidently could not find any picture of a U-2 taken there in the 1960s).
Is this the most accurate book on the U-2 program?
According to a previously excised comment in the CIA history, Pocock’s book, Dragon Lady, is “by far the most accurate unclassified account of the U-2 program.”