Behind Closed Doors: U2 - Part 1

Video from the channel JoanLunden about Lockheed U-2, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 15:00. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

First part of a television report from the Behind Closed Doors series about the Lockheed U-2. Journalist Joan Lunden spends two days at Beale Air Force Base, north of Sacramento, preparing to fly in the aircraft. This episode covers the program's introduction and the pre-flight training, ending the night before the flight.

The report recalls that the U-2 made headlines in 1960, when the Soviet Union shot down pilot Francis Gary Powers. In 1962 its photographs showed Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba, leading to the naval blockade and the missile crisis. It went on flying in Vietnam, the Gulf War, Bosnia and Iraq. Its crews reject the "spy plane" label and speak of reconnaissance over international airspace.

The Air Force fleet totals 35 aircraft, with a 104-foot wingspan. They fly at around 60,000–70,000 feet, nearly twice as high as a commercial airliner, on missions lasting nine to ten hours. They combine a film camera in the belly with electronic sensors in the pods and nose, whose data reaches ground stations within seconds. In 50 years, fewer than 650 pilots have passed selection. Landing requires another pilot to guide them from a car that chases down the runway behind them. Lunden learns evacuation procedures, tries on the pressure suit and spends an hour in the altitude chamber. There she climbs to 74,000 feet and undergoes a simulated rapid decompression. The night before, she meets her pilot, Colonel Mario Buda.