US military reconnaissance airplane, used in secret flights over the USSR from 1956 to photograph military installations. In 1960 a U-2 was shot down over the USSR and the pilot, Gary Powers, was captured and imprisoned. He was exchanged for a US-held Soviet agent two years later.
The U-2 affair led to the cancellation of a proposed meeting in Moscow between President Eisenhower and Soviet leader Khrushchev, precipitating a greatly increased Soviet arms spending in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1962 U-2 flights revealed the construction of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.
Designed by Richard Bissell, the U-2 flew higher (21,000 m/70,000 ft) and further (3,500 km/2,200 mi) than any previous plane.