U-2 Spy Plane Successor In The Works, Report Says

Lockheed Martin is developing a successor to the U.S. military’s legendary U-2 surveillance plane, according to a media report.

Flightglobal reports that Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs, better known as Skunk Works, is planning a new version of the U-2.

“Think of a low-observable U-2,” Lockheed’s U-2 strategic development manager Scott Winstead told Flightglobal. “It’s pretty much where the U-2 is today, but add a low-observable body and more endurance.”

Nicknamed the Dragon Lady, the U-2 is one of the longest serving aircraft in the U.S. Air Force. Like the B-52 bomber, the U-2 first took the skies for the U.S. military in the 1950s. Ever since then, the plane has played a crucial role.

A high-altitude manned surveillance plane, it can fly twice the altitude of a commercial plane flying for 12 hours above 70,000 feet. The U-2 can also reach speeds of more than 475 mph.

Flying 13 miles above the earth’s surface, it can carry two and a half tons of the most advanced sensors and communications equipment in the world.

Reaching such high altitudes helps to make it an extremely effective reconnaissance platform. In fact, the U-2 flies so high that pilots wear spacesuits and have to breathe from an oxygen tank.

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