I got questioned by a Real Pilot.

[EssenYVR]

....which is why it is retired and we still use the U-2.

Or, more likely, we're using something that the government hasn't seen fit to disclose....

 

[mavic3usa]

Or, more likely, we're using something that the government hasn't seen fit to disclose....

Always a possibility but my point was the U-2 is still in service having come along after the SR-71, yeah I know kinda apples and oranges, mission has changed, costs, technology, etc. lots of good reasons why the SR-71 became basically worthless. It was the U-2 chasing down those Chinese balloons.... https://www.npr.org/2023/02/23/1159007203/selfie-china-balloon-photo

 

[mobilehomer]

Always a possibility but my point was the U-2 is still in service having come along after the SR-71, yeah I know kinda apples and oranges, mission has changed, costs, technology, etc. lots of good reasons why the SR-71 became basically worthless. It was the U-2 chasing down those Chinese balloons.... https://www.npr.org/2023/02/23/1159007203/selfie-china-balloon-photo

U-2 - 1957, SR-71 1964

 

[mavic3usa]

U-2 - 1957, SR-71 1964

Yep not sure why I wrote that ala Gary Powers. Thanks. My personal opinion, the U-2 was just a battery better overall aircraft for the mission....still is. My hate on the Blackbird....

eta: so many typos

 

[Droning on and on...]

The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird is, to date, the fastest airplane ever to streak across the sky, even though it's more than 30 years old.

This got a laugh.

The first flight was in 1964.

 

[Clipper707]

Yep not sure why I wrote that ala Gary Powers. Thanks. My personal opinion, the U-2 was just a battery better overall aircraft for the mission....still is. My hate on the Blackbird....

eta: so many typos

The two planes had very different missions.

The SR-71 overflew hostile territory with impunity until it was replaced by satellites. They were finally retired by the USAF in 1998 and CIA in 1999.

At least seven U-2s were shot down over the USSR, Cuba, and the Peoples Republic of China.

U-2s discovered the Soviet missiles in Cuba, but after one was shot down in 1962, the US Air Force and CIA all but stopped overflying enemy territory. U-2s continued to fly oblique angle missions, but stopped flying in hostile airspace. The Air Force had nothing that could effectively overfly Cuba to verify the missiles and the US Navy and US Marines filled the gap with the RF-8 Crusader.

The U-2 is a valuable aircraft that still flies today, but it couldn't do what the SR-71 Blackbird or RF-8 Crusader could. They all flew very different missions.

Semper Fi.