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The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "Dragon Lady", is an American single-engine, high altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated from the 1950s by the United States Air Force (USAF) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It provides day and night, high-altitude (70,000 feet, 21,300 meters), all-weather intelligence gathering. [1]
The U-2, although slower than the SR-71, cost much less to operate and provided more "on-station" time. As intelligence collection increased throughout the 1980s, 99th U-2 pilots manned detachments at sites around the world. With the SR-71's retirement in 1990, the U-2 assumed responsibility for all of America's manned high-altitude reconnaissance.
Merryl Tengesdal (born 1971) [1] is an American retired career military officer who is the first and only Black woman [2] [3] to fly the United States Air Force's U-2 spy plane used for specialized high-altitude reconnaissance missions. [2] She is one of five women and only the fourth Black person (in 2004) to be in the U-2 program. [4]
The Bien Hoa operation was designated as Operating Location-20 (OL-20), under the code names "Lucky Dragon" for the 4028th SRS's U-2E Dragon Lady, and "Blue Springs" for the DC-130/Ryan AQM-34 Firbee drone detachment operation.
On 1 July 1976, the U-2 joined the SR-71 in the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing giving the unit two of the most unusual aircraft in the world. The "Dragon Lady" had gained national and international recognition with flights over the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and Southeast Asia. The U-2 was the perfect complement to the SR-71.
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The Black Cat Squadron (Chinese: 黑貓中隊; pinyin: Hēimāo Zhōngduì), formally the 35th Squadron, was a squadron of the Republic of China Air Force that flew the U-2 surveillance plane out of Taoyuan Air Base in northern Taiwan, from 1961 to 1974. 26 ROCAF pilots successfully completed U-2 training in the US and flew 220 operational missions, [1] with about half over the People's ...
Its mission is to organize, train and equip the Air Force's fleet of U-2R Dragon Lady, RQ-4 Global Hawk aircraft for peacetime intelligence gathering, contingency operations, conventional war fighting and Emergency War Order support. It is also assigned T-38 Talons for U-2 pilots to maintain flight hours.