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The last U-2 and TR-1 aircraft were delivered to USAF in October 1989. In 1992 all TR-1s were re-designated to U-2R for uniformity across the fleet. The two-seat trainer variant of the TR-1, the TR-1B, was redesignated as the TU-2R. After upgrading with the GE F-118-101 engine, the former U-2Rs were designated the U-2S Senior Year.
The U-2 left Soviet air space and landed at an Iranian airstrip at Zahedan. It was clear that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had successfully performed an extraordinarily dangerous but productive intelligence operation. The next flight of the U-2 spy plane from Peshawar airport was planned for late April. [4]
Francis Gary Powers (August 17, 1929 – August 1, 1977) was an American pilot who served as a United States Air Force officer and a CIA employee. Powers is best known for his involvement in the 1960 U-2 incident, when he was shot down while flying a secret CIA spying mission over the Soviet Union.
The aircraft has a standard empty weight of 240 lb (109 kg). It features a cantilever mid-wing , a single-seat enclosed cockpit, tricycle landing gear and a single engine in pusher configuration . The U-2 is a development of the high-wing B-10 .
The aircraft was designed by Nikolai Polikarpov to replace the U-1 trainer (a copy of the British Avro 504), which was known as Avrushka to the Soviets. [6]The prototype of the U-2, powered by a 74 kW (99 hp) Shvetsov M-11 air-cooled five-cylinder radial engine, first flew on 7 January 1928 piloted by M.M. Gromov. [6]
Merryl Tengesdal (born 1971) [1] is an American retired career military officer who is the first and only Black woman [2] [3] to fly the United States Air Force's U-2 spy plane used for specialized high-altitude reconnaissance missions. [2] She is one of five women and only the fourth Black person (in 2004) to be in the U-2 program. [4]
No surplus U-2 aircraft were available at the time, so an F-86 Sabre like the ones he flew in Korea was used instead: North American YF-86H-1-NA Sabre, AF Ser. No. 52-1976. [17] The memorial was redesigned, and it was rededicated on October 27, 2012, the 50th anniversary of Anderson's death. [18]
James May at the Edge of Space is a British documentary in which television presenter James May came close to fulfilling his lifelong dream to be an astronaut by flying to the stratosphere in a Lockheed U-2 spy plane.