Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Hei there and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer
Speaker 1: with How Stuff Works and my Heart Radio, and I
Speaker 1: love all things tech. I like to throw off super
Speaker 1: producer Tari because she likes her lip sync while I
Speaker 1: do this, and if I do it at different cadences
Speaker 1: and rhythms, she can't follow along. But that's not really
Speaker 1: important right now. What's important right now is that we
Speaker 1: are going to look at another classic episode of tech Stuff. Yes,
Speaker 1: this episode aired originally on March nineteenth, two thousand twelve.
Speaker 1: It's about an even older technology, the You two Spy Plane. Yes,
Speaker 1: we're talking about the spy plane, not the band, although
Speaker 1: the band did teach me the valuable lesson that you
Speaker 1: count like this one two three fourteen. Anyway, this is
Speaker 1: tech Stuff Spies on the U Tube and I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy. We were um we were going to talk
Speaker 1: today about an interesting thing that I saw the other day,
Speaker 1: which is UM. Well, in a way, it's sort of
Speaker 1: a drone because it starts with a the r Q
Speaker 1: for Global Hawk, a drone aircraft that is UM well,
Speaker 1: it's status is sort of in question right now as
Speaker 1: at the time we're recording this. There negotiating the budget
Speaker 1: for UH, the United you know, the defense budget for
Speaker 1: the United States of America UM and UH that's one
Speaker 1: of the items that was considered to be struck. Now.
Speaker 1: Of course, some over the past few years, unmanned aerial
Speaker 1: vehicles have been UH coming up a lot in the news.
Speaker 1: They've been instrumental in several of the military engagements around
Speaker 1: the world with the United States, I mean, US has
Speaker 1: has employed unman aerial vehicles and lots of cases. The
Speaker 1: proposal was that there will be three d two million
Speaker 1: dollars budgeted UM to UH to work on the Global
Speaker 1: Hawk and UM. As it turns out, it's been proposed
Speaker 1: that they dropped the item entirely in favor of a
Speaker 1: much more uh much more less cutting edge technology in
Speaker 1: a way. And the reason one of the reasons to
Speaker 1: talking about cutting this whole Global Hawk thing is because, uh,
Speaker 1: it's expensive. Yeah, the estimated cost of a single Global
Speaker 1: Hawk is a hundred and seventy six million dollars. That's expensive.
Speaker 1: So they had they had enough, they had just they
Speaker 1: didn't even quite have enough money in the budget for
Speaker 1: two of them, so you could get one and seven
Speaker 1: eighths of a Global Hawk for the budget they had proposed.
Speaker 1: So the the alternative right now for a and the
Speaker 1: purpose of the Global Hawk, we should say, is it's
Speaker 1: reconnaissance aircraft. Yes, it doesn't attack people, it is it
Speaker 1: is their for surveillance purposes, specifically spying. So you know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of unmanned aerial vehicles that have
Speaker 1: been developed over the last several years. Many of them
Speaker 1: are designed to get a real time UH feel of
Speaker 1: what's going on in certain environments. And they they're designed
Speaker 1: to do things like fly through areas that could be
Speaker 1: combat zones. But they're not necessarily designed to spy, to
Speaker 1: be able to fly through undetected. It's more about getting
Speaker 1: as quick and accurate a picture of the situation as
Speaker 1: it exists right now, rather than let's go find out
Speaker 1: what those pesky so and so's over there are doing.
Speaker 1: So are pesky so and so technology? Uh tends to
Speaker 1: be much more sneaky, and it's designed to be very fast.
Speaker 1: Usually it's designed to fly very very high, so that
Speaker 1: can try to avoid things like radar as well as missiles.
Speaker 1: You know, attempts to take it down. UH. And it's
Speaker 1: designed to try and gather as much information as quickly
Speaker 1: as possible. UH. And since the nineteen fifties, that technology
Speaker 1: has been one particular type of aircraft in the United States.
Speaker 1: Even though we've tried to replace it on multiple occasions,
Speaker 1: we're still using it today and the it's what we
Speaker 1: will be using instead of the Global Hawk, the Lockheed
Speaker 1: U two. Yes, I believe it or not. UM. They're
Speaker 1: saying that the the U two is actually a better
Speaker 1: piece of technology and in some ways than the the
Speaker 1: newer unmanned Areal vehicle. And like I said, the replacement
Speaker 1: for the U two has has was built and was
Speaker 1: retired already, which was the s R seventy one Blackbird
Speaker 1: that we'll get into that. It's a gorgeous design, right.
Speaker 1: So they the Blackbird, which was designed to be the
Speaker 1: replacement for the U two, it actually lived out it's
Speaker 1: useful life in the U S Air Force and then
Speaker 1: was retired because well, it's really expensive to maintain as well.
Speaker 1: In fact, well, and I'll talk about why it was
Speaker 1: expensive to maintain, because that's kind of an interesting story.
Speaker 1: But to understand the YOU two, we have to go
Speaker 1: back quite a bit, and we're not going to use
Speaker 1: the way back machine because I found out that stuff
Speaker 1: you should know, used it about a week and a
Speaker 1: half ago, and apparently they left it somewhere like they
Speaker 1: actually hoofed it back from thirty seven. And I have
Speaker 1: no idea what they were doing back then. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so I have no idea. We have to track it down.
Speaker 1: So we're just gonna have to talk about today, all
Speaker 1: right then, But um so, then you would probably go
Speaker 1: back in time if we were using the machine to
Speaker 1: uh about Well, August nine is the first day it
Speaker 1: ever flew. Yes, August one, nineteen fifty five, it's first
Speaker 1: flight of the YouTube. Now, the whole purpose for developing
Speaker 1: the YouTube stems out of the Cold War between the
Speaker 1: United States and the then ussry Soviet Union. Um So,
Speaker 1: the whole reason for it was that we needed to
Speaker 1: have we being the United States, because from the US
Speaker 1: the United States needed to have some sort of vehicle
Speaker 1: to get an idea of what was going on and
Speaker 1: a potential uh um wartime enemy. And the Cold War
Speaker 1: was was called the Cold War because it wasn't like
Speaker 1: there were actual physical outbreaks of violence between the two countries,
Speaker 1: but there was a true rivalry of global proportions going
Speaker 1: on between the two, and so we there were needs
Speaker 1: each each country felt the need to find out as
Speaker 1: much about what was going on in the other country
Speaker 1: as possible, and so they were developing their own ways
Speaker 1: of spying on each other. Of course, this also figured
Speaker 1: into this space race. Um. We've talked about the thing
Speaker 1: what beaped Sputnick Sputnick that they and up from the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union um shortly after that period, but it was
Speaker 1: around the same time they were looking for ways to
Speaker 1: spy on each other. Of course, satellite technology entered into it,
Speaker 1: but the YouTube predates use. I mean it was already
Speaker 1: flying by by that point. Yeah. So this is during
Speaker 1: the Eisenhower administration in the United States history and uh,
Speaker 1: and so there were several the government, the United States
Speaker 1: government actually invited several different companies to submit proposals for
Speaker 1: a spy plane. That's pretty typical, right, And the company
Speaker 1: that went out was Lockheed and there was a fellow
Speaker 1: by the name of Clarence Kelly Johnson who was put
Speaker 1: in charge of the development of this spy plane. Johnson
Speaker 1: also was instrumental in creating the the facility that was
Speaker 1: the testing grounds for this particular airplane, and that facility
Speaker 1: has gone on to gain incredible notoriety. Yes, partially because
Speaker 1: it was very innovative, and partially because it just has
Speaker 1: a very cool name, and it was very, very very
Speaker 1: secret about everything. And that cool name, at least that's
Speaker 1: the popular name for it, is Area fifty one. So
Speaker 1: if you always wondered what Area fifty one was about,
Speaker 1: and you've heard about things like UFOs and aliens, what
Speaker 1: it really was about was a testing ground for secret aircraft,
Speaker 1: and the YouTube was very much a secret aircraft. The
Speaker 1: United States did not really talk about what the You
Speaker 1: two was for until they were forced to. And we'll
Speaker 1: get into that story too, because that's pretty dramatic. But
Speaker 1: but before we get into that, let's talk more about
Speaker 1: what the You two actually was and uh oh, And
Speaker 1: in case you're just wondering, Area fifty one, also popularly
Speaker 1: known as Groom Lake because it's a dry lake bed,
Speaker 1: was where it was built up on. And I think
Speaker 1: in the future we're going to have to do a
Speaker 1: podcast all about Area fifty one because it was such
Speaker 1: a cool place. It's not really a number a thing anymore,
Speaker 1: but It was definitely a neat idea and some really
Speaker 1: cool technology was developed there. Anyway, getting back to the
Speaker 1: you two, it's got a Now, this this sucker can
Speaker 1: fly at at altitudes of more than seventy thousand feet. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: that's pretty high up. Yeah, very least when you think
Speaker 1: about commercial jet liners or tend to be between thirty
Speaker 1: and thirty five thousand feet sometimes a little higher. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, that's more than twice as high up. And
Speaker 1: uh it was built. It was built with a really
Speaker 1: really long wings almost like a glider, and very light
Speaker 1: air frame. Yeah. Well I'm sorry, go ahead. The wingspan
Speaker 1: of the U two is about a hundred and five
Speaker 1: feet or you know, thirty two meters or so. The
Speaker 1: length is sixty three ft or about nineteen point two meters,
Speaker 1: and height uh sixteen feet about four point eight meters
Speaker 1: and only ways sixteen thousand pounds, which when you think
Speaker 1: about it, is pretty light. That's pretty remarkable. Yeah. It's
Speaker 1: got one General Electric F one eighteen DASH one oh
Speaker 1: one engine. Yeah, although there were other engines used in
Speaker 1: the YouTube during its entire history. Uh there Uh, there's
Speaker 1: a J fifty seven turbojet engine. The J seventy five
Speaker 1: turbojet engine and then the General Electric F one eighteen
Speaker 1: turbo fan engine. UH. They have all been used in
Speaker 1: YOU two's throughout its history of its service in the
Speaker 1: United States. Also, before we get too much further into
Speaker 1: the technical details, one of their interesting element. Originally this
Speaker 1: was pitched to the Air Force. The Air Force decided
Speaker 1: it did not The Air Force decided not to fund it.
Speaker 1: The funding came from the c I. A. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: the Central Intelligence Agency is actually responsible for the development
Speaker 1: of the YOU tube and UH. In fact, the pilots
Speaker 1: of those early YOU twos were all CIA pilots. Because
Speaker 1: the idea was that if you had a a plane
Speaker 1: go down and the pilot of that plane was a
Speaker 1: member of the United States military, it could look like
Speaker 1: a military action against another country. Because you were a
Speaker 1: pilot for the CIA, you had to be a civilian,
Speaker 1: so you actually would go through and and quit a
Speaker 1: branch of the military service. He would no longer be
Speaker 1: a part of the Air Force. You would become a
Speaker 1: civilian and be employed by the CIA, and that would
Speaker 1: give you the deniability that it was a military action
Speaker 1: against another country. Well, of course, UM also sneaky if
Speaker 1: you're wondering how much these aircraft cost. They won't tell
Speaker 1: you that information is classified. There's actually a lot of
Speaker 1: information classified about the YouTube. Like we can't tell you
Speaker 1: specifically all the different sensors that are on board a YouTube.
Speaker 1: We can tell you that it does have a camera,
Speaker 1: actually has multiple cameras in order to get a visual
Speaker 1: representation of what's what it's flying over. It also has
Speaker 1: sensors that can detect the quality of the air and
Speaker 1: and perhaps even sniff out things like, uh, chemicals that
Speaker 1: would be indicative of a nuclear facility in the area. Um,
Speaker 1: it's got Supposedly it has sensors that can allow it
Speaker 1: to even eaves drop on cell phone conversations. Interesting, and
Speaker 1: there's also a data link that allows it to upload
Speaker 1: information in real time to a remote location. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: got a it has infrared cameras and an optical bar camera.
Speaker 1: Um and uh it does have you know, advanced radar
Speaker 1: capabilities as well. UM. So it's it's certainly able to
Speaker 1: pay a lot of attention to what's going on in
Speaker 1: the world around it. Um, even from the altitudes that
Speaker 1: they can reach. Does have a crew of one, We
Speaker 1: know that much. Yeah, it's it's designed to be a
Speaker 1: one person aircraft. Have heard that there are a few
Speaker 1: examples of two men you tubs, but they are specifically
Speaker 1: built for training purposes. They are not they're not actually
Speaker 1: used in service. Uh, it does. It can reach a
Speaker 1: speed of about four miles per hour. It's not you know,
Speaker 1: we're not talking about breaking the speed of sound um,
Speaker 1: which is unlike the SR seventy one. Yes, which that
Speaker 1: was one of the reasons why the s R seventy
Speaker 1: one was developed was they wanted the government wanted something
Speaker 1: that was even faster and could fly even higher than
Speaker 1: the U two, And the s R seventy one could
Speaker 1: do both those things. It could fly at an altitude
Speaker 1: around ninety thou feet and it could fly very fast. Indeed, Yes,
Speaker 1: which works for the X men. Yes, sort of um
Speaker 1: and are often than not. And if you're wondering, there
Speaker 1: are about thirty three of them. They are still active.
Speaker 1: Um and Yeah. Despite as as Jonathan said earlier, just
Speaker 1: Bite attempts to phase them out as older, outmoded technology,
Speaker 1: they're just too good at what they do. You know what.
Speaker 1: It turns out the other stuff that was built to
Speaker 1: replace them wasn't good enough and was more expensive, so
Speaker 1: while you had aircraft that could fly faster and higher. Uh.
Speaker 1: The one of the big drawbacks of the Blackbird was
Speaker 1: that it did not have a data link. So when
Speaker 1: you sent a Blackbird out on a mission in the
Speaker 1: dead of night, you had to wait for it to
Speaker 1: come back and dump all that information for you to
Speaker 1: be able to look at it. You couldn't get updates
Speaker 1: as the mission was going on, at least not of
Speaker 1: all the data that it was collecting. You know, the
Speaker 1: pilot could communicate, presumably, but smartphone, yeah, there's anap for that.
Speaker 1: But flying over foreign power l O L nice w
Speaker 1: TfL uh the uh the only uh. There's some other
Speaker 1: interesting things about the YouTube. It's landing gear it has.
Speaker 1: You know, most most aircraft that we think of today
Speaker 1: has have the landing gear where's the one set of
Speaker 1: wheels up for and then the two set of wheels
Speaker 1: in the backs. It's almost like a tricycle, you know.
Speaker 1: YouTube does not have that. It has more like a
Speaker 1: bicycle set up. It's got one the front set of
Speaker 1: wheels and back set of wheels are in line with
Speaker 1: one another. Now it does have wheels called pogoes that
Speaker 1: are attached to the wings for takeoff, so to give
Speaker 1: it stability. When you're taking off with a you two.
Speaker 1: But then once you take off, you jettison those wheels.
Speaker 1: They're gone and you only when you're coming into land
Speaker 1: you only have those two sets of wheels. So you're thinking,
Speaker 1: how can you maintain balance. Well, the wings have skids
Speaker 1: on them to protect the wings. It's apparently really really
Speaker 1: hard to fly YouTube, and and more so not just
Speaker 1: because of the landing thing, although landing apparently is one
Speaker 1: of the most difficult maneuvers you can do with the
Speaker 1: YouTube because the wings are so wide, the a little
Speaker 1: cross wind can very much affect the YOUTO. It can
Speaker 1: start gliding off track, and uh, it's it's really hard
Speaker 1: to correct for that. Another issue is that it's designed
Speaker 1: to fly at a very high altitude. We'll add that altitude.
Speaker 1: The atmosphere is not as thick, yeah, the thinner atmosphere. Well,
Speaker 1: in order to give precise controls at that altitude. The
Speaker 1: controls are extremely responsive when you are flying through a
Speaker 1: very thin atmosphere, So just a tiny little adjustment by
Speaker 1: the pilot is going to result in a pretty dramatic
Speaker 1: change in the plane's behavior. All Right, when you start
Speaker 1: going down, you start descending in the atmosphere is starting
Speaker 1: to get thicker. Suddenly those controls aren't as responsive and
Speaker 1: you have to do more to get the plane to
Speaker 1: do what you wanted to do. So as you're descending
Speaker 1: from that height where you're actually spying and everything, and
Speaker 1: you're coming down, UH, the plane becomes less responsive and
Speaker 1: the pilot has to use a lot more force to
Speaker 1: get the plane to do what he wants it or
Speaker 1: she wants it to do. And um, and so it
Speaker 1: is supposed to be more supposedly one of the most
Speaker 1: difficult aircraft master because the two sets of flying UH
Speaker 1: scenarios are so different. As if that weren't enough, Because
Speaker 1: of the way the plane is configured, it's kind of
Speaker 1: hard to see out of um that the nose is
Speaker 1: very long, and it's difficult to see out the back
Speaker 1: because of the tail. So as a matter of fact, Uh,
Speaker 1: Jonathan I, I've actually seen information that suggests that many
Speaker 1: pilots call it the most difficult plane in the world
Speaker 1: to fly, and and it actually requires in some instances,
Speaker 1: actually requires a second set of eyes. Somebody else will
Speaker 1: go up after the U two to to help it
Speaker 1: get down somebody who's sort of if you will, it's
Speaker 1: sort of a visual spot and they go, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes lined up. Sometimes it's a person in a souped
Speaker 1: up car as a second, a second YouTube pilot who
Speaker 1: is being driven on in a souped up car going
Speaker 1: alongside the plane as it's coming down and giving verbal
Speaker 1: directions to the pilot. So the pilot hasn't indication of
Speaker 1: how far they are from the surface and whether they
Speaker 1: need to make any adjustments. So they'll be in a
Speaker 1: car traveling at a pretty good clip of speed. Okay,
Speaker 1: see that was my That was my assumption because it
Speaker 1: said in my notes a high performance vehicle and it
Speaker 1: didn't say what kind of vehicle. Yes, yeah, it was
Speaker 1: a high performance car. So okay, the Blues Mobile. Actually
Speaker 1: they just check. They have that that megaphone on top
Speaker 1: and alright, he is what you gotta do? You gotta
Speaker 1: go down two ft two ft. Hey guys, it's Jonathan
Speaker 1: from two nineteen here to take a quick break from
Speaker 1: spying to thank our sponsor. Some other interesting things about
Speaker 1: the YouTube. Another reason why it's so hard to fly
Speaker 1: is that it has to almost always be flying near
Speaker 1: the maximum speed of the vehicle, and the reason for
Speaker 1: that is because if it starts to get down below
Speaker 1: about nineteen kilometers per hour below maximum speed, which is
Speaker 1: ten knots, when it starts to drop below ten knots
Speaker 1: from its maximum speed at whatever altitude it's at, it
Speaker 1: starts to stall. So, in other words, there's a really
Speaker 1: narrow window of performance that the plane can operate at
Speaker 1: where it's not falling out of the sky. It has
Speaker 1: to be going almost full speed or else it's dropping
Speaker 1: like a rock. And the pilots have a a special
Speaker 1: name for them, that little window you were, that little
Speaker 1: narrow window of of speed. Can you do you have?
Speaker 1: You did you come across that? It's it's a charming name.
Speaker 1: It is the coffin corner. Nice. So yeah, it's um yeah, pilots.
Speaker 1: Pilots have a interesting set of um of of terms
Speaker 1: for various things. They have a they have a very
Speaker 1: dry and uh realistic view of the world. So yeah,
Speaker 1: interesting designs. So why sorry, go ahead, I was gonna say, Well,
Speaker 1: the design has changed over the years somewhat. I mean
Speaker 1: they've they've made some adaptations for it. It was originally
Speaker 1: based on the F one oh four UH fighter jet,
Speaker 1: but um, you know it has they they actually the
Speaker 1: version that they fly now is somewhat longer and has
Speaker 1: they've they've upgraded the the avionics systems. In the past,
Speaker 1: they didn't originally use digital UH systems. They were using
Speaker 1: UM analog gauges, but they've they've updated all those things
Speaker 1: now and so it's a it's a much more UM.
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, the plane itself is based on
Speaker 1: the original design. It's just it's been adapted and updated
Speaker 1: as as necessary over the years have have gone by.
Speaker 1: So and for the first several years of YOU two's existence,
Speaker 1: the government of course did not admit that it had
Speaker 1: this spy plane. They said that the U two, that
Speaker 1: people knew that the YOU two existed, they just didn't
Speaker 1: know what it was for. And the reason given mostly
Speaker 1: was that it was a vehicle used to examine the
Speaker 1: weather patterns and weather conditions. It was all about gathering
Speaker 1: information about the environment. That it wasn't anything about spy plane. Well,
Speaker 1: that all changed on May one, nineteen sixty, that is
Speaker 1: when a pilot, a CIA pilot named Gary Powers, was
Speaker 1: operating a YouTube and crashed in Soviet territory. Now the
Speaker 1: cause of the crash is has always been disputed right there.
Speaker 1: There are some reports that say that what happened was
Speaker 1: he was shot down, that it was hit. The plane
Speaker 1: was hit by a Soviet missile and it caused the
Speaker 1: plane to crash. There were other reports that said that
Speaker 1: the YouTube passed through the slip stream of another vehicle,
Speaker 1: another plane, and that it caused the YOU two to
Speaker 1: go out of control and a wing ripped off of
Speaker 1: it and it crashed because of that. There's another report
Speaker 1: that said missiles were fired at the U two, but
Speaker 1: uh it exploded behind the plane, and the that the
Speaker 1: explosion was enough to send it out of control. What
Speaker 1: is known is that there was Unfortunately, there was another pilot,
Speaker 1: a Soviet pilot who was flying a MiG who actually
Speaker 1: did get hit by the missiles that were meant for
Speaker 1: the YouTube plane and died as a result. Well, Gary
Speaker 1: Powers was shot down, but he survived. However, he was
Speaker 1: he was used in a little bit of subterfuge. On
Speaker 1: top of the subterfuge he was already a part of
Speaker 1: because the mirror of the Soviet Union. Kruschev didn't let
Speaker 1: the United States know that Powers survived the crash and
Speaker 1: said what Kris Jeff did was he said, Uh, the
Speaker 1: United States have spy plane over my country and we
Speaker 1: shut it down, and you've got some splaining to do.
Speaker 1: Chris is banging the table with his shoe, So if
Speaker 1: you don't know what that's about, look up Chris Jeff
Speaker 1: and shoe. But yes, so Christeff. Christcheff was a little perturbed,
Speaker 1: said there was a spy plane over well he was
Speaker 1: an aggressive act. Yes, yeah, and how can you disagree
Speaker 1: with that? I mean it was a spy plane? Like yeah?
Speaker 1: So did the United States say? Yeah? Okay? New Because
Speaker 1: again the US, not aware that Powers was alive, went
Speaker 1: into the cover story that they had created for this
Speaker 1: sort of scenario, assuming that Powers had died. The Eisenhower
Speaker 1: administration said that the plane was just a weather research aircraft.
Speaker 1: It had accidentally moved into Soviet air space. It was
Speaker 1: not meant to be there. The pilot had actually radio
Speaker 1: that there was some problems with the equipment aboard the plane.
Speaker 1: That was specifically the oxygen equipment, because when you're flying
Speaker 1: at that height you need to have special equipment to
Speaker 1: pressurize the cabin. And in fact, the pilots of the
Speaker 1: YouTube where something that's almost like a space suit because
Speaker 1: of the otherwise you could have some real pressurization problems.
Speaker 1: So they said, no, no, no, it's just a weather aircraft.
Speaker 1: It was there were some problems that we heard about.
Speaker 1: They were supposed to be over Turkey. Uh, it was
Speaker 1: completely just a misunderstanding, and that that the plane that
Speaker 1: was shot down is probably the weather plane. It's definitely
Speaker 1: not a spy plane. And then Chris Jeff said, the
Speaker 1: pilots alive and we recovered all the information aboard the plane.
Speaker 1: It was actually in in good conditions, So we know
Speaker 1: exactly what you were looking for, and we know exactly
Speaker 1: what the purpose of this this vehicle was. And you
Speaker 1: are a big fibbing fibber. Yes. They they said that
Speaker 1: he was okay in Moscow UM and he had said
Speaker 1: he They said that he told them that he had
Speaker 1: taken off from Peshawar in Pakistan UM and he was
Speaker 1: told to fly over the Soviet Union um basically over
Speaker 1: the Errol Sea, over Sverdlovsk Kirov our King, I can't
Speaker 1: pronounce that word, Our King Glisk and Murmansk to the
Speaker 1: Bodo Military Airfield in Norway, and so they he he
Speaker 1: told them he they said he told them the exact
Speaker 1: route he was supposed to fly. Um, and of course
Speaker 1: you know that the United States after that was still saying,
Speaker 1: well that that really wasn't wasn't what was going on there.
Speaker 1: It was just very hard to deny when they had
Speaker 1: so much and there was and there was a supposed
Speaker 1: to be a summit that was going to be going on,
Speaker 1: like I think a week or two after this happened,
Speaker 1: and it caused quite a stir and international politics that
Speaker 1: this and it was it was considered to be a
Speaker 1: very huge humiliating embarrassment for the United States, and cushof
Speaker 1: h demanded that the United States stopped flying over the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union or you know, they'd leave. Do I need
Speaker 1: to take my shoe off again? Put it back on?
Speaker 1: And uh. Ultimately the international community ended up sighting more
Speaker 1: with the United States than with the Soviet Union. But
Speaker 1: other outcomes of this Powers was was tried and convicted
Speaker 1: in the Soviet Union in August that year. He was
Speaker 1: sentenced to several years of prison, followed by I think
Speaker 1: seven years of hard labor, but he ended up getting
Speaker 1: released as part of an exchange, a prisoner exchange for
Speaker 1: Rudolph Able. Yeah, and that that took place. Alright, kids,
Speaker 1: you might not know this, but when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: there were two Germany's. There's an East Germany and there
Speaker 1: was a West Germany. And the exchange actually took place
Speaker 1: on a bridge between the borders of East Berlin and
Speaker 1: West Berlin. And it was a very famous event. So
Speaker 1: now there's no longer in East Germany and West Germany,
Speaker 1: but back when I was a kid, there was, and
Speaker 1: that this is why you know this took place at
Speaker 1: that location, because there was a Soviet controlled part and
Speaker 1: there was the German controlled part. All that is in
Speaker 1: the past. Now ask your parents about the Berlin Wall, kids, Well,
Speaker 1: there there were no Really, I don't recall any other
Speaker 1: major famous incidents in which a YouTube was involved. There
Speaker 1: was the Zaropa Tour, yes, and I was wondering how
Speaker 1: long I could go without making a YouTube joke, and
Speaker 1: then the answer was twenty seven minutes. We'll get right
Speaker 1: back to the discussion about the You two spy plane
Speaker 1: and what that was all about and just the moment,
Speaker 1: but first let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor. NASA,
Speaker 1: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has used the e
Speaker 1: R two, which is basically a modified YouTube to collect
Speaker 1: information on um the on space phenomena, and on the
Speaker 1: Earth itself. So yes, in fact, it does make a
Speaker 1: pretty good uh you know, weather and observation plane for
Speaker 1: other purposes than just spying, but still being used as
Speaker 1: a as a spy plane. According to I just thought
Speaker 1: it was kind of funny. Then yeah, you know the
Speaker 1: nniles and then well, as as it turns out, you
Speaker 1: can use it for that. So I found out some
Speaker 1: more information about and I was gonna say talk about
Speaker 1: the Blackbird and about how it was supposed to be
Speaker 1: that was also developed an Area fifty one. It was
Speaker 1: originally called the A twelve that was designation then eventually
Speaker 1: was known as the s R seventy one Blackbird. It
Speaker 1: was the successor to the YouTube, but was retired and
Speaker 1: it had a useful life of between nineteen sixty four
Speaker 1: and was when it was retired for the second time.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like a professional wrestler and it
Speaker 1: retires and then comes back and then retires again, but
Speaker 1: in this case only retired the two times, and there's
Speaker 1: no real way of making more of them because they
Speaker 1: destroyed the tooling machinery back in the sixties, and they
Speaker 1: built the Blackbird, the idea being that they didn't want
Speaker 1: it to fall into any other hands, and so this
Speaker 1: was a way of maintaining secrecy. The downside of that
Speaker 1: is that once you run out of blackbirds, you don't
Speaker 1: have any more of them. Uh, there's no way to
Speaker 1: make more UM. And so they actually had a lot
Speaker 1: of issues with that, and there were several blackbirds that
Speaker 1: were involved in various accidents and incidents that made them
Speaker 1: either they either were destroyed as a result or they
Speaker 1: were inoperable. Uh. So they now all exist pretty much
Speaker 1: in museums. I think there might be one or two
Speaker 1: that UM belonged to NASA, actually, but there aren't any
Speaker 1: that are being used in military service. So the Air
Speaker 1: Force has stopped using the Blackbird. Well, you know, that
Speaker 1: was supposed to be the successor to the You two,
Speaker 1: but they again stopped being used in ninety eight. The
Speaker 1: YouTube kept going since. According to the Air Force, about
Speaker 1: one point seven billion with a B dollars have been
Speaker 1: poured into the YouTube program to keep it up to date,
Speaker 1: to modernize it, make sure that it's you know, operating
Speaker 1: at at a level that that modern warfare and modern
Speaker 1: politics demands because you know, we've got a lot more
Speaker 1: sophisticated with the ways that we detect stuff. So in
Speaker 1: order to stay ahead, it had a lot more money
Speaker 1: to be poured into it. And according to one source
Speaker 1: I saw, since two thousand and three, the Air Force
Speaker 1: has flown more than ninety five thousand hours using the
Speaker 1: you two keep in mind there only thirty three of
Speaker 1: these things. That's pretty impressive. Yeah, yeah, Well, the uh,
Speaker 1: in case you're wondering, the r Q four UH may
Speaker 1: not be off the table. Um. It is presumed that
Speaker 1: North Grumman, the company that makes well, the primary company
Speaker 1: that makes it, will try to get it put back
Speaker 1: into the into the budget, and it may just be
Speaker 1: that it's a delay more than anything else. In fact,
Speaker 1: most of those sources I saw was that it's it's
Speaker 1: that the date keeps getting pushed back, like originally the
Speaker 1: the YouTube was supposed to be retired by the most
Speaker 1: recent date I saw it was, Yeah, and then I
Speaker 1: saw one that said it may be flying as late
Speaker 1: as twenty fifty, which means it would be a hundred
Speaker 1: years old almost. Yeah. Yeah, well, you know, and uh,
Speaker 1: it takes three people to fly in r Q four.
Speaker 1: You know, you have to have an l R E pilot,
Speaker 1: an m C E pilot, and a sensor operator and
Speaker 1: it only flies up to sixty thousand feet which is
Speaker 1: about eighteen thousand two eights um UH has a maximum
Speaker 1: speed of three seven miles per hour about three knots
Speaker 1: um So, you know, it's it's comparable in some ways,
Speaker 1: but in others. You know, the YouTube still outdoes it.
Speaker 1: So um it's it's impressive stuff. But it's kind of
Speaker 1: funny to me that that tried and true you two
Speaker 1: is still hanging in there despite all these other things
Speaker 1: that that could replace it. Yeah. Part of that is
Speaker 1: the the qualities of the U two, and part of
Speaker 1: that is is purely economical, just that you know, there's
Speaker 1: just not the money to replace it, and that you know,
Speaker 1: we do have a need for reconnaissance vehicles. And you
Speaker 1: might ask, well, why do we need that, because we've
Speaker 1: got satellites now, right, we got satellites that can spy
Speaker 1: on stuff. And that's true, we do have satellites, but
Speaker 1: satellites are not yeah stuff the beats. Satellites are not
Speaker 1: capable of of focusing in on a very specific region
Speaker 1: at a reasonable amount of time in many cases. So
Speaker 1: it may be that you've got a great view of
Speaker 1: this one region, but the problem is that the issue
Speaker 1: that you need to look at is just outside of
Speaker 1: that that view, and in order to change the view
Speaker 1: on the satellite's going to take hours, whereas you could
Speaker 1: send a YouTube plane stationed in a nearby country to
Speaker 1: fly over and get a look right then and there.
Speaker 1: And the way the world works, we need information instantly.
Speaker 1: We can't wait anymore. So yeah, for for instance, they
Speaker 1: might have intelligence that a specific operation is going on
Speaker 1: right now, and they're going to hide whatever it is
Speaker 1: that they're moving, you know, some some kind of weapons
Speaker 1: technology or some you know, uh, something like that, or
Speaker 1: or a caravan of people or something. You know, it
Speaker 1: could be a variety of things that you want to see.
Speaker 1: Um and by the time the Earth rotates back to
Speaker 1: where the satellite could take a good picture of it,
Speaker 1: it'll be too late. Yeah. Um. So that kind of thing, yep, yep,
Speaker 1: spy stuff is cool and scary, Yes it is. But
Speaker 1: oh but and it did play a major part in
Speaker 1: the the Cuban missile crisis in the nineteen six was
Speaker 1: able to get a good picture of what was going
Speaker 1: on there between the Soviets and the Cubans. Um, do
Speaker 1: you and you know we didn't mention it. But do
Speaker 1: you know what the nickname is for the YouTube? Oh?
Speaker 1: I did see it a moment ago, and then I
Speaker 1: scrolled past it in my notes. I'm surprised I didn't
Speaker 1: mention it already. It is the Dragon Lady. Yes you don't.
Speaker 1: You don't hear it mentioned. The you two is well
Speaker 1: known enough by it by its normal designation that you
Speaker 1: don't really hear the nickname very often, like the SR
Speaker 1: seventy one Blackbird for example. But yeah, that's a cool name.
Speaker 1: Cool name. All right, Well, this wraps up this discussion
Speaker 1: about the you tube. Like I said, we'll try and
Speaker 1: do one about Area fifty one specifically. At some point
Speaker 1: I can talk about the other vehicles and technologies that
Speaker 1: came out of that research facility. Uh, and also talk
Speaker 1: about why it was so secret and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole craziness that surrounds Area fifty one and and
Speaker 1: how it plays a part in conspiracy theories. Because you
Speaker 1: know it does, you might not have heard about it. Um,
Speaker 1: you need to watch this documentary series called The X Files.
Speaker 1: It goes all into it. But now we'll, uh, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that and we'll we'll give a full rundown
Speaker 1: on you know, what was believed to happen at Area
Speaker 1: is what really happened at Area fifty one. And when
Speaker 1: I say really, there were no aliens involved. I really
Speaker 1: hope that you guys enjoyed that classic episode about You two,
Speaker 1: because I can't live with or without you. I know
Speaker 1: it's a terrible reference to a YouTube song. No, seriously,
Speaker 1: the You two spy plane is one of my favorite
Speaker 1: topics that we've covered on tech Stuff, largely because it
Speaker 1: ties into another topic I loved a lot, which is
Speaker 1: an Area fifty one. But I hope you guys enjoyed
Speaker 1: that episode. If you have suggestions for future episodes of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, why not write me the email addresses tech
Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot com, or you can
Speaker 1: pop on over to our website that's tech Stuff Podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. You'll find different ways to contact us, as
Speaker 1: well as the archive of all the old shows. And
Speaker 1: don't forget to head on over to our store that's
Speaker 1: t public dot com slash tech Stuff. We've got lots
Speaker 1: of cool designs over there for all sorts of stuff,
Speaker 1: from T shirts to tote bags, to stickers, and lots
Speaker 1: of other things too. Every purchase who make goes to
Speaker 1: help the show. We greatly appreciate it, and I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon. For more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com