Happy birthday Dragon Lady: USAF Lockheed U-2 spy plane breaks altitude record on 70th anniversary
August 4, 2025
The United States Air Force’s septuagenarian U-2 Dragon Lady may be approaching retirement, but it is still breaking new records. On the eve of its impending retirement, it appears the Lockheed U-2 has set a new altitude record.
U-2 Dragon Lady sets new record on 70th anniversary
The War Zone (TWZ) reported on 1 August that the iconic U-2 Dragon Lady spy plane has set new records. TWZ said that this had been confirmed by a US Air Force official, but “the official could not immediately say what records were set.”
The article did say the pilot’s conversation with air traffic control reveals it was an “endurance record for category and class for aircraft.” TWZ reported that a part of the recorded conversation included “…we’ll zoom climb to set the altitude record.”
The Dragon Lady is known to be able to fly at over 70,000 feet, although it’s unclear what altitude this flight reached. TWZ says the ‘exceptionally rare’ TU-2S trainer variant would have been ideal for the mission, and barring that, a stripped U-2S.
The U-2 first flew on 1 August 1955, under the secretive Aquatone project jointly pursued by Lockheed and the CIA. The aircraft’s launch coincided with the opening of Area 51, with the first flight taken from Homey Airport, the official name for the classified Air Force facility.
One of the oldest aircraft flying
The year 1955 is a world away from modern life. The Korean War had just ended in 1953, and Star Trek wouldn’t run for another eleven years (1966). The U-2 spy plane is one of the oldest aircraft still operating in the USAF, although the B-52 Stratofortress first flew in 1952.
This was long before the digital age, making obtaining ‘spy’ images more difficult than today. The U-2 would need to land and physically hand over the films to be developed and examined.
When it was developed, the Dragon Lady was a top-secret project built to gather intelligence about the USSR. It was the U-2 that first found the missiles being deployed in Cuba, triggering the Cuban Missile Crisis, and it was also the only aircraft to be shot down in the confrontation.
That said, while the Lockheed U-2 may trace back to the 1950s, the actual airframes flying today were built in the 1980s. This means the newest may be as little as 36 years old, compared to the newest B-52 airframe at 62 years old. Additionally, the U-2s have been continuously updated with new avionics and systems.
Vulnerable and heading to retirement
The Lockheed U-2 was always vulnerable. The first to be shot down was in May 1960, as a surface-to-air missile hit Francis Gary Powers as he flew over Soviet territory. There is even debate in Washington over cancelling the E-7 Wedgetail radar aeroplane, partly due to vulnerability concerns.
Today, the U-2 is not only vulnerable to air defence systems from peer or near-peer adversaries like China and Russia, but also to those of lower-end adversaries. Even the Houthis of Yemen have been shooting down dozens of US Reaper drones over the last couple of years.
But the U-2 excels in flying long missions. Its ability to loiter for long periods gives it significant advantages over statelitties, which cannot loiter overhead.
This has made them useful for complex missions, including monitoring the border with Mexico and the operations of the cartels. It was even able to fly over a Chinese spy balloon.
The U-2 has seen its retirement pushed back again and again. But for now, it looks to be heading to retirement in 2026, giving it precious little time remaining to set new records.
