Lockheed U-2 | Why Is It Still Flying & Still Spying 65 Years On?

It flies because it still hasn't found what it's looking for.

Sr-71: flies over USSR The titanium in it fuselage: I'm on my way! I'm on my way! Home sweet home!

I like how the cars that chase after it during landing have changed over the last 65 years but the U-2 stays the same. I'm sure there's a Matthew Mcconaughey joke in there.

As an aussie Air Force brat, I used to watch the USAF U2's taking off in the late 1950's when a squadron was stationed down in Australia doing 'weather' recon missions from the base I lived on. Amazing plane.

Very interesting. I had no idea there was a later, larger version of the U2.

As per the old adage: "If it ain't broke, just keep fixing it until it is."

this plane is so good that it downloaded an album for me without me asking

There is a 170ish DC3s still flying commercially today. 80 years old and without an airforce to maintain them. That's even more impressive.

The A-12 was actually under development well before Powers was shot down. Kelly Johnson anticipated the U-2's vulnerability in the late 1950s and began a successor capable of Mach 3. Luckily by 1960 the development was well underway and the A-12 first flew only 2 years after the U-2 incident (which is unheard of in aircraft development timelines).

Thank you for listening Droid! A U-2 episode was way overdue!

It's insane that it has survived, especially as it was designed as a short term solution as they knew it would get shot down eventually, so they made its successor that came and went along with the satellites that still cannot do what the U2 does. It's more or less a starfighter with big wings, Kelly knew how to make aircraft.

My great grandfather worked for the NSA and one of his jobs was to view these photos from the U2 and Sr-71 blackbird

"Why is the U2 still flying?" It's doing even more than the job that it was designed to do because of the genius of Kelly Johnson and his team.

Kelly Johnson was just one of those people who had a gift for design. He was the engineer who gave the US (and the world) its first 400MPH (level flight) fighter, the Lockheed P-38 Lightening. Incredibly, Johnson was equally adept at designing supersonic aircraft, including the U2, the F104 Starfighter (still an INSANE looking aircraft, every time I look at it!) and the legendary SR71 Blackbird. He designed the U2 so well for what it was meant to do, that the best we can come up with today, 60 years later, is an enlarged, electronically updated version of the same air frame.

The plane is so cool that it have Muscle Cars as landing gears

Back in the age of sail, technology was advancing at a rate that a large warship could be a viable fighting unit for nearly 100 years providing it's maintained probably. It's quite crazy to think we've gotten to a point again where certain weapon systems can still be viable 100 years after first being created

The c-130 is another one that’s gonna keep going way into the future.

I live 4 miles from the runway at Beale AFB, home of the U2. They fly so low over my house they shake my windows.

U2: “you still haven’t found what you’re looking for!”

Thanks for the U2 coverage. The Dragon Lady is a yoke and rudder, tail dragger that would never be approved today. The pilots get a real workout landing it. There are all volunteers from heavies to fighters with the required command experience. Half wash out of the demanding training program. Sometimes because they just can't land it.