Espionage in the Air: A Comprehensive Guide to Spy Planes

Aircraft are a technological marvel of the modern age which have almost no peer in complexity, in utility or impact to our everyday lives. Heavier than air flight has made possible an untold number of modern miracles. From allowing you to appear on the opposite side of this planet in a matter of mere hours, to transporting delicate cargo in rapid time, airplanes are without competition, the single greatest invention of the human species since the sailing ship. Of course, this technology can be coopted for the purposes of death and destruction. There isn’t a military anywhere in the world which doesn’t use some form or type of aircraft to deliver death and destruction. But not every aircraft in a military arsenal is used to bomb and blast enemy combatants.

1. So What?

This article is a sort of vignette of a particular class of non-lethal airframes, aircraft used to monitor, to survey, to collect information and at times, keep the peace. ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) aircraft are the backbone of military intelligence. They act as the spinal column holding up much of a military’s intelligence gathering efforts. Espionage efforts in the air are themselves a product of modern warfare, but also, a defining characteristic of modern warfare. More importantly, however, ISR aircraft have helped keep the peace during some of the most incendiary moments of the last century.

2. What is a Spy Plane Anyways?

Not every surveillance aircraft is a “spy plane”. So what exactly is a spy plane anyways? Is a spy plane any type of aircraft used in an intelligence gathering capacity? Not entirely. For example, if I were to tape my iPhone underneath a Cessna 172, paint it black and fly it over a Chinese naval base, does that make it a spy plane? What if I glued a radio receiver to a hot air balloon? Form and function don’t always align. A spy plane cannot simply be any aircraft which is used to gather intelligence, because that broad brush would render the term “spy plane” essentially meaningless.

Likewise, you may notice that surveillance and reconnaissance drones are notably absent from this guide. That is by design. This article covers manned areal systems in their traditional sense of an aircraft. Spy drones, or spy UAV’s, are such a broad and encompassing family of technologies that they are deserving of an article in their own right. The same applies for the family of aircraft use in maritime patrol capacities.

3. A Brief History of the Spy Plane

Areal reconnaissance has been practiced since the Napoleonic Wars. A well developed practice, it matured during the great episodes of bloodletting on the Western Front in WWI. We have written extensively about these early efforts. But, the actual form and function of what can be considered a “spy plane” is truly a product of our modern age and the Second World War.

In November of 1925, the famed aerospace innovator George Goddard quite literally lit up Rochester, NY. Around 11:00 PM, Goddard dropped an 80 pound bomb packed with flash powder over the city, lighting up Rochester. In doing so, then Lt. Goddard produced the very first night time areal photograph [source]. Goddard’s experiment created a city wide panic. Put yourself in the shoes of an average Joe awoken by a blast of light in the dead of night.

The panic soon subsided in the morning when the newspapers printed the astonishing night time images. The Army took notice and Goddard’s commanding officer sent him a dispatch reading “from now on let the people know before you scare the hell out of them…and congratulations for a terrific job” [source].

3.1 The First Spy Planes

Clearly, Goddard’s very overt method of creating nighttime photographs cannot be qualified with the word spying in any sense, but the point was made. Night time reconnaissance could provide valuable data. Even so, right up until the end of the Second World War, air reconnaissance was mostly a day time activity. Even the fabled U-2 Dragon Lady snapped its voyeuristic photo’s of Soviet nuclear sites during the daylight.

In 1943, the US Army Air Corps preformed the first recorded ELINT mission over Kiska Island in the Aleutian Archipelago. Using a modified B-24, the US mapped out Japanese radar stations across Kiska [source]. Depending on who you ask, the use of ELINT equipment in aircraft had varied effects against the Axis powers in WWII. The US deployed similarly equipped B-24’s as a jamming platform against German radar in the European Theatre [source]. Regardless, the underlying technology was still in its infant stages. A massive undertaking was needed to bring it up to speed beginning in 1953 [source].

3.1 Spy Planes and the Nuclear Age

In 1949, a lone WB-29 on routine patrol over the Northern Pacific detected a bizarre radiation anomaly. The WB-29 had been modified to carry special weather monitoring equipment as well as radiation detectors [source]. At a certain level, the US must have had some degree of fear that the Soviet’s would imminently test a nuclear device. Otherwise, equipping the WB-29 with radiation detectors would be somewhat pointless. The radioactive debris picked up by the WB-29 was indeed resultant from the Soviet Union’s first nuclear test. After additional confirmation and tests at Los Alamos, the US established conclusively that the USSR detonated a nuclear device [source].

In other words:

• A specially modified aircraft used special equipment (MASINT or otherwise) to detect actionable intelligence at long range.
• This intelligence was of strategic value to US-USSR relations.
• At any rate, the Soviets were unaware that a WB-29 had picked up evidence of their nuclear test.

3.2 Development of the Spy Plane

The advent of nuclear weapons vastly increased the need for reliable recon/spy aircraft. In fact, it is not unfair to say that without the presence of nuclear weapons on either side of the Iron Curtain, the development of long range strategic spy planes would have taken a backseat smaller, less complex systems. In quick succession, the US put to service the U-2 Dragon Lady, the A-12 Oxcart and of course, the fabled SR-71. These aircraft each on their own took an enormous amount of effort, engineering talent and financial wherewithal to produce. This, of course, is another defining feature of spy planes; they tend to be fairly expensive pieces of machinery.

3.3 The U-2 Dragon Lady

The development of the U-2 was directly tied to the inability of the US to gleam meaningful intelligence about the Soviet nuclear program. Ask any old enough to have been alive during the early 1960’s. The sheer level of fear and insecurity felt by the American public is difficult to communicate to any audience who thankfully missed the era of nuclear brinksmanship. It was in this atmosphere of fear that engineers at Lockheed were tasked with engineering a truly unique aircraft.

In 1953, the US Military funded a study known as ‘Bald Eagle’, the purpose of which was to prove the ability of an aircraft to achieve sustained flight at 70,000 feet. That number was crucial. 70,000 feet was well above the service ceiling of Soviet interceptors [source]. Lockheed answered that call with an ambitious response. Within 8 months, a spectacular turn around time, Lockheed had a working model for the Air Force [source].

3.3.1 From Air Force to CIA

Some of the more historically astute readers might be wondering why Lockheed delivered the design to the Air Force. Indeed, the U-2 is widely known as a CIA managed aircraft. The U-2 program was absorbed by Langley from the Air Force after a great disagreement over Lockheed’s first design.

The brain child of the great Kelly Johnson (whose greatest hits include the SR-71, F-117 and F-104), the initial design for the U-2 was essentially a bastardized XF-104 [source]. The design was poorly received by the Air Force, and with good reason. Johnson envisioned an aircraft with jettisoning landing gear, turning the aircraft into a jet powered glider. Obviously, telling a group of pilots that their aircraft would be gear-less won’t get you very far. On top of this, Johnson’s design was single engine. The Air Force was dead set on a dual engine aircraft [source]. So, the Air Force trashed the concept and threw in the towel.

By 1954, however, the situation was becoming untenable. President Eisenhower was becoming increasingly anxious at the lack of American capabilities for long range strategic reconnaissance. Lockheed saw an opening. Taking the design directly to Alan Dulles, the director of the CIA, Lockheed sidestepped the Air Force. Dulles was convinced and directed the CIA to secretly sponsor the program under the auspices of Project Aquatone [source].

3.3.2 The U-2 in Service

The decision to do so without the Air Force later lead to serious coordination issues between the CIA and Air Force personnel working on the U-2 [source]. One dispatch between the project’s director to the project contracting lead paints a rather dire picture. In many cases, the Air Force had only learned on the very existence of the U-2 as late as January 1956.

By 1957, the U-2 was ready for action. Launching from a variety of sites across Europe and Asia, the U-2 conducted high altitude reconnaissance flights over the USSR with stunning results. It is estimated that nearly 90% of all intelligence on Soviet nuclear capabilities during this time period came from the Dragon Lady [source]. The design was so remarkable and timeless that the Navy even explored adapting the U-2 for carrier operations [source].

But the grand time the CIA was having with overflights of Soviet territory would soon come crashing down. U-2 pilots increasingly reported attempted interceptions by Soviet fighters, indicating that the USSR’s radar technology was beginning to improve [source]. Then, on 1 May 1960, the Soviet Union finally scored a hit on a U-2, shooting down Capt. Francis Gary Powers and capturing him alive. The U-2 flights stopped immediately afterwards.

4. Enter the Spy Satellite

The U-2 Incident of 1960 destabilized the whole narrative surrounding spy planes. Now all of a sudden, there was a very real possibility that even the most limited of airspace incursions could cause a serious international incident. A new way of gathering intelligence was needed. This new method was made possible by advances in rocketry, spearheaded by patriated German scientists whose experience on the V-2 rocket proved to be invaluable. We have an in depth article about this sudden explosion in satellite technology here.

We won’t go into the exact progression of the spy satellite, but we mention it here only to call attention to a series of implications posed by the advent of spy satellites:

• Do spy satellites render spy planes obsolete?

• Do spy satellites compliment spy planes?

• Why do we continue to fly the U-2 even with the benefit of modern satellite technology?

In actuality, the advent of spy satellites did not have an immediate and noticeable effect on the development of spy planes. The SR-71 for example, was only retired in 1998. Still today, we can readily observe any number of ELINT aircraft in flight on open source plane trackers patrolling the eastern fringes of NATO airspace. Space flight is extremely expensive, and aircraft are sometimes the better option for any number of given circumstances.

5. Soviet Produced Spy Planes

For one reason or another, the Soviet Union never produced any aircraft comparable to the pinnacle of American engineering, the SR-71. But, to totally write off the history of Soviet reconnaissance aircraft would miss the larger picture. Between the 1950’s and 1980’s, the USSR produced a number of aircraft which could fairly be qualified as spy planes. We will outline several examples in Section 7.

The USSR did come close to beating out the US in developing an SR-71 like spy plane. In 1957, the Tsybin Design Bureau put to the skies the Tsybin RSR, Russia’s first attempt at a long range, Mach 3 capable strategic reconnaissance aircraft [source]. Very few images and videos survive of this plane. Inexplicably however, Khrushchev axed the program in 1961. It was a strategically ill advised course of action. The Soviet leadership at the time had an unhealthy obsession with all things missile related and space programs took precedence [source].

6. General Configuration of Spy Planes

During the Laotian Civil War, clandestine American air support allowed for Laotian artillery men to better target their Pathet Lao opponents. Most of the US forward air controllers (known as Ravens) flew in O-1 Bird Dogs, small single engine aircraft that appear to be better suited to cropdusting than to artillery support. The Bird Dog does not qualify as a spy plane, just because it was used to gather battlefield intelligence. So what are some common characteristics of spy planes?

A Spy Plane is Any Aircraft:

• An aircraft used to gather intelligence (IMINT, SIGINT, ELINT etc.)

• An aircraft which uses some form it its design to subvert enemy detection.

• An aircraft which is designed to deliberately avoid enemy air defense.

• An aircraft designed to provide strategic intelligence as opposed to real time tactical information about a battle space.

To be a spy plane, no aircraft needs to fit exactly all of these categories, but should meet at least a majority. As such, this article is not about the myriad aircraft involved in tactical level reconnaissance operations. This article is about the big league, big name legends of areal espionage.

7. Notable Examples of Spy Planes

The following is a list of notable spy planes. This is not an exhaustive list of all aircraft used in reconnaissance operations, but rather a small glimpse of the type of aircraft which has been historically deployed by major military powers. 

Lockheed U-2 Dragon Lady

The fabled Dragon Lady of the CIA is perhaps the best known American spy plane of the last century. But, did you know that the Taiwanese Air Force operated a number of U-2’s from 1961 to 1971. The 35th Black Cat Squadron flew hundreds of missions over the communist mainland with varied success. The PRC shot down at least 5 U-2’s over that 10 year period. A number of those Taiwanese pilots shot down over China survived, and were held in captivity by the Chinese until 1983 [source].

• Crew: 1
• Dimensions: 19.20 m x 31 m x 4.8 m
• Propulsion System: 1 × GE F-118-101 turbofan (producing 76 kN of thrust)
• Speed (Max): 500 mph
• Range: 11,280 km
• Endurance: 12 hours

Compliment: 

• Variable
• Model B – U2 Camera
• Atmospheric testing suite (NASA)

Operators: United Sates (CIA, NASA), Republic of China (Taiwan) 35th Black Cat Squadron

Lockheed A-12 Oxcart

The aircraft you see pictured below was tragically lost

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Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird

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Martin RB-57 Canberra

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Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star

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Boeing RC-135 Rivet Joint

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Yakovlev Yak-25

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Ilyushin Il-20M

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Tu-214ON

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Yakovlev Yak-28

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Myasishchev M-55

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8. The Future of Spy Planes

The future of spy planes is firmly in two main areas: Space and UAV Technology. The lessons presented by the Francis Gary Powers incident are enduring. Satellites are hard to shoot down, and drones are easily replaced, whereas pilots are not so disposable.