The U.S. military is preparing to gradually retire legendary reconnaissance aircraft that entered service 70 years ago.
In early January 2024, the 9th Reconnaissance Wing and the 940th Refueling Wing conducted an “elephant walk” training exercise at Bill Air Base, when six U-2S reconnaissance aircraft and two TU-2S trainers, six T-38 trainers used to support U-2 pilots’ flight skills, and two KC-135 “air tankers” were simultaneously involved in a joint flight.
It looked impressive, but it was also a sign that the U.S. military was preparing to phase out the legendary Cold War spy planes that first entered service 70 years ago.
About this he writes портал The Drive.
The authors of the publication write that the US Air Force plans to write off all available U-2s in 2025-2027. However, it is possible that even after this period, NASA will continue to use a certain amount of U-2 for its research purposes.
Interestingly, the Pentagon wants to write off the U-2 not because of exhaustion of resources or because it has found an adequate replacement for the aircraft, but rather for conceptual reasons. The U.S. military wants to build a “distributed intelligence gathering network” that will include not only space satellites but also RQ-4 and RQ-180 drones.
Even if the U-2S is still a more flexible tool for intelligence gathering, the Pentagon no longer considers it appropriate to use these aircraft, as they are both more expensive and risk being hit by enemy air defense.
The Military Balance 2023 states that the US Air Force still operates 26 U-2S reconnaissance aircraft and four TU-2S trainers belonging to Air Combat Command.
In general, the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft does not often appear in the reports of specialized resources. The last known mention of this aircraft dates back to February 2023, when U-2s were used to track balloons from China over the United States.
