Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and
Speaker 1: I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me, as always his senior writer Jonathan Strickland,
Speaker 1: it was like, so, but wasn't. This is the second
Speaker 1: podcast we've recorded today, and the second really short quote.
Speaker 1: This is what happens when I run out of time
Speaker 1: and I need to find a quote very quickly. I think, no,
Speaker 1: that one's too long. I can't read it to make
Speaker 1: sure there's nothing objectionable in it. All, right, then well,
Speaker 1: speaking of objectionable and thinking of things that were like so,
Speaker 1: but weren't okay, then we were um We were going
Speaker 1: to talk today about an interesting thing that I saw
Speaker 1: the other day, which is um Well. In a way,
Speaker 1: it's sort of a drug own because it starts with
Speaker 1: a the r Q for Global Hawk, a drone aircraft
Speaker 1: that is um Well. It's status is sort of in
Speaker 1: question right now, as at the time we're recording this,
Speaker 1: there negotiating the budget for UH the United you know,
Speaker 1: the defense budget for the United States of America. UM,
Speaker 1: and UH, that's one of the items that was considered
Speaker 1: to be struck. Now, of course, UM, over the past
Speaker 1: few years, unmanned aerial vehicles have been UH coming up
Speaker 1: a lot in the news. They've been instrumental in several
Speaker 1: of the military engagements around the world with the United States,
Speaker 1: I mean, US has has employed unman aerial vehicles in
Speaker 1: lots of cases. The proposal was that there would be
Speaker 1: three d forty two million dollars budgeted UM to UH
Speaker 1: to work on the Global Hawk and UM. As it
Speaker 1: turns out, it's been proposed that they dropped the item
Speaker 1: entirely in favor of a much more uh much more
Speaker 1: or less cutting edge technology in a way. And the
Speaker 1: reason one of the reasons to talking about cutting this
Speaker 1: whole Global Hawk thing is because, uh, it's expensive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the estimated cost of a single Global Hawk is a
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy six million dollars. That's expensive. So they
Speaker 1: had they had enough. They had just they didn't even
Speaker 1: quite have enough money in the budget for two of them.
Speaker 1: So you could get one and seven eighths of a
Speaker 1: Global Hawk for the budget they had proposed, So the
Speaker 1: the alternative right now for a and the purpose of
Speaker 1: the Global Hawk, we should say, is it's reconnaissance aircraft. Yes,
Speaker 1: it doesn't attack people, it is it is their for
Speaker 1: surveillance purposes, specifically spying. Yes. So, you know, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of unmanned aerial vehicles that have been developed
Speaker 1: over the last several years. Many of them are designed
Speaker 1: to get a real time uh feel of what's going
Speaker 1: on in certain environments. And they they're designed to do
Speaker 1: things like fly through areas that could be combat zones,
Speaker 1: but they're not necessarily designed to spy, to be able
Speaker 1: to fly through undetected. It's more about getting as quick
Speaker 1: and accurate a picture of the situation as it exists
Speaker 1: right now, rather than let's go find out what those
Speaker 1: pesky so and so's over there are doing. So are
Speaker 1: pesky so and so technology tends to be much more sneaky,
Speaker 1: and it's designed to be very fast. Usually it's designed
Speaker 1: to fly very very high, so that can try to
Speaker 1: avoid things like radar as well as missiles, you know,
Speaker 1: attempts to take it down, uh. And it's designed to
Speaker 1: try and gather as much information as quickly as possible. Uh.
Speaker 1: And since the nineteen fifties, that technology has been one
Speaker 1: particular type of aircraft in the United States. Even though
Speaker 1: we've tried to replace it on multiple occasions, we're still
Speaker 1: using it today and the it's what we will be
Speaker 1: using instead of the Global Hawk, the Lockheed U two. Yes,
Speaker 1: I believe it or not. Um they're saying that the
Speaker 1: the U two is actually a better piece of technology
Speaker 1: and in some ways than the the newer unmanned aerial vehicle.
Speaker 1: And like I said, the replacement for the U two
Speaker 1: has has was built and was retired already, which was
Speaker 1: the SR seventy one Blackbird that we'll get into that.
Speaker 1: It's a gorgeous design, right. So they have the Blackbird,
Speaker 1: which was designed to be the replacement for the U two.
Speaker 1: It actually lived out its useful life in the U
Speaker 1: S Air Force and then was retired because well, it's
Speaker 1: really expensive to maintain as well. In fact, well, and
Speaker 1: I'll talk about why it was expensive to maintain, because
Speaker 1: that's kind of an interesting story. But to to understand
Speaker 1: the U two, we have to go back quite a bit.
Speaker 1: And we're not going to use the way back machine
Speaker 1: because I found out that stuff. You should know used
Speaker 1: it about a week and a half ago, and apparently
Speaker 1: they left it somewhere like they actually hoofed it back
Speaker 1: from seven And I have no idea what they were
Speaker 1: doing back then. But yeah, so I have no idea.
Speaker 1: We have to track it down, so we're just have
Speaker 1: to talk about today, all right then, But um so,
Speaker 1: then you would probably go back in time if we
Speaker 1: were using the machine to uh about Well, August nine
Speaker 1: is the first day it ever flew, Yes, August one,
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five, it's the first flight of the YouTube. Now,
Speaker 1: the whole purpose for developing the YouTube stems out of
Speaker 1: the Cold War between the United States and the then
Speaker 1: ussry Soviet Union. Um So, the whole reason for it
Speaker 1: was that we needed to have we being the United States,
Speaker 1: because from the US the Unit and States needed to
Speaker 1: have some sort of vehicle to get an idea of
Speaker 1: what was going on in a potential uh UM wartime enemy.
Speaker 1: And the Cold War was was called the Cold War
Speaker 1: because it wasn't like there were actual physical outbreaks of
Speaker 1: violence between the two countries, but there was a true
Speaker 1: rivalry of global proportions going on between the two and
Speaker 1: so we there were needs each each country felt the
Speaker 1: need to find out as much about what was going
Speaker 1: on in the other country as possible, and so they
Speaker 1: were developing their own ways of spying on each other.
Speaker 1: Of course, this also figured into the space race. Um.
Speaker 1: We've talked about the thing what beeped Sputnick sput Nick
Speaker 1: that they sent up from the Soviet Union. Um shortly
Speaker 1: after that period, but it was around the same time
Speaker 1: they were looking for ways to spy on each other.
Speaker 1: Of course, satellite technology entered into it, but the YouTube
Speaker 1: predates because I mean it was already flying by that point. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this is during the Eisenhower administration in the United
Speaker 1: States history and uh, and so there were several the government,
Speaker 1: the United States government actually invited several different companies to
Speaker 1: submit proposals for a spy plane. That's pretty typical, right,
Speaker 1: And the company that one out was Lockeed And there
Speaker 1: was a fellow by the name of Clarence Kelly Johnson
Speaker 1: who was put in charge of the development of this
Speaker 1: spy plane. Johnson also was instrumental in creating the facility
Speaker 1: that was the testing grounds for this particular airplane, and
Speaker 1: that facility has gone on to gain incredible notoriety. Yes,
Speaker 1: partially because it was very innovative, and partially because it
Speaker 1: just has a very cool name, and it was very,
Speaker 1: very very secret about everything. And that cool name, at
Speaker 1: least that's the popular name for it, is Area fifty one.
Speaker 1: So 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 uh I
Speaker 1: think in the future we're going to have to do
Speaker 1: a podcast all about Area fifty one because it was
Speaker 1: such a cool place. It's not really not really a
Speaker 1: thing anymore, but it was definitely a neat idea and
Speaker 1: some really cool technology was developed there. Anyway, getting back
Speaker 1: to the YouTube, it's got a now and this this
Speaker 1: sucker can fly at at altitudes of more than seventy
Speaker 1: thousand feet. Yes. Um, that's pretty high up. Least that's
Speaker 1: when you think about commercial jet liners or tend to
Speaker 1: be between thirty and thirty five thousand feet sometimes a
Speaker 1: little higher. Uh, you know, it's more than twice as
Speaker 1: high up. And uh it was built. It was built
Speaker 1: with a really really long wings almost like a glider,
Speaker 1: and a very light air frame. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: go ahead. The wingspan of the U two is about
Speaker 1: a hundred and five feet or you know, thirty two
Speaker 1: meters or so. The length is sixty three ft or
Speaker 1: about nineteen point two meters, and height, uh sixteen feet
Speaker 1: about four point eight meters. It only weighs sixteen thousand pounds,
Speaker 1: which when you think about it, is pretty light. That's
Speaker 1: pretty remarkable. Yeah. It's got one General Electric FE een
Speaker 1: Dash one oh one engine. Yeah, although there were other
Speaker 1: engines used in the U tube during its entire history. Uh.
Speaker 1: There Uh, there's a J fifty seven turbojet engine, the
Speaker 1: J seventy five turbojet engine, and then the General Electric
Speaker 1: F one eight team turbo fan engine. Uh. They have
Speaker 1: all been used in you two's throughout its history of
Speaker 1: its service in the United States. Also, before we get
Speaker 1: too much further into the technical details, one of their
Speaker 1: interesting elements. Originally this was pitched to the Air Force.
Speaker 1: The Air Force decided it did not The Air Force
Speaker 1: decided not to fund it. The funding came from the CIA,
Speaker 1: so the Central Intelligence Agency is actually responsible for the
Speaker 1: development of the you tube and UH. In fact, the
Speaker 1: pilots of those early you two's were all CIA pilots
Speaker 1: because the idea was that if you had a a
Speaker 1: plane go down and the pilot of that plane was
Speaker 1: a member of the United States military, it could look
Speaker 1: like a military action against another country. Because you were
Speaker 1: a 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. UM.
Speaker 1: And uh it does have you know, advanced radar capabilities
Speaker 1: as well. UM. So it's it's certainly able to pay
Speaker 1: a lot of attention to what's going on in the
Speaker 1: world around it. Um, even from the altitudes that they
Speaker 1: can reach. Does have a crew of one, we know
Speaker 1: that much. Yeah, it's it's designed to be a one
Speaker 1: person aircraft. I have heard that there are a few
Speaker 1: examples of two man youtubs, but they are specifically built
Speaker 1: for training purposes. They are not they're not actually used
Speaker 1: in service. Uh. It does. It can reach a speed
Speaker 1: 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 SR seventy one
Speaker 1: was developed was they wanted the government wanted something that
Speaker 1: was even faster and could fly even higher than the
Speaker 1: U two, And the SR seventy one could do both
Speaker 1: those things. It could fly at an altitude around ninety
Speaker 1: thousand feet and it could fly very fast. Indeed, yes,
Speaker 1: which works for the X men. Yes, sort of um
Speaker 1: and often than not. And if you're wondering, there are
Speaker 1: about thirty three of them. They are still active. Um
Speaker 1: And Yeah. Despite as as Jonathan said earlier, just Bite
Speaker 1: attempts to phase them out as older, outmoded technology. They're
Speaker 1: 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 drawback because of the Blackbird
Speaker 1: was that it did not have a data link. So
Speaker 1: when you sent a Blackbird out on a mission in
Speaker 1: the dead of night, you had to wait for it
Speaker 1: to come back and dump all that information for you
Speaker 1: to be able to look at it. You couldn't get
Speaker 1: updates as the mission was going on, at least not
Speaker 1: of all the data that it was collecting. You know.
Speaker 1: The pilot could communicate, presumably, but smartphone, yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: nap for that. But flying over foreign power l O
Speaker 1: L nice TfL uh the uh the only uh. There's
Speaker 1: some other interesting things about the YouTube. It's landing gear
Speaker 1: it has. You know, most most aircraft that we think
Speaker 1: of today has have the landing gear where there's the
Speaker 1: one set of wheels up front and then the two
Speaker 1: set of wheels in the backs. It's almost like a tricycle,
Speaker 1: you know. YouTube does not have that. It has more
Speaker 1: like a bicycle set up. It's got one the front
Speaker 1: set of wheels and back set of wheels are in
Speaker 1: line with one another. Now, it does have a wheels
Speaker 1: call pogoes that are attached to the wings for takeoff,
Speaker 1: so to give it stability when you're taking off with
Speaker 1: a you two, but then once you take off, you
Speaker 1: jettison those wheels they're gone and you only when you're
Speaker 1: coming into land you only have those two sets of wheels.
Speaker 1: So you're thinking, how can you maintain balance? Well, the
Speaker 1: wings have skids on them to protect the wings. It's
Speaker 1: apparently really really hard to fly you two and and
Speaker 1: more so not just because of the landing thing, although
Speaker 1: landing apparently is one of the most difficult maneuvers you
Speaker 1: can do with the YouTube. Because the wings are so wide,
Speaker 1: the a little cross wind can very much affect the
Speaker 1: you two, it can start gliding off track, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's really hard to correct for that. Another issue
Speaker 1: is that it's designed to fly at a very high altitude.
Speaker 1: We'll add that altitude, the atmosphere is not as thick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a thinner atmosphere. Well, in order to give precise
Speaker 1: controls at that altitude, the controls are extremely responsive when
Speaker 1: you are flying through a very thin atmosphere. So just
Speaker 1: a tiny little adjustment by the pilot is going to
Speaker 1: result in a pretty dramatic change in the plane's behavior.
Speaker 1: All Right, when you start going down, you start descending
Speaker 1: in the atmosphere is starting to get thicker. Suddenly, those
Speaker 1: controls aren't as responsive and you have to do more
Speaker 1: to get the plane to do what you wanted to do.
Speaker 1: So as you're descending from that height where you're actually
Speaker 1: spying and everything, and you're coming down, uh, the plane
Speaker 1: becomes less responsive and the pilot has to use a
Speaker 1: lot more force to get the plane to do what
Speaker 1: he wants it or she wants it to do. And
Speaker 1: and so it is supposed to be or supposedly one
Speaker 1: of the most difficult aircraft master because the two sets
Speaker 1: of flying UH scenarios are so different. As if that
Speaker 1: weren't enough, Because of the way the plane is configured,
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to see out of um that
Speaker 1: the nose is very long, and it's difficult to see
Speaker 1: out the back because of the tail. So as a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, Uh, Jonathan I, I've actually seen information
Speaker 1: that suggests that many pilots call it the most difficult
Speaker 1: plane in the world to fly, and and it actually
Speaker 1: requires in some instances, actually requires a second set of eyes.
Speaker 1: Somebody else will go up after the you two to
Speaker 1: help it get down, somebody who's sort of if you will,
Speaker 1: it's sort of a visual spot and they go, you know,
Speaker 1: there's sometimes lined up. Sometimes it's a person in a
Speaker 1: souped up car. As a second, a second YouTube pilot
Speaker 1: who is being driven on in a souped up car
Speaker 1: going alongside the plane as it's coming down and giving
Speaker 1: verbal directions to the pilot. So the pilot hasn't indication
Speaker 1: of how far they are from the surface and whether
Speaker 1: they need to make any adjustments, so they'll be in
Speaker 1: a car traveling at a pretty good clip of speed.
Speaker 1: See that was my That was my assumption because it
Speaker 1: said my notes say high performance vehicle, and it didn't
Speaker 1: say what kind of vehicle. Yes, yeah, it was a
Speaker 1: high performance car, the Blues Mobile. Actually they just check
Speaker 1: they have that that megaphone on top and the alright,
Speaker 1: is what you gotta do? You gotta go down two
Speaker 1: ft two ft anyway? Um, so yeah, there's that, and
Speaker 1: then there's also uh, some other interesting things about the YouTube.
Speaker 1: Another reason why it's so hard to fly is that
Speaker 1: it has to almost always be flying near the maximum
Speaker 1: speed of the vehicle. And the reason for that is
Speaker 1: because if it starts to get down below about nineteen
Speaker 1: kilometers per hour below maximum speed, which is ten knots.
Speaker 1: When it starts to drop below ten knots from its
Speaker 1: maximum speed. At whatever altitude it's at, it starts to stall. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, there's a really narrow window of performance
Speaker 1: that the plane can operate at where it's not falling
Speaker 1: out of the sky. It has to be going almost
Speaker 1: full speed or else it's dropping like a rock. And uh,
Speaker 1: the pilots have a a special name for that, that
Speaker 1: little window you were, that little narrow window of of speed.
Speaker 1: Can you do you have you? Did you come across
Speaker 1: that did not? It's it's a charming name. It is
Speaker 1: 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 realistic view of the world. So yeah, interesting designs.
Speaker 1: 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 a vehicle used to examine
Speaker 1: the weather patterns and weather conditions. It was all about
Speaker 1: gathering information about the environment. That it wasn't anything about
Speaker 1: spy plane. Well, that all changed on May one, nineteen sixty,
Speaker 1: that is when a pilot, a CIA pilot named Gary Powers,
Speaker 1: was operating a YouTube and crashed in Soviet territory. Now,
Speaker 1: the cause of the crash is has always been disputed
Speaker 1: right there. There are some reports that say that what
Speaker 1: happened was he was shot down, that it was hit.
Speaker 1: The plane was was hit by a Soviet missile and
Speaker 1: it caused the plane to crash. There were other reports
Speaker 1: that said that the YouTube passed through the slip stream
Speaker 1: of another vehicle, another plane, and that it caused the
Speaker 1: you two to go out of control and a wing
Speaker 1: ripped off of it and it crashed because of that.
Speaker 1: There's another report that said missiles were fired at the Utuo,
Speaker 1: but uh it exploded behind the plane, and the that
Speaker 1: the explosion was enough to send it out of control.
Speaker 1: What is known is that there was unfortunately, there was
Speaker 1: another pilot, a Soviet pilot who was flying a MiG
Speaker 1: who actually did get hit by the missiles that were
Speaker 1: meant for the YouTube plane and died as a result. Well,
Speaker 1: Gary Powers was shot down, but he survived. However, he
Speaker 1: was he was used in a little bit of subterfuge
Speaker 1: on top of the subterfuge he was already a part of.
Speaker 1: Because the premier of the Soviet Union, Kruscheff, didn't let
Speaker 1: the United States know that Powers survived the crash. Instead,
Speaker 1: what krus Jeff did was he said, uh, the United
Speaker 1: States had a 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 Christeff and Shoe.
Speaker 1: But yes, so Christeff. Christeff was a little perturbed, said
Speaker 1: there was a spy plane over well he was an
Speaker 1: aggressive act. Yes, yeah, and how can you disagree with that?
Speaker 1: I mean it was a spy plane, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So did the United States say? Yeah? Okay? Now, 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 airspace. It was not
Speaker 1: meant to be there. The pilot had actually radio that
Speaker 1: 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. Yes,
Speaker 1: because 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 rals the Ore 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 told them,
Speaker 1: he they said, he told them the exact route he
Speaker 1: was supposed to fly UM. And of course you know
Speaker 1: that the United States after that was still saying, well
Speaker 1: 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 kruschof
Speaker 1: Uh demanded that the United States stopped flying over the
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union or you know, they'd leave. Do I
Speaker 1: need to take my shoe off? And Uh. Ultimately the
Speaker 1: international community ended up sighting more with the United States
Speaker 1: than with the Soviet Union. But other outcomes of this
Speaker 1: Powers was was tried and convicted in the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: He was sentenced to several years of prison, followed by
Speaker 1: I think seven years of hard labor. But he ended
Speaker 1: up getting released as part of an exchange, a prisoner exchange. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that that took place, all right, kids, you might
Speaker 1: not know this, but when I was a kid, there
Speaker 1: were two Germany's. There's an East Germany and there was
Speaker 1: a West Germany. And the exchange actually took place on
Speaker 1: a bridge between the borders of East Berlin and West
Speaker 1: Berlin and it was a very famous event. So now
Speaker 1: there's no longer in East Germany and West Germany. But
Speaker 1: back when I was a kid, there was and that
Speaker 1: this is what you know, this took place at that
Speaker 1: location because there was a so be a controlled part
Speaker 1: and there was the German controlled part. All that is
Speaker 1: in the past. Now ask your parents about the Berlin
Speaker 1: Wall kids. Well there, um, there were no Really, I
Speaker 1: don't recall any other major famous incidents in which a
Speaker 1: YouTube was involved. There was the Zaropa tour, yes, and
Speaker 1: I was wondering how long I could go without making
Speaker 1: a YouTube joke, and then the answer was twenty seven minutes. Um.
Speaker 1: But ironically enough, I find um uh. NASA, the National
Speaker 1: Aeronautics and Space Administration, has used the e R two,
Speaker 1: which is a basically a modified YouTube, to collect information
Speaker 1: on um the on space phenomena and and on the
Speaker 1: Earth itself. So yes, in fact, it does make a
Speaker 1: pretty good uh you know, weather in and observation plane
Speaker 1: for other purposes than just yeah, but still being used
Speaker 1: as a as a spy plane. According to I just
Speaker 1: thought it was kind of funny then yeah. You well,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, you can't use it for that
Speaker 1: so I found out some more information about and I
Speaker 1: was gonna say talk about the blackbird and about how
Speaker 1: it was supposed to be. That was also developed an
Speaker 1: Area fifty one. It was originally called the A twelve
Speaker 1: that was designation then eventually was known as the s
Speaker 1: R seventy one Blackbird UM. It was the successor to
Speaker 1: the YouTube but was retired and it had a useful
Speaker 1: life of between nineteen sixty four and was when it
Speaker 1: was retired for the second time. So it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a professional wrestler and it retires and then comes
Speaker 1: back and then retires again, but in this case only
Speaker 1: retired the two times. And there's no real way of
Speaker 1: making more of them because they destroyed the tooling machinery
Speaker 1: back in the sixties and they built the blackbird, the
Speaker 1: idea being that they didn't want it to fall into
Speaker 1: any other hands, and so this was a way of
Speaker 1: maintaining secrecy. The downside of that is that once you
Speaker 1: run out of blackbirds, you don't have any more of them. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's no way to make more UM. And so they
Speaker 1: actually had a lot of issues with that, and there
Speaker 1: were several blackbirds that were involved in various accidents and
Speaker 1: incidence that made them either they either were destroyed as
Speaker 1: a result or they were inoperable. Uh So they now
Speaker 1: all exist pretty much in museums. I think there might
Speaker 1: be one or two that um belonged to NASA actually,
Speaker 1: but there aren't any that are being used in military service.
Speaker 1: So the Air Force has stopped using the Blackbird. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, that was supposed to be the successor to
Speaker 1: the You two, but they again stopped being used in
Speaker 1: ninety eight. The You two kept going since. According to
Speaker 1: the Air Force, about one point seven billion with a
Speaker 1: B dollars have been poured into the YouTube program to
Speaker 1: keep it up to date, to modernize it, make sure
Speaker 1: that it's you know, operating at at a level that
Speaker 1: that modern warfare and modern politics demands, because you know,
Speaker 1: we've got a lot more sophisticated with the ways that
Speaker 1: we detect stuff. So in order to stay ahead, it
Speaker 1: had a lot more money to be poured into it.
Speaker 1: And according to one source I saw, since two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, the Air Force has flown more than ninety
Speaker 1: five thousand hours using the You two. Keep in mind
Speaker 1: there only thirty three of these things. That's pretty impressive. Yeah, yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: the uh in case you're wondering, the r Q four
Speaker 1: may not be off the table. Um, it is presumed
Speaker 1: that North Grumman, the company that makes well, the primary
Speaker 1: company that makes it, will try to get it put
Speaker 1: back into the into the budget. And it may just
Speaker 1: be that it's a delay more than anything else. In fact,
Speaker 1: most of the sources I saw was that it's it's
Speaker 1: that the date keeps getting pushed back, like originally the
Speaker 1: the youtwo was supposed to be retired by the most
Speaker 1: date I saw it was yeah, And then I saw
Speaker 1: one that said it may be flying as late as
Speaker 1: twenty fifty, which means it would be a hundred years
Speaker 1: old almost. Yeah. Yeah, well you know, and uh, it
Speaker 1: takes three people to fly in r Q four. You know,
Speaker 1: you have to have a 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 thou feet which is
Speaker 1: about eighteen thousand, two eights um. It uh has a
Speaker 1: maximum speed of three seven miles per hour about three
Speaker 1: knots 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. She said, 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 that beats. Satellites are not
Speaker 1: capable of focusing in on a very specific region at
Speaker 1: a reasonable amount of time in many cases, So it
Speaker 1: may be that you've got a great view of this
Speaker 1: one region, but the problem is that the issue that
Speaker 1: you need to look at is just outside of that
Speaker 1: that view, and in order to change the view on
Speaker 1: the satellite is 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. Um. So that kind of thing, yep, yep,
Speaker 1: spy stuff is cool and scary, Yes it is. But um. Oh,
Speaker 1: but and it did play a major part in the
Speaker 1: the Cuban missile crisis in the nineties, was able to
Speaker 1: get a good picture of what was going on there
Speaker 1: between the Soviets and the Cubans. Um do you and
Speaker 1: you know we didn't mention it, But do you know
Speaker 1: what the nickname is for the YouTube? Oh? I did
Speaker 1: see it a moment ago, and then I scrolled past
Speaker 1: it in my notes. I'm surprised I didn't mention it already.
Speaker 1: It is the Dragon Lady. Yes you don't. You don't
Speaker 1: hear it mentioned? The you two is well known enough
Speaker 1: by it by its normal designation that you don't really
Speaker 1: hear the nickname very often, like the SR seventy one
Speaker 1: Blackbird for example. But yeah, that's a cool name. Cool name.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, this wraps up this discussion about the YouTube.
Speaker 1: Like I said, we'll try and do one about Area
Speaker 1: fifty one specifically. At some point we can talk about
Speaker 1: the other vehicles and technologies that came out of that
Speaker 1: research facility, uh, and also talk about why it was
Speaker 1: so secret and uh, you know, the whole craziness that
Speaker 1: surrounds Area fifty one and and how it plays a
Speaker 1: part in conspiracy theories because you know it does, you
Speaker 1: might not have heard about it. Um, you need to
Speaker 1: watch this documentary series called The X Files goes all
Speaker 1: into it. But now we'll, uh, we'll talk about that
Speaker 1: and we'll we'll give a full rundown on you know,
Speaker 1: what was believed to happen at area is what really
Speaker 1: happened at Area fifty one? And when I say really
Speaker 1: there were no aliens involved, I was gonna say, is
Speaker 1: this one of those posters that's been on my Facebook
Speaker 1: feed with what my parents think I do, what I
Speaker 1: actually do? Gosh, I hope that means dead um, all right,
Speaker 1: so we just whoops, took an air to me wrapping
Speaker 1: us up. All right, guys, have a great one. If
Speaker 1: you have any suggestions for topics that we should cover
Speaker 1: in future episodes of tech Stuff, let us know by
Speaker 1: emailing us at tech Stuff at Discovery dot com, or
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