This is America’s trump card against China’s “spy balloon” Zelenskyy: Battles for Bakhmut continue – the nightly update without photos

The developers at Lockheed Martin certainly never imagined that their U-2 “Dragon Lady” would one day take off for spy flights over the US. The special aircraft was designed in the 1950s to fly at extremely high altitudes over the Soviet Union and explore its nuclear program. The legend of the Cold War was never thrown away and has apparently proven itself again – in action against the Chinese “spy balloon”, which has just flown over the US at an altitude of over 20,000 meters.

Before an F-22 fighter jet shot down the balloon with a missile off the coast of South Carolina over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday, the US Air Force sent two of its U-2 “Dragon Lady” after the strange object, according to the trade journal “The War Zone” reported now, citing own sources. “We don’t know exactly what the U-2’s job was, but its use makes sense,” the magazine writes. “The ‘Dragon Lady’ is the only US military aircraft that can fly even higher than the balloon.”

The spy balloon was 61 meters high

Altitudes of up to 21,300 meters are no problem for the U-2, and that was probably not the balloon’s only trump card. Packed with cameras, sensors, radar systems and jammers, it resembles a manned spy satellite: “The U-2 is well equipped for electronic warfare,” writes The War Zone. “If she flew over the balloon, she could potentially block communication with the satellites in space.” The two “Dragon Ladies” may also have been able to take detailed photos of the balloon before it was blasted from the sky.

The balloon was 200 feet (61 m) tall and likely weighed as much as a small plane, the U.S. military said after launch. The object first appeared over Alaska, then flew over Canada and re-entered US airspace over Idaho.

For several days, the balloon drifted southwest over the United States, leading to significant diplomatic tension between Washington and Beijing. China claimed it was a weather balloon and criticized the launch. Since then, more balloons have appeared over Latin America. It was not the first diplomatically sensitive mission for the U-2.

When the U-2 caused a scandal

To the Kremlin’s chagrin, the newly developed American aircraft were able to fly undisturbed through the skies over the Soviet Union for nearly four years. It was not until May 1960 that the Soviet air defense managed to shoot down a U-2 for the first time with a newly developed missile.

Ironically, Dwight D. Eisenhower’s US government initially tried to cover up the failed spy flight as a weather sighting. The next day, however, Soviet television presented the wreckage of the U-2 and also showed pilot Francis Gary Powers, whom Washington believed dead. Kremlin chief Nikita Khrushchev unsuccessfully demanded that Eisenhower admit his guilt and canceled a scheduled meeting out of hand.

After the embarrassing incident, the US increasingly relied on spy satellites and the faster SR-71 “Blackbird”, which had also been developed by Lockheed Martin. The incident did not mark the end of the “Dragon Lady”. For example, in October 1962, the aircraft helped document the deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba.

After the dramatic climax, the nervous play of the Cuban Missile Crisis led to a phase of relaxation in the Cold War. The US allegedly spied on China’s nuclear weapons program using their U-2 in the 1960s. Even after the Cold War there was always a custom for the high flyers.

For example, in March 2011 a U-2 flew over Japan to measure the damage after the massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami. In Iraq, in 2017, the U-2 helped spy on the positions of the terrorist militia “Islamic State”. The Pentagon has apparently not yet retired the U-2 and replaced it entirely with reconnaissance drones.

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(t-online, mk)