U-2

US military reconnaissance aeroplane, used in secret flights over the USSR from 1956 to photograph military installations. In 1960 a U‐2 was shot down over the USSR and the pilot, Gary Powers, was captured and imprisoned. He was exchanged for a US‐held Soviet agent two years later.

The U‐2 affair led to the cancellation of a proposed meeting in Moscow between President Eisenhower and Soviet leader Khrushchev, precipitating a greatly increased Soviet arms spending in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1962 U‐2 flights revealed the construction of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.

Designed by Richard Bissell, the U‐2 flew higher (21,000 m/70,000 ft) and further (3,500 km/2,200 mi) than any previous plane.