U.S. may rely on aging U-2 spy planes longer than expected

The Pentagon has proposed delaying a plan to replace the U-2s with RQ-4 Global Hawk drones because of Defense Department cutbacks.

The fleet of 33 spycraft was supposed to be replaced in the next few years with RQ-4 Global Hawks, the high-tech drones that have been part of the Air Force since 2001. But this week the Pentagon proposed delaying the U-2's retirement as part of Defense Department cutbacks.

And although the plane is perhaps best known for being shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960 and the subsequent capture of pilot Francis Gary Powers, the U-2 continues to play a critical role in national security today, hunting Al Qaeda forces in the Middle East. The aging cold warrior once slated for retirement in 2015 may fight on into the next decade.

The high-flying U-2 spy plane was first designed during the Eisenhower administration to breach the iron curtain and, as engineers said, snap "picture postcards for Ike" of hidden military strongholds in the Soviet Union.

Wars have come and gone. But for more than half a century, the CIA and U.S. military have relied on a skinny sinister-looking black jet to go deep behind enemy lines for vital intelligence-gathering missions.

The U-2 spy plane was once slated for retirement in 2015 but may fight on into… (U.S. Air Force/Getty Images )

At an estimated cost of $176 million each, the Global Hawk drone had "priced itself out of the niche, in terms of taking pictures in the air," said Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter at a Thursday news conference. "That's a disappointment for us, but that's the fate of things that become too expensive in a resource-constrained environment."

The Pentagon has determined that operating the U-2 would be cheaper for the foreseeable future; it won't disclose how much operating the U-2s will cost for security reasons. The government has relied on the U-2 since 1955, when the aircraft was first built and designed under tight security by Lockheed Corp. at its famed Skunk Works facilities in Burbank headed by legendary chief engineer Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson.

"It's incredible to think that these planes are flying," said Francis Gary Powers Jr., Powers' son and founder of the Cold War Museum in Warrenton, Va. "You'd think another spy plane, or satellite or drone would come along by now to replace it."

Lockheed, now Lockheed Martin Corp. of Bethesda, Md., boasts on its website that the U-2, which naysayers said "could not be built and would last a few years," continues to play a critical role in national security.

Flying a nearly six-decade-old plane may sound risky, but the military's U-2s are regularly "rebuilt, redone and retrofitted," said Dianne Knippel, a Lockheed spokeswoman. Each of the nation's 33 U-2s get refurbished at Lockheed's new Skunk Works facility in Palmdale.

Since 1994, the Air Force said, at least $1.7 billion has been invested to modernize the U-2 airframe. These upgrades also include new engines, new cockpits and, of course, new cameras and sensors.

Today, the U-2 is flying more missions and is involved in more operations than ever, said Staff Sgt. Heidi Davis, an Air Force spokeswoman. Since 2003, the Air Force has flown more than 95,000 hours in the U-2 providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

"The U-2 supports the boots on the ground using its various sensors and cameras to relay information to the requesting war fighting units," she said. "Specific missions conducted by the U-2 will not be discussed due to operational security."

Few U-2 missions are ever discussed. The former chief of Lockheed's Skunk Works facility, Ben Rich, gave a few details in his book "Skunk Works." In it, he wrote about the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, when Russians were found delivering ballistic missiles to Cuba.

The CIA was flying a U-2 above Cuba when it discovered a missile site. President Kennedy wanted to know, "How do we know these sites are being manned?" Rich wrote. The CIA showed the president a picture taken from a U-2 at 72,000 feet. It showed a worker using an outdoor latrine.