Or perhaps a MIG-17 fighter would suddenly appear out of nowhere. Ground searchlights would light up the sky, flak would explode all around and bullets would slam into the fuselage. The low-altitude P2V flights were also frequently attacked, sometimes more than once during the course of a mission. Between September 1962 and September 1967, five U-2 aircraft, all flown by Chinese Nationalist pilots, were shot down over the mainland by Chinese air defense fighter interceptors and surface-to-air missiles One down U-2 Missions over China began in January 1962. Moreover, the communications security systems of the Chinese were so sophisticated and multi-layered that NSA was unable to break most of their codes and ciphers. Gaining intel from behind the “Bamboo Curtain,” as it was called then, was not an easy thing. The strength and capabilities of the Chinese air defense system had improved so much during the 1950s that it became extremely difficult for reconnaissance planes to overfly the mainland.

Photo: WikiCommonsįlying over China was no less dangerous. The remains of Gary Powers’ U-2 are now on display in the Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow. He had carried with him a modified silver dollar that contained a lethal, shellfish-derived saxitoxin-tipped needle, but did not use it.

Powers bailed out and parachuted to safety, where he was quickly captured. Powers’s plane was brought down by a surface-to-air missile (S-75 Divina) that exploded just behind the tail section, causing the U-2 to flip over and break its wings. The high altitude the U-2s flew at was supposed to have put them out of range of enemy fighter planes and missiles, but it did not always work out that way, as Gary Powers discovered. Through it all there was the ever-present danger of being shot down as the plane flew in and out of the target country. After a mission, the pilot was seriously dehydrated from breathing pure oxygen and sometimes suffered DCS – decompression sickness – if nitrogen bubbles formed in the blood. They had to sit there for as many as 12 hours, then, fatigued and with depth perception skewed from the high altitude, they had to worry about a safe landing, putting the plane into a virtual stall 10 feet from the ground to set up the pogo alignments. They had to wear pressurized suits and helmets, which rendered them unable even to scratch their noses and required them to suck food and water through tubes. U-2 planes were cold and cramped and flew so high pilots could see the curvature of the earth. It required pilots of exceptional intelligence, skill, perseverance and courage. Fly it too fast and it would break apart. If you flew it too slow, it would stall and fall out of the sky. It flew at a maximum speed of 500 miles per hour with a cruise speed of 430mph. The U-2 weighed 25,000 pounds when it was fully loaded with equipment. Photo: US Air Force / Tech Sergeant Andrew Lenhard Senior Airman Jordan Mihm installs a pogo wheel onto the wing of a U-2 ‘Dragon Lady’ that’s landed ‘at a forward-deployed location.’ The wheels support the plane’s long wings as it taxis. When it landed, workers on the tarmac kept pace with the incoming plane while it touched down as it was coming to a halt crew members raced to grab the wings, wrestle them up or down as needed and re-affix the pogos to prevent the U-2 from toppling over.

Those were jettisoned the moment the plane was airborne. Special detachable “pogo” wheels, like training wheels on a bike, were fixed to either wingtip to balance the plane on takeoff. That limitation was necessary to give the plane more lift. It had a wingspan of 103 feet and only two permanent landing gear units set up in bicycle configuration – one front and one back. Nicknamed “Dragon Lady,” it flew at an altitude of 70,000 feet, conducting round-the-clock, all-weather missions. It was a specially designed single-engine, single-seat Lockheed aircraft. The U-2 had a good claim to the title of flimsiest plane ever built.

U2 aircraft