The Dragon Lady

June 22, 2005 6:55 AM

Built at Lockheed's secret Skunk Works facility for use by the Central Intelligence Agency, and in service since 1950s, the U2 spy plane has seen service all over the world (or, at the very least, 70,000 feet above it). It has shown us what both our friends and enemies were doing, helping us avert wars, and in at least one occasion, almost causing one itself. Today, just over 45 years since Francis Gary Powers fell from the sky into the Soviet Union, the United States Air Force has announced from Baghdad that yet another Dragon Lady has fallen from the sky in an undisclosed location in Southwestern Asia.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow (37 comments total)

South West Asia meaning "Middle East", as usual, I assume.
posted by NinjaPirate at 6:56 AM on June 22, 2005

$20 says it's Iran.
posted by blacklite at 7:18 AM on June 22, 2005

This is how you make a NewsFilter post good.

I got $25.
posted by crawl at 7:22 AM on June 22, 2005

What crawl said.

Except for the $25 thing.
posted by dersins at 7:29 AM on June 22, 2005

conservative bets :]
They're not spying on the UAE, are they?

See next FPP and the single link editorial claiming
"The reality is that the US war with Iran has already begun. As we speak, American over flights of Iranian soil are taking place, using pilotless drones and other, more sophisticated, capabilities.

"The violation of a sovereign nation's airspace is an act of war in and of itself. But the war with Iran has gone far beyond the intelligence-gathering phase.

"President Bush has taken advantage of the sweeping powers granted to him in the aftermath of 11 September 2001, to wage a global war against terror and to initiate several covert offensive operations inside Iran."


I'll throw $32.50
*confident of not losing beer money*
*even if food money suffers*
posted by NinjaPirate at 7:30 AM on June 22, 2005

I agree with crawl; good post. I find it interesting thatthe "secret" Skunk works hasbeen made a registered trademark by Lockheed.

And based on the article, my money is on Afghanistan or Pakistan. The latter would need to be kept quiet as it would be poor form to look like we were spying on an ally.
posted by TedW at 7:31 AM on June 22, 2005

I ought to point out I run on UK sterling, so that's about £3.80
posted by NinjaPirate at 7:31 AM on June 22, 2005

It was flying out of al-Dhafra air base near Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates on a mission over Afghanistan (if the reports are accurate) so Iran would be a pretty easy bet unless they were taking the time to respect Iran's airspace and flying over Pakistan.

Given the current desire to keep tabs on Iran's nukes I doubt they could resist snapping a few papparazzi shots of the ayatollahs.

"host nation sensitivities" wtf? Would that be the hosts of the U2 wing or the host of the crash?
posted by srboisvert at 7:33 AM on June 22, 2005

You all owe TedW $77.50, if my quick math is correct. USAF is admitting the plane crashed in Afghanistan, and the pilot was killed (.).
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 8:02 AM on June 22, 2005

The Early Overflights
At the dawn of the Cold War, air surveillance flights over "denied areas" could - and did - get pretty sporty
Journal of the Air Force Association
June 2001

Between 1946 and 1991 170 Air Force and Navy aviators and aircrew members were "lost" over the USSR, China and North Korea.
SOURCE: Hall, R. Cargill "The Truth About Overflights" MHQ: the quarterly journal of military history, Spring 1997.
Unfortunately not available online. An excellent resource about the history of overflights.
posted by mlis at 8:05 AM on June 22, 2005

Nice find, MLIS. I always enjoy pointing out that, as this shows, the "Cold War" was in fact quite hot at times.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 8:10 AM on June 22, 2005

The BBC quotes Capt David W Small as saying
"The site of the crash has been secured to ensure the safety of local citizens and the integrity of the site for the investigation team, the statement said."

So maybe TedW's on a better tip than me - Iran is a not a place the USAF could easily "secure"
posted by NinjaPirate at 8:11 AM on June 22, 2005

Funny, I came in here to say that this is how a newsfilter post should be done and found that 3 folks had already beat me to it.

Nicely done, NMRN. Thanks.
posted by googly at 8:21 AM on June 22, 2005

I'm not ready to drop my $25 in the mail just yet... The article states that the pilot was on the way back from a completed mission when the crash occured. The mission could have been over Iran, while the crash was over Afghanistan (or somewhere else more easily secured).
posted by crawl at 8:25 AM on June 22, 2005

The different services have varying approaches to securing things.

If the Marines are ordered to secure a building, they blow in the doors, go room to room and kill everybody inside.

If the Army is ordered to secure a building, they build a wall of sandbags around it and hunker down to wait.

If the Air Force is ordered to secure a building, they call up their real estate broker and get a 99-year lease on it.
posted by warbaby at 8:33 AM on June 22, 2005

As someone who used to be a huge aviation buff (my dream was to work at the skunk works as a designer), WTF are we still flying U2s for? I thought we were using drones for air based intelligence now. And if not drones, why not blackbirds which (if I remember correctly) were built because of the incident(though they've supposedly all been mothballed)?

WTF US MILITARY?
posted by drezdn at 9:06 AM on June 22, 2005

The NYTimes is now reporting that the mission was over Afghanistan and the crash location is still undisclosed. Probalby subject to change, but that's what the gray lady has.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 9:08 AM on June 22, 2005

We need more of these bad boys...
posted by SweetJesus at 9:11 AM on June 22, 2005

And if not drones, why not blackbirds which (if I remember correctly) were built because of the incident(though they've supposedly all been mothballed)?

Blackbirds are astoundingly expensive to fly and maintain. They need special fuel (and LOTS of it), special fuel handling systems, huge amounts of maintenaince on the (cancer-causing) thermal insulation, and it is incapable of loitering over targets. In contrast, the U2 flies on much more normal fuel, has similar maintenance requirements as the rest of the fleet, and can loiter over a target for an extended period of time.

In short, the Blackbird was useful for the demands of the Cold War -- we needed to get deep into USSR at all costs, take pictures, and get the hell out by outrunning/outflying any resistance. The U2, in comparison, is a better plane for routine missions since it's far less exotic, goes a lot slower, and can loiter longer and take more detailed reconassiance. It doesn't work as well to get deep into a hostile country that spans 11 time zones, but we don't need that any more.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 9:15 AM on June 22, 2005

Maybe this is why the UAE hates Flickr...
posted by guruguy9 at 9:28 AM on June 22, 2005

Thanks TDDL, you'd think that in the past 40 years, someone would have been able to design a spy plane with a human pilot that could work better than either the blackbird or U2.

I'm still curious why they weren't using a drone though. The discovery channel specials have made it sound like drones/satellites have made manned flights pointless (the drones can sit over a target for a very very long time).
posted by drezdn at 9:38 AM on June 22, 2005

I'm still curious why they weren't using a drone though. The discovery channel specials have made it sound like drones/satellites have made manned flights pointless (the drones can sit over a target for a very very long time).

This is why you should not get your information (or at least not all of your information) on any subject, be it history, physics, military technology or whatever, from discovery channel specials. Of course, the problem with knowing anything about military technology is that the whole area of information is filled with hyperbole, propaganda, half-truths, out-right secrets and half-assed rationalizations.
posted by lazy-ville at 9:50 AM on June 22, 2005

I'm still curious why they weren't using a drone though. The discovery channel specials have made it sound like drones/satellites have made manned flights pointless (the drones can sit over a target for a very very long time).

Well, the drones can't fly as high, and satalites can only take pictures at certan times. If you wanted to monitor the *activity* at a location, a satalite wouldn't really work, IMO.
posted by delmoi at 9:56 AM on June 22, 2005

This is why you should not get your information (or at least not all of your information) on any subject, be it history, physics, military technology or whatever, from discovery channel specials.

I was half talking out of my ass there. As I mentioned above in the thread, I used to care alot about airplanes (read books, magazine articles, etc.). For drones, the program has been around at least five years (see the bad boys link) and a recent Wired magazine article hinted that they are seeing regular use. Maybe we just don't have enough of them?

Well, the drones can't fly as high, and satalites can only take pictures at certan times. If you wanted to monitor the *activity* at a location, a satalite wouldn't really work, IMO.

I was aware of the limitations of satellites, but (aside from getting shot at) the inability of Drones to fly high doesn't seem that bad as it should make it easier to take a good photo (unless you're taking a picture of something very large).
posted by drezdn at 10:00 AM on June 22, 2005

Note on the Blackbird SR-71. They used to refuel outside of Spokane near where I went to college. I remember going for early morning mountain bike rides around dawn and having one of those crazy frigg'n things silently swoop down like a pitch-black pterodactyl and exploded its after-burners right over the tree tops. Out of nowhere. BOOM! Knocked me right off the saddle. At first I thought it was a UFO.

Side note: Please. Can we stop quoting that hysterical bitch Scott Ritter. Yeah he was right about WMD but I don't know if the CIA spiked his Mountain Dew with Acid or not but he is just plain embarrassing himself these days.
posted by tkchrist at 10:04 AM on June 22, 2005

Drones don't fly high enough so they're basically used for smaller theatre surveillance, also I'm guessing it's easier to fit a lot more equipment on a U-2 than it would be to fit stuff on a drone, especially if they're attempting to gather more intellegence than pictures. Actually, that's probably it, they needed to gather more than just images and radio.
Satyagraha
posted by thebestsophist at 10:10 AM on June 22, 2005

U2 still sucks. Cool plane, though.
posted by psmealey at 10:20 AM on June 22, 2005

Thebestsophist, that makes sense.
posted by drezdn at 10:34 AM on June 22, 2005

We're still flying U2s for the same reason we're still using swiss army knives and epson impact printers. They are the top of their game and do the job. Why spend a lot of money developing a better #2 pencil when the current version does the job.

I can think of a couple drawbacks to drones vs manned flight. You either have to send drones out on a preplanned flight or you have to be in radio contact with the drone. The first lacks flexability and the second alerts the spyee that you are there (even an encrypted radio signal give away your position).

Plus shooting down a drone is mostly no big deal; shooting down a piloted air craft turns a theoretical act of war into an actual act of war.
posted by Mitheral at 10:34 AM on June 22, 2005

Drones don't fly high enough so they're basically used for smaller theatre surveillance

The Global Hawk flies at about 60,000 feet, which is high enough for covert surveillance. It can loiter at that height for about 24 hours, taking pictures with its long-distance camera, and relaying live video back to air-conditioned rooms is Qatar.

The only problem, is we don't have enough of them. I believe there are only two prototypes, in total.
posted by SweetJesus at 10:55 AM on June 22, 2005

going for early morning mountain bike rides around dawn and having one of those crazy frigg'n things silently swoop down like a pitch-black pterodactyl and exploded its after-burners right over the tree tops. Out of nowhere. BOOM!

For all the hassle that the Blackbirds are to fly, I so wish I could see one like that. IMO they're by far the most beautifully amazing planes made yet.
posted by azazello at 12:19 PM on June 22, 2005

Blackbirds are retired, except maybe for a couple doing research with NASA (if that program is still active). The story is that they were too expensive for what they provided; me, I suspect that Aurora or some other plane better than a Blackbird came on-line, so they didn't need them any more.

IIRC, they flew the few Global Hawks we have for a bit until one fell out of the sky for no obvious reason. Then it was back to the ol' drawin' board, Wile E.

You want height to get out of range of most SAMs. Even these drones ain't cheap -- just cheaper than pilots.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:47 PM on June 22, 2005

I would have loved to see a blackbird fly. *sigh*

I've wondered whether something like the Aurora is being used, but you thing someone would have let something slip about them. Then again, didn't the US deny that U2's either existed or were spyplanes until the Powers incident?

Did the Soviets have any spyplanes?
posted by drezdn at 1:01 PM on June 22, 2005

Check out Defense Tech for all of your UAV information needs (select the "Drones" link on the left side of the homepage).
posted by mlis at 2:01 PM on June 22, 2005

Interesting to note that Gary Powers actually took off from Pakistan when he got shot down.
posted by bardic at 6:30 PM on June 22, 2005

There are published reports that the plane crashed in the United Arab Emirates.
posted by ambient2 at 11:55 PM on June 23, 2005

One of the other black marks against the SR71 is the number of them that were destroyed in accidents either in testing or in service, frequently killing the pilot.

If I'm not mistaken, 50 were built and something like 20 were lost to accidents - yep, here's the source for that.

My pop, a military aerospace engineer all of his working life, used to claim around 1995 that he could occasionally hear an unusual sort of engine that he attributed to Aurora, taking off from Miramar near where he retired.
posted by ikkyu2 at 1:13 AM on June 27, 2005