[Infowarrior] - U-2 Spy Plane Evades the Day of Retirement

[Richard Forno]

March 21, 2010
U-2 Spy Plane Evades the Day of Retirement
By CHRISTOPHER DREW
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/business/22plane.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
The U-2 spy plane, the high-flying aircraft that was often at the  
heart of cold war suspense, is enjoying an encore.

Four years ago, the Pentagon was ready to start retiring the plane,  
which took its first test flight in 1955. But Congress blocked that,  
saying the plane was still useful.

And so it is. Because of updates in the use of its powerful sensors,  
it has become the most sought-after spy craft in a very different war  
in Afghanistan.

As it shifts from hunting for nuclear missiles to detecting roadside  
bombs, it is outshining even the unmanned drones in gathering a rich  
array of intelligence used to fight the Taliban.

All this is a remarkable change from the U-2’s early days as a player  
in United States-Soviet espionage. Built to find Soviet missiles, it  
became famous when Francis Gary Powers was shot down in one while  
streaking across the Soviet Union in 1960, and again when another U-2  
took the photographs that set off the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.  
Newer versions of the plane have gathered intelligence in every war  
since then and still monitor countries like North Korea.

Now the U-2 and its pilots, once isolated in their spacesuits at  
70,000 feet, are in direct radio contact with the troops in  
Afghanistan. And instead of following a rote path, they are now  
shifted frequently in midflight to scout roads for convoys and aid  
soldiers in firefights.

In some ways, the U-2, which flew its first mission in 1956, is like  
an updated version of an Etch A Sketch in an era of high-tech computer  
games.

“It’s like after all the years it’s flown, the U-2 is in its prime  
again,” said Lt. Col. Jason M. Brown, who commands an intelligence  
squadron that plans the missions and analyzes much of the data. “It  
can do things that nothing else can do.”

One of those things, improbably enough, is that even from 13 miles up  
its sensors can detect small disturbances in the dirt, providing a new  
way to find makeshift mines that kill many soldiers.

In the weeks leading up to the recent offensive in Marja, military  
officials said, several of the 32 remaining U-2s found nearly 150  
possible mines in roads and helicopter landing areas, enabling the  
Marines to blow them up before approaching the town.

Marine officers say they relied on photographs from the U-2’s old film  
cameras, which take panoramic images at such a high resolution they  
can see insurgent footpaths, while the U-2’s newer digital cameras  
beamed back frequent updates on 25 spots where the Marines thought  
they could be vulnerable.

In addition, the U-2’s altitude, once a defense against antiaircraft  
missiles, enables it to scoop up signals from insurgent phone  
conversations that mountains would otherwise block.

As a result, Colonel Brown said, the U-2 is often able to collect  
information that suggests where to send the Predator and Reaper  
drones, which take video and also fire missiles. He said the most  
reliable intelligence comes when the U-2s and the drones are all  
concentrated over the same area, as is increasingly the case.

The U-2, a black jet with long, narrow wings to help it slip through  
the thin air, cuts an impressive figure as it rises rapidly into the  
sky. It flies at twice the height of a commercial jet, affording  
pilots views of such things as the earth’s curvature.

But the plane, nicknamed the Dragon Lady, is difficult to fly, and  
missions are grueling and dangerous. The U-2s used in Afghanistan and  
Iraq commute each day from a base near the Persian Gulf, and the trip  
can last nine to 12 hours. Pilots eat meals squeezed through tubes and  
wear spacesuits because their blood would literally boil if they had  
to eject unprotected at such a high altitude.

As the number of flights increases, some of the plane’s 60 pilots have  
suffered from the same disorienting illness, known as the bends, that  
afflicts deep-sea divers who ascend too quickly.

Relaxing recently in their clubhouse at Beale Air Force Base near  
Sacramento, Calif., the U-2’s home base, several pilots said the most  
common problems are sharp joint pain or a temporary fogginess.

But in 2006, a U-2 pilot almost crashed after drifting in and out of  
consciousness during a flight over Afghanistan. The pilot, Kevin  
Henry, now a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, said in an  
interview that he felt as if he were drunk, and he suffered some brain  
damage. At one point, he said, he came within five feet of smashing  
into the ground before miraculously finding a runway.

As a safety measure, U-2 pilots start breathing pure oxygen an hour  
before takeoff to reduce the nitrogen in their bodies and cut the risk  
of decompression sickness. Mr. Henry, who now instructs pilots on  
safety, thinks problems with his helmet seal kept him from breathing  
enough pure oxygen before his flight.

Lt. Col. Kelly N. West, the chief of aerospace medicine at Beale, said  
one other pilot had also been disqualified from flying the U-2. Since  
2002, six pilots have transferred out on their own after suffering  
decompression illnesses.

Still, most of the pilots remain undeterred, and the Air Force is  
taking more precautions. Holding an oxygen mask to his nose, one  
pilot, Maj. Eric M. Shontz, hopped on an elliptical machine for 10  
minutes before a practice flight at Beale to help dispel the nitrogen  
faster. Several assistants then made sure he stayed connected to an  
oxygen machine as they sealed his spacesuit and drove him to the plane.

Major Shontz and other U-2 pilots say the planes gradually became more  
integrated in the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. But since the  
flights over Afghanistan began to surge in early 2009, the U-2s have  
become a much more fluid part of the daily battle plan.

Major Shontz said he was on the radio late last year with an officer  
as a rocket-propelled grenade exploded. “You could hear his voice  
talking faster and faster, and he’s telling me that he needs air  
support,” Major Shontz recalled. He said that a minute after he  
relayed the message, an A-10 gunship was sent to help.

Brig. Gen. H.D. Polumbo Jr., a top policy official with the Air Force,  
said recent decisions to give intelligence analysts more flexibility  
in figuring out how to use the U-2 each day had added to its revival.

Over beers at the clubhouse, decorated with scrolls honoring the  
heroes of their small fraternity, other U-2 pilots say they know their  
aircraft’s reprieve will last only so long.

And the U-2’s replacement sits right across the base — the Global  
Hawk, a remote-controlled drone that flies almost as high as the U-2  
and typically stays aloft for 24 hours or more. The first few Global  
Hawks have been taking intelligence photos in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But a larger model that could also intercept communications has been  
delayed, and the Air Force is studying how to add sensors that can  
detect roadside bombs to other planes. So officials say it will most  
likely be 2013 at the earliest before the U-2 is phased into retirement.

“We’ve needed to be nimble to stay relevant,” said Doug P. McMahon, a  
major who has flown the U-2 for three years. “But eventually it’s  
bound to end.”