After five decades, the U-2 is still flying high

WASHINGTON  The Air Force is breathing new life into an old Cold Warrior — the iconic U-2 spy plane — to meet the need for battlefield surveillance in Afghanistan.

The Air Force had intended this year to ground the U-2, famed for flying over the Soviet Union to hunt for ballistic missiles in the 1950s and '60s.

But there have been delays in the development of the drone aircraft that is to succeed the U-2 and the demand for images on what's happening on the battlefield is a top concern, the military says.

"In Afghanistan, I can pretty much guarantee that we're using just about every spare electron we've got," says Lt. Col. Kevin Quamme, who manages the program for the Air Force. "Trying to find the IEDs (improvised explosive devices) is an ongoing, high-priority issue. ... How do you quantify the cost of one soldier's life?"

The Obama administration has nearly doubled its request to fund the 32-airplane fleet to $91 million to keep the U-2 aloft. The 80 Air Force pilots qualified to fly the tricky-to-handle plane can expect to continue their spy missions until 2015.

Until then, the plane's sensors will continue to vacuum up everything from cellphone conversations to images of holes dug for IEDs.

"We're still hiring," Quamme says. "We're still a viable platform."

And an old one. The first U-2 flew in 1955. Its missions were classified — providing President Eisenhower with intelligence on the Soviet military. That secrecy came tumbling to earth in 1960 when Francis Gary Powers, a CIA pilot, was shot down over the Soviet Union. The incident damaged U.S.-Soviet relations and led to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviets tried to place nuclear missiles off America's shore.

Even in an age of advanced spy satellites, U-2 still fills a crucial niche, said Maj. Gen. James Poss, Air Force assistant deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

"Satellites and high-fliers like the U-2 or Global Hawk are completely complementary systems," Poss said. "Satellites do a fantastic job of quickly monitoring the entire globe but can't always focus on a particular area for a long time. High fliers do a great job of monitoring smaller areas for a long time."

The U-2's planned replacement is a pilotless drone called Global Hawk, which can fly as high as 11 miles and is equipped with sensors and cameras that can take infrared and other images over a range of 40,000 square miles a day, according to its maker, Northrop Grumman.

Some have been produced and are being used, but not enough to replace the U-2. "The downside of this is cost," says Philip Finnegan, a defense analyst with the Teal Group.

The current fleet of U-2s includes four models that date to 1968, Quamme says. The newest was built in 1989, but all have been updated with the $1.7 billion spent since 1994 to retrofit them.

Pilots must don pressurized suits for missions that reach 70,000 feet. Today's missions can last nine hours or longer. Potential pilots must demonstrate that they can tolerate being in cramped quarters, alone, for long periods.

They also have to be strong since the plane lacks computer-driven controls.

"The U-2 is all cables and pulleys," Quamme says. "There are no hydraulic assist controls. At relatively higher speeds, it's basically like trying to drive an 18-wheeler without power steering."

To stay alert, there is food. Of a sort.

"We've got spaghetti, meatloaf. In a tube," Quamme says. "The taste isn't so bad. It's just meant to keep your blood sugar steady."

Global Hawk was created more than 10 years ago to stay aloft for more than a day to search for enemy tanks, missiles and warships, says Peter Singer, director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution.

Singer said the drone has been flying spy missions but it has been delayed by the cumbersome process that the Pentagon uses to buy weapons, and it also has had cost overruns. The first model cost $37 million, and the subsequent costs as much as $81 million, the Pentagon says.

"Global Hawk was not originally designed for the information collection that we're prioritizing in Afghanistan," Singer says.

Ultimately, the drone will surpass the U-2's range, duration and capability, Singer says.

"This is a generational leap in technology," Quamme says. "You're talking about putting a robot air vehicle up at 55,000 feet for 28 hours at a time. We've not done anything like that before. So there's things were going to find that is, wow, didn't anticipate that.

And at least for a few more years, the U-2, a relic of the Cold War, will remain in the sky.