정찰기 미공군, U-2를 2026년에 퇴역시키길 원함

[위종민]

https://www.defensenews.com/news/your-air-force/2023/05/02/air-force-prepares-to-retire-u-2-spy-planes-in-2026/

Air Force prepares to retire U-2 spy planes in 2026

2025년 이후 U-2 현대화 비용을 예산 요청에 계상하지 않았다고 하네요. RQ-4도 1년 뒤에 퇴역시키고 나면 2020년대 말부터는 고고도 정찰 플랫폼이 없어진다고 합니다. 대신 우주 기반 센서로 고고도 이미지를 수집할 예정이라고.

최근까지 캘리포니아주 빌 공군기지로 직접 배송돼야 되는 습식 필름 카메라를 사용했고 작년 여름에야 디지털로 전환했다고 하네요. 

오산공군기지에선 뻔질나게 볼 수 있는 기체였는데 이제 그 시간도 몇 년 안 남았네요. 

Air Force prepares to retire U-2 spy planes in 2026

By Rachel S. Cohen

 May 3, 05:59 AM

A U-2 Dragon Lady assigned to the 9th Reconnaissance Wing prepares to land at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., Dec. 15, 2020.  The Air Force is planning to retire the storied fleet in fiscal 2026, according to its 2024 budget request. (Airman 1st Class Luis A. Ruiz-Vazquez/Air Force)

The Air Force is forging ahead with its plan to retire the storied U-2 Dragon Lady spy aircraft in fiscal 2026, as part of a yearslong effort to reshape how the service surveils American adversaries from above.

Air Force leaders have considered retiring the U-2 fleet for nearly two decades, asking Congress in some years to ditch the Cold War-era workhorse or, in others, to retire the RQ-4 Global Hawk drones that were meant to replace it. Now both are on the chopping block.

If Congress approves the divestment and lets the Air Force retire its remaining RQ-4s one year later, the service would finish out the decade without the high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft that peer across borders and track enemy movements.

Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C., noted the service’s plan for the U-2 on Tuesday in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Department of the Air Force’s fiscal 2024 budget request. The pending retirement was briefly mentioned in military budget documents released earlier this spring.

The service’s previous spending requests have foreshadowed the end of the U-2 fleet in the mid-2020s, including in its asks for fiscal 2021 and 2022. Last year’s request did not specify when the airframe would retire but zeroed out modernization funds after 2025.

The newest slate of budget documents acknowledges that the Air Force plans to keep the U-2 fleet viable through the end of September 2025, before shifting that money to higher priorities.

The Air Force said it expects Congress to remove legislative language that has blocked the jet’s retirement in the past, allowing the service to “move forward with U-2 divestment in FY 2026.”

The annual defense policy acts approved by Congress have sought to ensure that the Air Force has a suitable replacement for the U-2 and RQ-4 before yanking the assets that commanders around the world rely on for intelligence.

But once it cuts those fleets, the Air Force would instead turn to space-based sensors to collect a similar set of high-altitude images, its budget request said.

The Air Force’s 27 U-2s are housed at Beale Air Force Base, California, and rotate through military installations around the world. The aircraft are famous for the 105-foot wingspan that allows them to glide at the edge of space, the pilots clad in astronaut-like pressurized suits, the bulbous nose radars and the chase cars that follow the wobbly planes down the runway to ensure they land safely.

Known for capturing the images that proved the Soviet Union was building nuclear missile sites in Cuba in 1962, sparking the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U-2 gained new fame for tracking a Chinese surveillance balloon’s journey across the United States earlier this year.

Until recently, the jets relied on wet-film cameras with enormous film canisters that had to be shipped to Beale and developed by the 9th Reconnaissance Wing there. That practice ended last summer in a pivot to the digital era.

Dragon Ladies have lately taken on a new role as testbeds for a host of more advanced reconnaissance and communication technologies, and have helped vet new artificial intelligence tools in the Air Force’s quest for more capable drones.

The U-2 is also being used as a surrogate platform in the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System program, which looks to dramatically improve data-sharing capabilities among military assets.

It’s unclear how the Air Force would repurpose U-2 pilots and others in that enterprise if the airframes are allowed to retire.

About Rachel S. Cohen

Rachel Cohen joined Air Force Times as senior reporter in March 2021. Her work has appeared in Air Force Magazine, Inside Defense, Inside Health Policy, the Frederick News-Post (Md.), the Washington Post, and others.

[엽군]

훗, 죽을 때까지 가봐야죠. 언제 죽나. : )

[위종민]

예산이야 언제든 계상할 수 있는 거라 ㅎㅎ

이번 풍선 사건 보면 성층권~중간권 사이, 고도 10~30km 정도를 직접 올라갈 수 있는 유인기의 가치가 아직 충분한 것 같기도 합니다.

[엽군]

곧 죽는다고 하던 것이 저 임관할 때였는데, 지금도 살아남은 장수 만세라서요. ㅋㅋㅋ. 여전히 곳곳에 U-2 성애자들이 많습니다. 물론 진짜 날린다는 마스터플랜은 나왔습니다만. : )