I saw this video last year but it was good to watch again.
The particular U-2 in the video is interesting because it is a two seat training model
or has been modified to accommodate the second seating position.
A highly recommended book is "Skunk Works" by Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos,
first published by Warner Books in 1994. Ben R. Rich was head of the Lockheed
Skunk Works where the U-2 was developed and devotes some interesting chapters
to it.
One of the original movers and shakers behind getting the U-2 project going was
Edwin Land, the genius of Polaroid fame, who recognized the reconnaissance
capability that could be provided with the use of high quality optics and films
from high altitudes. Once they received funding, the CIA approached then Skunk
Works head, Kelly Johnson, to design it.
Reputedly the aluminium fuselage was so thin that if you dropped a spanner
on it, it was likely to leave a four inch deep dent.
The original cover story for the aircraft was they were part of a new high altitude
weather research project. As Rich writes in his book,
Quote:
"The were strange weather birds - hidden away in a remote corner of the Wiesbaden air base [Germany],
guarded by CIA agents carrying submachine guns".
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When the original Soviet SAM's couldn't reach their altitude, according to
Marty Knutson, the first pilot selected to fly the U-2, they tried to ram them with jets.
Knutson says,
Quote:
"They stripped down some of their MiG-21s and flew straight
up at top speed, arcing up to sixty-eight thousand feet before flaming out and falling
back toward earth."
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That lasted until May 1, 1960 when Francis Gary Powers set off on his ill-fated
flight from an airbase on the outskirts of Peshawar, Pakistan, sparking one the
of the major incidents of the Cold War. It certainly was a May Day present come
true for Kruschev at the time.
