Spyplane; The U-2 History Declassified

Osceola, WI: MBI Publishing Co, 2001. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. x, 278 pages. Glossary. Illustrations. Map. Notes. Appendixes (A: U-2 Variants; B: U-2 Serials; C: U-2 Characteristics; D: U-2 Detachments and Operation Locations. Index. The inner workings and heavily censored history of Lockheed's dynamic U-2 spyplane are revealed in this informative design, development and operational history from 1954. Covers U-2 missions from aircraft carriers, today's flights over the Balkans and Iraq, and NASA's U-2 involvement. Norman Polmar is a prominent author specializing in the naval, aviation, and intelligence areas. He has led major projects for the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Navy, and foreign governments. His professional expertise has served three Secretaries of the U.S. Navy and two Chiefs of Naval Operations. He is credited with 50 published books, including nine previous editions of Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet and four editions of Guide to the Soviet Navy. Polmar writes a column for Proceedings and was editor of the United States and several other sections of the annual publications of Jane's Fighting Ships. In 2019, the Naval Historical Foundation awarded Polmar the Commodore Dudley W. Knox Naval History Lifetime Achievement Award. The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "Dragon Lady", is an American single-engine, high altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated from the 1950s by the United States Air Force (USAF) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It provides day and night, high-altitude (70,000 feet, 21,300 meters), all-weather intelligence gathering. Lockheed Corporation originally proposed it in 1953, it was approved in 1954, and its first test flight was in 1955. It was flown during the Cold War over the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, and Cuba. In 1960, Gary Powers was shot down in a CIA U-2C over the Soviet Union by a surface-to-air missile (SAM). 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. The U-2 has also been used for electronic sensor research, satellite calibration, scientific research, and communications purposes. 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 (TR-1, U-2R, U-2S) 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. The design that gives the U-2 its remarkable performance also makes it a difficult aircraft to fly. Martin Knutson said that it "was the highest workload air plane I believe ever designed and built ... you're wrestling with the airplane and operating the camera systems at all times", leaving no time to "worry about whether you're over Russia or you're flying over Southern California". The U-2 was designed and manufactured for minimum airframe weight, which results in an aircraft with little margin for error. Most aircraft were single-seat versions, with only five two-seat trainer versions known to exist. Early U-2 variants were powered by Pratt & Whitney J57 turbojet engines. The U-2C and TR-1A variants used the more powerful Pratt & Whitney J75 turbojet. The U-2S and TU-2S variants incorporated the more powerful General Electric F118 turbofan engine.
The U-2 shootdown in 1960 paralyzed the U.S. reconnaissance community and forced changes in policy, procedures, and security protocol. The United States also had to move swiftly to protect its allies: for example after the Soviets announced that Powers was alive, the CIA evacuated the British pilots from Detachment B as Turkey did not know of their presence in the country.[102] The end of Soviet overflights meant that Detachment B itself soon left Turkey, and in July Detachment C left Japan following a Japanese governmental request. Both detachments merged into Detachment G, under the command of Lt. Col. William Gregory, at Edwards Air Force Base, California where the CIA had relocated the U-2 program after nuclear testing forced it to abandon Groom Lake in 1957.