{"id":43336,"date":"2018-01-04T18:55:28","date_gmt":"2018-01-04T18:55:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2018\/01\/04\/with-u-2-safe-operators-vie-for-greater-investment\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T23:39:48","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:39:48","slug":"with-u-2-safe-operators-vie-for-greater-investment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/air\/2018\/01\/04\/with-u-2-safe-operators-vie-for-greater-investment\/","title":{"rendered":"With U-2 safe, operators vie for greater investment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Now that the U.S. Air Force has decided to keep its venerable U-2 spy planes into the foreseeable future, the U-2 operational community wants to see the service invest in technologies that can help the aircraft maintain its edge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its fiscal 2018 budget request announced last year, the Air Force indefinitely postponed the retirement of the U-2. However, the uncertainty surrounding the fate of the platform has meant that U-2 pilots and maintainers focused on sustaining the aircraft rather than improving it, said Col. A.J. Werner, commander of the 9th Operations Group at Beale Air Force Base, California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe general challenges with the U-2 \u2014 as with a couple programs with the Air Force \u2014 has been the on-again, off-again nature of it. It\u2019s just hard programmatically at this level to have any sort of progress and growth because in the previous cycle [there was a] decision to make the platform go away,\u201d he told Defense News during a December interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhere we want to get to is what we always have had great airmen thinking about, and that is sensor dominance \u2014 that advantage that the U-2 enjoyed for multiple intelligence disciplines for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Werner began flying the U-2, \u201cwe had a 20-year gap on near peers,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s shrunk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t