Dragon Hearts
(continued) 
Some of the U-2 pilots with the TU-2S and their own airplanes.
"The support crew may be 22 year olds, but they're the best of the best," one pilot told me. "Never in my Air Force career, before coming to the U-2, did I feel like my life was in the hands of my support crew. But here, the environment we operate in is so deadly, they know that if they so much as attach a glove wrong, you're going to die." And all of those bonds are both tested and strengthened on the long, small-group deployments -- which is also another reason U-2 commanders are so careful about who they approve for a U-2 assignment.
But somewhere in the mix is also something else: a shared love of flying for the pure joy of flying, and a shared love for the same remarkable but challenging lady. I don't pretend to truly understand. I haven't wrestled the Dragon to the ground, or spent long, solitary nights on patrol high above the Earth, over hostile territory, with only the mission and the stars to keep me company.
But I do know something about loving an old tailwheel airplane that isn't always easy or forgiving. And I suspect that part of the passion pilots feel for the legendary Dragon Lady stems from the fact that, unlike more technologically advanced and automated military jets, flying the U-2 is personal. To fly the U-2 is to get to know the actual feel of its cables and control surfaces. To judge its alignment by a yaw string. To learn to intuitively sense any side-forces on landing. We may dream about many new and shiny things, but we love best those things we know intimately well -- unvarnished, unfiltered, and through touch, sense and memorable shared experience.
In the early days of aviation, even fighter pilots had that kind of nuanced feel for their airplanes. They had to. But in today's world of computerized flight systems, the U-2 offers Air Force pilots a rare opportunity to combine the romance of stick-and-rudder flying with the best technological know-how -- not only in life-support systems, but in cutting-edge reconnaissance equipment that imbues every flight with a sense of meaningful accomplishment and purpose.
Fifty years after it first took to the skies, the U-2 remains a study in opposites. It's a 53-year-old airplane performing cutting-edge surveillance. Flying it requires both sophisticated life support technology and the nuanced skill of an old barnstormer. Its pilots fly all alone, yet cannot survive or land safely without the help of others. It is at once both a dragon and a lady.
But in one aspect, at least, the Lockheed U-2 has always been absolutely straightforward: The view it offers the small brotherhood of pilots who've learned how to tame it ... is out of this world.
Also read these related stories:
Dragon Hawks: The U-2’s Future
So You Want to Fly a U-2?
Flying Lessons: From Dream to Reality: A Girl, a Plane and a Space Suit
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