Message posted by Peter Merlin on August 03, 2005 at 8:13:05 PST:
I was an invited guest at the U-2 Golden Anniversary ceremony at Site 2 (AF Plant 42, Palmdale, Calif.). The last U-2S built, serial no. 80-1099, was on display. There was an excellent video presentation on the history of the U-2 with color footage of the early flight tests. It included many beautiful shots of the Groom Lake facility. Early U-2 pilots Ray Goudey and Lou Setter gave a brief talk about their experiences. Throughout all the 50th anniversary celebrations, officials have made extraordinary efforts to keep the name of the test site out of all official speeches, announcements, presentations, displays, and publications. Despite this, Setter managed to use the name "Groom Lake" no less than four times during his speech. Goudey said it once. There were many Lockheed oldtimers in attendance who actually built the original airplane and worked on the early test programs. They received a special memento for the Anniversary: a Lucite block containing a piece of the U-2 prototype (Article 341). Prior to the ceremony, the blocks were flown aboard a U-2S (80-1067) during a test flight to operational altitudes. A few years ago, I collected a number of small pieces of Article 341 specifically for this purpose and it was gratifying to see my plan to to fruition. One of the blocks has already been donated to the CIA museum at Langley, VA.
In Reply to: U-2 marks its 'Golden 50th' birthday posted by adc_dog on August 02, 2005 at 11:33:09 PST:
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