U-2S

Sure.

We flew U-2s over the Soviet Union.

We threw SR-71s over the Soviet Union.

We, we flew B-29s over the Soviet Union, and our point was, "Hey, guys, we're not a threat to you.

And did we find evidence of some experimentation? We did.

But it would take us decades to have the technology to fly the U-2s over the Soviet Union.

or the SR-71s over China.

We've got a very good history of how we came to detect ourselves, detect atomic developments in India, China, Russia.

It was, it was fascinating because the, the, the, the people there, and those are, uh, some, two of the people are people I respect more than anything, anybody else in the world.

Uh, Mr. Tom Belden, who was with IDA, the Institute of Defense Analyses, and, uh, Sir Arthur Lundahl, who was head of the photographic, uh, uh, agency that, uh, has now been absorbed in other agencies and so on, but was responsible for the U-2s, for the photographic intelligence around the world.

And, and also he, he testified, uh, he, he broke the story of the, uh, you know, what the U-2s were doing.

He also broke the story of the, uh, the, the rockets of Cuba.

And we became friends.

Now don't get me wrong.

Manned reconnaissance and surveillance flight missions, including using U-2s, would continue and do continue to this day.

But the embarrassment over the shoot down and Mr.

Powers apparently not understanding the assignment did cause a, shall we say, uptick in interest in unmanned aerial vehicles, which until then had been deemed too costly because come on.

The Lightning Bug was equipped for missions such as high and low altitude photographic and electronic aerial reconnaissance, surveillance, electronic warfare, signals intelligence, and even psychological warfare.

And then, still in 1962, another U-2 was shot down over Cuba.

The Taiwanese Air Force were also using U-2s over China in collaboration with the US around this time, and they had lost several U-2s in the process.

And so, As the United States became more involved in the French Indochina War, which then became the US-Vietnam War, the lightning bug was increasingly put to use for recon missions deemed too risky for pilots.

But around that time, I received an email from Sid Hartzel, who is an army helicopter pilot, and he goes, "Hey, you wanna do a story on the Afghan withdrawal? It's the fourth anniversary, and our unit really did some awesome things over there." And at the time, Cinco, I said, "Sid, that sounds amazing, but I am just already got most of the content planned for the rest of the year, and I'm thinking about the transition, et cetera.

So, eh, you know, sorry, maybe not this time." But like the U-2s on aircraft carriers, it was just one of those topics that kinda stuck in my head because, Cinco, I'm sure you also, like most people, saw the images coming out of Afghanistan at the end in August two thousand twenty-one, heard the stories.

Other podcasts, including our friends over at the Afterburn podcast, have talked to some of the C-17 pilots who were there in those last couple days with Afghans just swarming the runways, just desperate to get out of there.

And I thought, "Boy, that would be really something fun to explore." Not fun, that's the wrong word, but interesting.

And I said, "Well, maybe it's something I can come back to." So after the U-2s on aircraft carriers episode, I did reach back out to Sid to explore options.

And the more I learned, the more I just felt, yeah, this is something I wanna tell.

And so the premise of this is what happened, in a sense.

Slater's just been awesome.