The old U-2 Spy plane just Keeps on…. Keeping on…….

[ The U-2 spy plane, the high-flying aircraft that was often at the heart of cold war suspense, is enjoying an encore. Lt. Col. Rob Wehner brought one in for a landing at Beale Air Force Base in California. ]

It’s old and slow….having outlasted it’s faster bother the SR-71 which the Air Force has retired……its long wings…..black shape and unsteady take-off and landings are still happening……

It flys so high its pilots have to wear NASA like space suits……The aircraft were looked on as relics by the Air Force…whcih likes to have new toys to strap its pilots into….but somehow…with Congress’s push and shove….the U-2’s are  still up there..taking pictures, Signit (Signals Intell -radio traffic), and Humit (Pictures of Humans ) intel for the troops in spite of the ever more reliance on its unmanned cousin the Global Hawk which can leave from an airfield in the US fly to a country…loiter around for 10 hours vacuuming up Signit , pictures and radar pictures …bouncing that info down to ground commanders and up to satellites and back to the US…..

The Global Hawks and Predators are the  heavy lifters these days….but the good ole’ U-2 …..with a person on board still is needed……..

And flying these birds can be dangerous…….

The U-2 spy plane, the high-flying aircraft that was often at the heart of cold war suspense, is enjoying an encore.

Four years ago, the Pentagon was ready to start retiring the plane, which took its first test flight in 1955. But Congress blocked that, saying the plane was still useful.

And so it is. Because of updates in the use of its powerful sensors, it has become the most sought-after spy craft in a very different war in Afghanistan.

As it shifts from hunting for nuclear missiles to detecting roadside bombs, it is outshining even the unmanned drones in gathering a rich array of intelligence used to fight the Taliban.

All this is a remarkable change from the U-2’s early days as a player in United States-Soviet espionage. Built to find Soviet missiles, it became famous when Francis Gary Powers was shot down in one while streaking across the Soviet Union in 1960, and again when another U-2 took the photographs that set off the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Newer versions of the plane have gathered intelligence in every war since then and still monitor countries like North Korea.

Now the U-2 and its pilots, once isolated in their spacesuits at 70,000 feet, are in direct radio contact with the troops in Afghanistan. And instead of following a rote path, they are now shifted frequently in midflight to scout roads for convoys and aid soldiers in firefights.

In some ways, the U-2, which flew its first mission in 1956, is like an updated version of an Etch A Sketch in an era of high-tech computer games.

“It’s like after all the years it’s flown, the U-2 is in its prime again,” said Lt. Col. Jason M. Brown, who commands an intelligence squadron that plans the missions and analyzes much of the data. “It can do things that nothing else can do.”

One of those things, improbably enough, is that even from 13 miles up its sensors can detect small disturbances in the dirt, providing a new way to find makeshift mines that kill many soldiers.

In the weeks leading up to the recent offensive in Marja, military officials said, several of the 32 remaining U-2s found nearly 150 possible mines in roads and helicopter landing areas, enabling the Marines to blow them up before approaching the town.

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