{"id":24368,"date":"2023-05-02T20:59:06","date_gmt":"2023-05-02T20:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/uncategorized\/2023\/05\/02\/air-force-prepares-to-retire-u-2-spy-planes-in-2026\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T21:15:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T21:15:50","slug":"air-force-prepares-to-retire-u-2-spy-planes-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/intel-geoint\/isr\/2023\/05\/02\/air-force-prepares-to-retire-u-2-spy-planes-in-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Air Force prepares to retire U-2 spy planes in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C., noted the service\u2019s plan for the U-2 on Tuesday in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Department of the Air Force\u2019s fiscal 2024 budget request. The pending retirement was briefly mentioned in military budget documents released earlier this spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The service\u2019s 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\u2019s request did not specify when the airframe would retire but zeroed out modernization funds after 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Air Force said it expects Congress to remove legislative language that has blocked the jet\u2019s retirement in the past, allowing the service to \u201cmove forward with U-2 divestment in FY 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Air Force\u2019s 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/off-duty\/military-culture\/2022\/03\/14\/pizza-through-a-straw-how-u-2-bombers-snack-at-70000-feet\/\" target=\"_blank\">pilots clad in astronaut-like pressurized suits<\/a>, the bulbous nose radars and the chase cars that follow the wobbly planes down the runway to ensure they land safely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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<a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/your-military\/2023\/02\/22\/heres-your-first-look-at-that-chinese-spy-balloon\/\" target=\"_blank\"> tracking a Chinese surveillance balloon\u2019s journey<\/a> across the United States earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dragon Ladies have lately taken on a new role as testbeds for a host of more advanced reconnaissance and communication technologies, and have helped <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/air\/2020\/12\/16\/artoo-take-the-wheel-the-u-2-flew-for-the-first-time-with-an-ai-copilot\/\" target=\"_blank\">vet new artificial intelligence tools<\/a> in the Air Force\u2019s quest for more capable drones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The U-2 is also being used as a surrogate platform in the Air Force\u2019s Advanced Battle Management System program, which looks to dramatically improve data-sharing capabilities among military assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s unclear how the Air Force would repurpose U-2 pilots and others in that enterprise if the airframes are allowed to retire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Congress needs to approve the retirement plan, which has run afoul of lawmakers in the past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":72110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":41,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[29,15,41],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3356],"class_list":["post-24368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-intel-geoint","category-isr"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"NQD2GPEVUVDBVITH7PGE6VUX7M","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-air-force\/2023\/05\/02\/air-force-prepares-to-retire-u-2-spy-planes-in-2026\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Air Force prepares to retire U-2 spy planes in 2026 - C4ISRNet<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Congress needs to approve the retirement plan, which has run afoul of lawmakers in the past.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Air Force prepares to retire U-2 spy planes in 2026\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Congress needs to approve the retirement plan, which has run afoul of lawmakers in the past.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/intel-geoint\/isr\/2023\/05\/02\/air-force-prepares-to-retire-u-2-spy-planes-in-2026\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"C4ISRNet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-05-02T20:59:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-07T21:15:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rachel S. 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