It’s extremely rare for a civilian to score an edge-of-space ride in the backseat of a U-2 spy plane. So-called DV (distinguished visitor) flights are mainly reserved for high-ranking military officials. Even if you have, say, a spare million dollars and want to go high, better to hit up one of the suborbital space tourism companies. U-2 flights aren’t for sale.
For those too young to remember, the U-2 is an iconic American aircraft. The plane, also known as the Dragon Lady, has been gathering high-altitude intelligence for more than six decades. In an infamous incident in 1960, pilot Gary Powers, while taking secret photos at more than 70,000 feet above the former Soviet Union, was shot down by a surface-to-air missile.
Powers managed to eject and survive but was imprisoned in the USSR for two years. Eventually, President John F. Kennedy arranged for Powers’ early release in 1962 through a prisoner swap. The Cold War incident attracted international attention and introduced the world to high-altitude espionage.
As a youngster growing up in Laurel, not far from Ft. Meade and the National Security Agency, I had often heard hush-hush talk about the strange plane. Many of my friends’ fathers worked at NSA. I had also seen the eerie, high-altitude photos in history books as a student at Laurel High School.
In 2018, I visited Beale Air Force Base near Sacramento, California, where the venerable U-2 is kept. At the time, I experienced a flight in a T-38 fighter jet trainer, “chased” U-2s in a high-speed car as they landed, and, to see if I could withstand claustrophobia, was stuffed into the confining yellow pressure suit that pilots wear when they ascend into the heavens.
My ultimate goal, though, was a U-2 flight. But scheduling that proved much trickier. After a lot of red tape and several postponements and disappointments—six years’ worth, as a matter of fact—and the Covid-19 pandemic, this past summer I finally got my chance.
The three-day training regimen before my flight, which included the customary medical exam from a base doctor, proved surprisingly tedious. Reason: the bulky pressure suit that one must wear during flight.
Blood boils at around 60,000 feet above sea level—the Armstrong Line—so U-2 pilots must be shielded from hostile conditions like that when they fly high. And, while a two-seat U-2 cockpit is partially pressurized to 29,000 feet—the height of Mt. Everest—that altitude isn’t low enough for humans to function coherently for very long. Even more dangerous is a catastrophic cabin depressurization. If that were to happen at 70,000 feet, the pilot would die within seconds were it not for the extra protection the suit provides.
I have flown supersonic in the back of six separate fighter jets, including the F-15, F-16, and F-18, pulling as many as 9 Gs, but never have I undergone the rigors of prepping as for this flight. For example, the simple removing and inserting of pins to arm and disarm the ejection seat is fairly easy in your average fighter jet. Why? Because you don’t have to deal with the inflated suit and clumsy gloves. Things like that, which require some dexterity, are much more difficult with all of the extra hardware on.
Clad in our space suits and after breathing 100 percent supplemental oxygen for an hour to remove nitrogen from our blood, my pilot, Jethro, and I were escorted to a van and driven out to the plane hangar. I had butterflies in my stomach, but Jethro was so calm I believe he managed a few minutes of shuteye during the process. After boarding the plane, we were disconnected from the supplemental oxygen apparatus from which we had been breathing, and hooked into the plane’s O2 system.
Once fully strapped in, a lengthy procedure with God-knows-how-many belts and hoses, the cockpit glass was lowered and locked into place, and we taxied out to the runway. The takeoff was steep, around 40 degrees. But there were no real G-forces as one might experience in a fighter jet because our ascent was so gradual. It took a full 40 minutes to reach apogee.
Up there, above 70,000 feet, it is extremely peaceful. The only sound is your rhythmic breathing in the suit helmet, and radio communication with your pilot. The line of sight was hundreds of miles in all directions, and everything below looked ridiculously miniature. That said, we could still make out landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge, Lake Tahoe, Beale AFB, and Yosemite.
At one point, a commercial airliner passed over the white cloud covering far below. According to an app Jethro had, we were more than twice as high as the plane was flying. The scene resembled an ant slowly crawling across a bed of new-fallen snow. Smoke from the California wildfires seeped into lower valleys between the mountains like some insidious poisonous gas.
The sky above was the most fascinating—cold black. The horizon was distinctly curved (sorry flat-Earthers) and a blue, wispy atmosphere hung over it. It’s pretty shocking to see how thin the envelope is, like the skin on an apple.
Jethro mused that I was the highest person in the world at that moment, save the astronauts on the International Space Station, two of whom were trapped at the time. I corrected him, saying “we” were the highest. He corrected me, laughing, saying that since my cockpit is positioned a little higher than his, I was highest. I’ll take it. Our entire flight took about two-and-a-half hours, half of it above 70,000 feet.
When we touched down, we were “chased” in a Dodge Charger driven by another U-2 pilot, Cory, with photographer Carlos Toro in the passenger seat filming. A U-2 landing is unusual in that the aircraft must hit the runway with its tiny, centered back wheels first, a difficult maneuver, followed by the skinny centered front wheels. Cory had real-time walkie-talkie contact with Jethro to ensure that the back wheels did, indeed, touch first.
Once we taxied back to the hangar, it was all smiles, cheers, photos, and believe it or not, some salutes. The ground crew, for good luck, had me rub the nose of the plane. The Beale folks graciously let me hold on to the glove liners I had been wearing, so I was able to keep a souvenir that had flown high with me.
Honestly, as I changed out of the spacesuit, I felt a combination of relief, elation, and sadness; relief because the flight had finally happened and elation because I had just participated in one of the most interesting experiences of my life. There was sadness, too, because I knew I’d probably never be at the edge of space like that again.
Jim Clash immerses himself in extreme adventures for Forbes magazine. He graduated from Laurel High School in 1973. His latest book is Amplified: Interviews With Icons of Rock ‘n’ Roll.
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