[1972 LOCKHEED U-2 SPY PLANE TEST FOOTAGE AT EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE]

Genre: home movie

Year Published: 1972

Creator: Lockheed

Color: Color

Sound: silent

Description: These silent home movies show rare footage of the Lockheed U-2 Dragon Lady operating at Edwards Air Force Base in California. They are believed to date to 1972 and show tests of the camera system known as "Trixie", takeoffs and landings (including drag parachute assisted landings). The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "Dragon Lady", is an American single-jet engine, high altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It provides day and night, high-altitude (70,000 feet, 21,300 meters), all-weather intelligence gathering. Lockheed Corporation originally proposed it in 1953, it was approved in 1954, and its first test flight was in 1955. It was flown during the Cold War over the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, and Cuba. In 1960, Gary Powers was shot down in a CIA U-2A over the Soviet Union by a surface-to-air missile (SAM). Major Rudolf Anderson Jr. was shot down in a U-2 during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.