Posted on 06/21/2005 9:40:49 PM PDT by kristinn
WASHINGTON, June 21 - A U-2 spy plane crashed Tuesday night in Southwest Asia, the Defense Department announced, specifying an area where American aircraft support missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The crash is the first of a U-2 in that region. Military officials who have been briefed on the crash said early indications were that the plane crashed on landing at Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, its home base. The were no indications of hostile fire, they said.
The cause of the crash and status of the pilot are not known, the Pentagon said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Here is her reflection.
It is actually inside the fence near the FAA field office athe the airport.
http://www.uswarplanes.net/sr71.htm
18 A-12s
32 SR-71s
8 A-12/SR-71 builds were cancelled
http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/sr-71.htm
This other source confirms the number at 50 A-12s/SR-71s built.
Middle East: Fatal Crash Proves That U-2 Spy Plane, While Seldom Seen, Is Still Often Flown
By Breffni O'Rourke
World attention is once again focused on the seldom-seen U-2 spy plane. One of the high-altitude surveillance aircraft belonging to the United States military crashed in the Middle East yesterday, killing its pilot. The United States says the incident occurred as the plane was returning to base after an observation mission over Afghanistan. The U-2 -- which flies at the edge of space -- was made famous in 1960, when one was shot down by the Soviet Union.
Prague, 23 June 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Yesterday's crash recalls one of the most famous incidents of the Cold War -- when a missile brought down a U-2 being flown over Soviet territory by American pilot Francis Gary Powers in 1960.
Powers spent almost two years in a Soviet jail, until he was exchanged in Berlin for Soviet spy Rudolf Abel. The swap itself became a famous moment in the Cold War, as Powers and Abel walked across a river bridge from opposite ends, to the western and eastern zones, respectively.
Powers recalled the incident to journalists after his release.
"I am sure that there was no direct [missile] hit. There was no impact of any kind," Powers says.
Yesterday's crash of a U-2 in the United Arab Emirates proves that -- almost 50 years later -- the high-flying plane with the eagle's eye is still used as a key tool in information gathering. That's despite the multitude of space satellites and electronic eavesdropping devices developed in the last half-century.
It was while landing at a base in the United Arab Emirates that the U-2 crashed yesterday.
As London-based military aviation expert Andrew Brooks notes, the U-2 has much greater flexibility in intelligence gathering. Satellites operate in fixed orbits and cannot linger to make extra observations. And, of course, the spy plane has been radically updated over the years in terms of the equipment it carries.
"This is [virtually] a different airplane. It is still called a U-2, but in many ways it is nothing like it. The systems are completely altered," Brooks says.
The Cold War is long over. And the U-2, once a CIA tool shrouded in secrecy, is now "out of the closet," Brooks says.
"[The U-2] is much more out in the open. It is basically a surveillance vehicle of the international community. It can just as easily be monitoring flood relief or whatever, [whereas] in the [Cold War] days, it was looking for Soviet missile silos ready to fire," Brooks says.
For this reason, he says, foreign countries today are more willing to have U-2s based on their territories than in previous times.
The skinny aircraft has long, thin wings than span 30 meters, which help it stay aloft at altitudes that can exceed 25 kilometers. Made for the rarefied air on the edge of space, the U-2 can prove awkward at lower altitudes, and notoriously difficult to land.
Indeed, it was while landing at a base in the United Arab Emirates that the U-2 crashed yesterday, killing its lone pilot. The U.S. Central Command says the plane was returning from a mission over Afghanistan. The exact cause of the crash has not been disclosed.
Air Force spokesman David Small says U-2 planes are flying daily over Afghanistan and Iraq, in support of American and allied ground forces.
Andrew Brooks of the International Institute of Strategic Studies says the U-2 is virtually immune from attack while performing this role.
"The Soviet Union could have hit it, or today's Russia or China, but we are talking now about looking at mujahedin, at terrorists, at Taliban, at insurgents. These sort of people could not produce the capability to knock it down," Brooks says.
Although the Air Force spokesman did not mention Iran, it's considered certain that the United States is employing the U-2's surveillance capabilities there, as well. Washington suspects Tehran of trying to develop nuclear weapons.
Iranian officials have said they will try to shoot down any unauthorized aircraft flying in Iranian airspace. But Brooks says Iran is a case where satellite observation would also be effective, because fixed ground installations such as nuclear plants can be observed regularly by satellites.
"Also, the Aurora or X-47 as I think it is called, is an unmanned jet that will fly even faster than the Blackbird."
According to Nick Cook from Jane's Defence and Northrop Grumman, 'Aurora' was just the name of the prototype plane which was later developed into the B-2, but internet folks speculated it was some super-secret super-fast spyplane.
As if they would ADMIT to even the EXISTANCE of a super secret spy plane?
I think your right...It cost like 2 million to fly it each time..Repairs...The aircraft (metals expand) when the high
speeds are reached..
Spy satellites do the same job.
Go USA...
I think Uncle Same has this new airplane for spying and
delivery ...Aurora..Mach 7 or something..
I was there, 85-87. I helped tow some of the jets into the museum just before it opened in 86
A few years later he got on at Eglin and worked there until he retired, maybe 30 years later.
We lived around 25 miles from Eglin but right near some of the bombing ranges. I always liked the base. Always lots of interesting stuff going on there.
Oh yeah, I see that. My mistake.
"As if they would ADMIT to even the EXISTANCE of a super secret spy plane?"
Yes, but this wasn't "they", it was an aerospace journal on our side of the secrets. Aurora has been a rumor since a line item in Reagan's 1986 budget mentioned it, the same time conceptual design contracts were given to Lockheed and Grumman for the B-2. In his autobiography, Ben Rich admitted Lockheed's version (passed over unfortunately) was tagged 'Aurora'.
bump
The biggest problem with SR-71 today is that it takes a continent to turn and one knows when they take off.
The U-2 does not have either problem. But I was unaware they never found a better way for it land... Seems like an engineering change order in the 1960's, 1970's or 1980's would have been able to do that. But maybe that would be a redesign...
"In High School our color was Everclear."
That was our color in college.
That and a sort of sickly greenish hue on mornings after.
I was at the museum two years ago at a reunion of the wing my father was in back in the late fifties/early sixties. We were there for the dedication of a refurbished RB47, which was their plane.
Very impressive, as was the Memorial Park.
Actually, the tricky part it that the wings are very flexible (and not too far off the ground). I remember hearing many years ago that they used to drive jeeps underneath the wings when a plane landed to prevent the wings from flexing and hitting the ground.
I got to test the wing flex personally at a renunion in Omaha several years ago. I'm only 5'2" and was about 100 pounds at the time, but I was able to lean my elbow on one wing, push down just a little bit and that wing went down and the other one went up.
I was there in 65-67 as a D-Brat. I remember we kind of considered it 'our' plane and loved seeing it flying around, though I was surprised that it was so public when the U2 had been such a hush-hush thing.
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