Lockheed U-2 U-2A

The first aircraft, known internally as Article 341 and never given a USAF serial, left the ground at Groom Lake on 1 August 1955 during what was meant to be no more than a high-speed taxi run: the sailplane-like wing lifted it away at 70 knots while test pilot Tony LeVier had no intention of flying. The unmarked lake bed and weak brakes left him bouncing the aircraft once before it rolled to a stop, with only minor damage. Landing remained the hard part, since ground effect held the aircraft off the runway for long distances, until LeVier found on his sixth attempt that touching down on the rear wheel first worked best. On 8 August the prototype reached 32,000 feet, meeting the performance and the deadline Kelly Johnson had promised; by 16 August it was flying at 52,000 feet, an altitude never before held in sustained flight, and by 8 September it reached 65,000.

CIA pilot training began in the spring of 1956 and the first U-2As became operational that summer. On 4 July 1956 one of them flew the first operational mission over the USSR, with Hervey Stockman at the controls. Cameras and electronic equipment filled the nose and a large fuselage bay, and the aircraft’s fuel capacity allowed missions of some six hours covering nearly 4,600 kilometres above 60,000 feet. Flown routinely from Pakistan and Turkey towards Norway, these sorties showed that the Soviet missile advantage was a myth and shifted the strategic balance of the period.

With the approval of NACA director Hugh Dryden, Richard Bissell’s team built a cover story presenting the aircraft as a high-altitude weather research platform; some U-2s did fly genuine weather missions and occasionally carried civilian markings. Few were convinced — Britain’s Daily Express reported in May 1957 that the U-2 was operating east of the Iron Curtain — and sticking to the story after the loss of May 1960 turned the episode into a diplomatic disaster. Flying above 60,000 feet also had an unexpected side effect: sunlight glinting off the silver wings, visible from airliners 40,000 feet below, drove a surge in UFO reports through the late 1950s and much of the 1960s.