Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from Stuff
Speaker 1: from stat Co. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland, and I'm bringing you another classic episode
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff. If you guys haven't figured this out,
Speaker 1: I am preparing for a vacation and it means that
Speaker 1: I have to add in extra recording time. But unfortunately,
Speaker 1: getting extra time for potential co hosts is a really
Speaker 1: challenging thing. So I've recorded a couple of you know,
Speaker 1: updates to old episodes. This time, I want to talk
Speaker 1: about the U two spy plane. You know. Recently Ben
Speaker 1: Boland joined me for an episode about the super secret
Speaker 1: space plane and what it might be up to, uh,
Speaker 1: and that reminded me of this classic episode of tex
Speaker 1: Stuff about the U two spy plane. Also, I was
Speaker 1: thinking about the U two spy plane because I still
Speaker 1: have uh my Negative Land episode on the brain. If
Speaker 1: you missed that episode, should definitely check it out. It's
Speaker 1: really awesome. Nold did an amazing job producing that episode.
Speaker 1: And of course Negative Land is the performance group that
Speaker 1: got into a little bit of legal trouble when they
Speaker 1: had a sort of spoof on a YouTube song Come Out,
Speaker 1: but you can hear all about that in the episode
Speaker 1: about Negative Land. Oh and I also was thinking about YouTube,
Speaker 1: because even though it happened months ago, it still kind
Speaker 1: of makes me chuckle that Apple essentially forced a new
Speaker 1: YouTube album onto everyone who owns an iPhone, whether they
Speaker 1: wanted it or not. Obviously that didn't pan out exactly
Speaker 1: the way they had planned. The best intentions did not
Speaker 1: lead to the best outcomes in that case, but pretty
Speaker 1: amusing at any rate. YouTube has been on my mind.
Speaker 1: So it's time to talk about the actual spy plane,
Speaker 1: not the band, not the Negative Land piece. But it's
Speaker 1: an interesting story. I hope you enjoyed this classic episode
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff as Chris Polette and I look back
Speaker 1: about where that spy plane came from and how it
Speaker 1: played such an important role in surveillance over the years.
Speaker 1: We were going to talk today about an interesting thing
Speaker 1: that I saw the other day, which is um Well.
Speaker 1: In a way, it's sort of a drone because it
Speaker 1: starts with a the r Q for Global Hawk, a
Speaker 1: drone aircraft that is um Well. It's status is sort
Speaker 1: of in question right now, as at the time we're
Speaker 1: recording this, there negotiating the budget for uh, the United
Speaker 1: you know, the defense budget for the United States of
Speaker 1: America UM, and UH that's one of the items that
Speaker 1: was considered to be struck. Now, of course, UM, over
Speaker 1: the past few years, unmanned aerial vehicles have been UH
Speaker 1: coming up a lot in the news. They've been instrumental
Speaker 1: in several of the military engagements around the world with
Speaker 1: the United States, I mean, US has has employed unman
Speaker 1: aerial vehicles in lots of cases. The proposal was that
Speaker 1: there would be three d forty two million dollars budgeted
Speaker 1: UM to UH to work on the Global Hawk and UM.
Speaker 1: As it turns out, it's been proposed that they dropped
Speaker 1: the item entirely in favor of a much more uh,
Speaker 1: much more less cutting edge technology in a way. And
Speaker 1: the reason one of the reasons to talk about cutting
Speaker 1: this 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 can 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 air craft. Yes,
Speaker 1: it doesn't attack people, it is it is their for
Speaker 1: surveillance purposes, specifically spying. So you know, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of unmanned aerial vehicles that have been developed over
Speaker 1: the last several years. Many of them are designed to
Speaker 1: get a real time uh feel of what's going on
Speaker 1: in certain environments. And they they're designed to do things
Speaker 1: like fly through areas that could be combat zones, but
Speaker 1: they're not necessarily designed to spy to be able to
Speaker 1: fly through undetected. It's more about getting as quick and
Speaker 1: accurate a picture of the situation as it exists right now,
Speaker 1: rather than let's go find out what those pesky so
Speaker 1: and so is over there are doing. So are pesky
Speaker 1: 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. But 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 YouTube.
Speaker 1: It actually lived out it's useful life in the US
Speaker 1: Air Force and then was retired because well, it's really
Speaker 1: expensive to maintain as well. In fact, well, and I'll
Speaker 1: talk about why it was expensive to maintain, because that's
Speaker 1: kind of an interesting story. But to to understand the
Speaker 1: You 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 gonna
Speaker 1: have 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 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: USSR Soviet Union. Um So, the whole reason for it
Speaker 1: was that we needed to have weaving the United States
Speaker 1: because from the US the United States needed to have
Speaker 1: some sort of vehicle to get an idea of what
Speaker 1: was going on and 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 actual physical outbreaks of violence
Speaker 1: between the two countries, but there was a true rivalry
Speaker 1: of global proportions going on between the two, and so
Speaker 1: we there were needs each each country felt the need
Speaker 1: to find out as much about what was going on
Speaker 1: in the other country as possible, and so they were
Speaker 1: developing their own ways of spying on each other. Of course,
Speaker 1: this also figured into this space race. Um. We've talked
Speaker 1: about the thing what beaped but sput Nick that they
Speaker 1: sent up from the Soviet Union um shortly after that period,
Speaker 1: but it was around the same time they were looking
Speaker 1: for ways to spy on each other. Of course, satellite
Speaker 1: technology entered into it. But the YouTube predates ate because
Speaker 1: I mean it was already flying by 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 went 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 the
Speaker 1: facility that was the testing grounds for this particular airplane,
Speaker 1: and 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, Yeah, it's got a Now 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. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: when you think about commercial jet liners are 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 very light air frame. Yeah. Well I'm sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 1: The wingspan of the U two is about a hundred
Speaker 1: and five feet or you know, thirty two meters or so,
Speaker 1: the length of sixty three ft or about nineteen point
Speaker 1: two meters, and height uh sixteen feet about four point
Speaker 1: eight meters, and only way is sixteen thousand pounds, which
Speaker 1: when you think about it is pretty light. That's pretty remarkable. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's got one General Electric F one eighteen Dash one
Speaker 1: oh one engine. Yeah, although there were other engines used
Speaker 1: in the YouTube during its entire history. Uh. There Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a J fifty seven turbojet engine, the J seventy
Speaker 1: five turbojet engine, and then the General Electric F one
Speaker 1: eighteen turbo fan engine. Uh. They have all been used
Speaker 1: in you two's throughout its history of its service in
Speaker 1: the United States. 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 youtubs were all CIA pilots because the
Speaker 1: idea was that if you had a a plane go
Speaker 1: down and the pilot of that plane was a member
Speaker 1: of the United States military, it could look like a
Speaker 1: military action against another country. Because you were a pilot
Speaker 1: for the CIA, you had to be a civilian, So
Speaker 1: you actually would go through and and quit a branch
Speaker 1: of the military service. You would no longer be a
Speaker 1: part of the Air Force. You would become a civilian
Speaker 1: and be employed by the CIA, and that would give
Speaker 1: you the deniability that it was a military action against
Speaker 1: another country. Well, of course, um also sneaky. If you're
Speaker 1: wondering how much these aircraft cost, they won't tell you
Speaker 1: that information is classified. There's actually a lot of information
Speaker 1: classified about the YouTube, Like we can't tell you specifically
Speaker 1: 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 eavesdrop on cell phone conversations. Interesting, and there's
Speaker 1: also a data link that allows it to upload information
Speaker 1: in real time to a remote location. Yes, it's got
Speaker 1: 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 men you twos, 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 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 s R seventy one could do
Speaker 1: both those things. It could fly at an altitude around
Speaker 1: 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 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 well. It turns
Speaker 1: out the other stuff that was built to replace them
Speaker 1: wasn't good enough and was more expensive. So while you
Speaker 1: had aircraft that could fly faster and higher. Uh. The
Speaker 1: one of the big drawbacks of the Blackbird was that
Speaker 1: it did not have a data link. So when you
Speaker 1: sent a Blackbird out on a mission in the dead
Speaker 1: of night. You had to wait for it to come
Speaker 1: back and dump all that information for you to be
Speaker 1: able to look at it. You couldn't get updates as
Speaker 1: the mission was going on, at least not of all
Speaker 1: the data that it was collecting. You know. The pilot
Speaker 1: could communicate presumably, but smartphone, Yeah, there's anap for that.
Speaker 1: But flying over foreign power l O L nice R
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: ehels up front 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 pogos 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 a YouTube and and more so not
Speaker 1: just because of the landing thing, although landing apparently is
Speaker 1: one of the most difficult maneuvers you can do with
Speaker 1: the YouTube because the wings are so wide, the a
Speaker 1: little cross wind can very much affect the you to
Speaker 1: it can start gliding off track and uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: really hard to correct for that. Another issue is that
Speaker 1: it's designed to fly at a very high altitude. We'll
Speaker 1: at that altitude, the atmosphere is not as thick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the 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 UM,
Speaker 1: and so it is supposed to be are 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 U two to
Speaker 1: UH to help it get down, somebody who's sort of
Speaker 1: if you will, it's sort of a visual spot and
Speaker 1: they go, you know, there's sometimes lined up. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: a person in a souped up cars, a second, a
Speaker 1: second YouTube pilot who is being driven on in a
Speaker 1: souped up car, going alongside the plane as it's coming
Speaker 1: down and giving verbal directions to the pilot. So the
Speaker 1: pilot hasn't indication of how far they are from the
Speaker 1: surface and whether they need to make any adjustments. So
Speaker 1: they'll be in a car traveling at a pretty good
Speaker 1: clip of speed. Okay, see that was my That was
Speaker 1: my assumption because it said my notes say high performance vehicle,
Speaker 1: and it didn't say what kind of vehicle. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a high performance car, the Blues Mobile. Actually they
Speaker 1: just chat. They have that that megaphone on top, and
Speaker 1: they all right, is what you gotta do? You gotta
Speaker 1: go down two ft two ft anyway? Um, So yeah,
Speaker 1: there's that, and then there's also uh, some other interesting
Speaker 1: things about the YouTube. Another reason why it's so hard
Speaker 1: to fly is that it has to almost always be
Speaker 1: flying near the maximum speed to the vehicle. And the
Speaker 1: reason for that is because if it starts to get
Speaker 1: down below about nineteen kilometers per hour below maximum speed,
Speaker 1: which is ten knots. When it starts to drop below
Speaker 1: ten knots from its maximum speed at whatever altitude it's at,
Speaker 1: it starts to stall. So in other words, there's a
Speaker 1: really narrow window of performance that the plane can operate
Speaker 1: at where it's not falling out of the sky. It
Speaker 1: has to be going almost full speed or else it's
Speaker 1: dropping like a rock. And uh, the pilots have a
Speaker 1: a special name for that, that little window you were,
Speaker 1: that little narrow window of of speed. Can you do
Speaker 1: you have you did you come across that? It's it's
Speaker 1: a charming name. It is the coffin corner. Nice. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's um, yeah, pilots. Pilots have a interesting set of
Speaker 1: um of of terms for they have. They have a
Speaker 1: very 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 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 tube's existence,
Speaker 1: the government of course did not admit that it had
Speaker 1: this biplane. They said that the U two. That people
Speaker 1: knew that the you two existed, they just didn't know
Speaker 1: what it was for. And the reason given mostly was
Speaker 1: that it was a vehicle used to examine the weather
Speaker 1: patterns and weather conditions. It was all about gathering information
Speaker 1: about the environment. That there 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's some reports that say that what happened was he
Speaker 1: was shot down, that it was hit the plane was
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 uh,
Speaker 1: it exploded behind the plane, and the that the explosion
Speaker 1: was enough to send it off control. What is known
Speaker 1: is that there was unfortunately, there was another pilot, a
Speaker 1: Soviet pilot who is flying a MiG who actually did
Speaker 1: get hit by the missiles that were meant for the
Speaker 1: YouTube plane and died as a result. Well, Gary Powers
Speaker 1: was shot down, but he survived. However, he was he
Speaker 1: was used in a little bit of subterfuge on top
Speaker 1: of the subterfuge he was already a part of, because
Speaker 1: the premier of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev, didn't let the
Speaker 1: United States know that Powers survived the crash. Instead, what
Speaker 1: Kris Jeff did was he said, uh, the United States
Speaker 1: had a spy plane over my country and we shut
Speaker 1: it down, and you got some splaning to do. Chris
Speaker 1: is banging the table with his shoe, So if you
Speaker 1: don't know what that's about, look up Chris Jeff and shoe.
Speaker 1: But yes, so Christeff. Christcheff was a little perturbed, said
Speaker 1: there was a spy plane over well here was an
Speaker 1: aggressive act. Yes, yeah, and how can you disagree with that?
Speaker 1: I mean it was a spy plane. Yeah. So did
Speaker 1: the United States say? Yeah? Okay? Now, because again the US,
Speaker 1: not aware that Powers was alive, went into the cover
Speaker 1: story that they had created for this sort of scenario,
Speaker 1: assuming that Powers had died. The Eisenhower administration said that
Speaker 1: the plane was just a weather research aircraft. It had
Speaker 1: accidentally moved into Soviet airspace. It was not meant to
Speaker 1: be there. The pilot had actually radio that there was
Speaker 1: some problem with the equipment aboard the plane. That was
Speaker 1: specifically the oxygen equipment, because when you're flying at that
Speaker 1: height you need to have special equipment to pressurize the cabin.
Speaker 1: And in fact, the pilots of the YouTube where something
Speaker 1: that's almost like a space suit because of the otherwise
Speaker 1: you could have some real pressurization problems. So they said, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's just a weather aircraft. It was there were some
Speaker 1: problems that we heard about. They were supposed to be
Speaker 1: over Turkey. Uh, it was completely just a misunderstanding, and
Speaker 1: that that the plane that was shot down is probably
Speaker 1: the weather plane. It's it's definitely not a spy plane.
Speaker 1: And then Chris Jeff said, the pilots alive and we
Speaker 1: recovered all the information aboard the plane. It was actually
Speaker 1: in in good conditions. So we know exactly what you
Speaker 1: were looking for, and we know exactly what the purpose
Speaker 1: of this this vehicle was. And you are a big
Speaker 1: fibbing fibber. Yes, they they that he was okay in Moscow,
Speaker 1: um and he had said he They said that he
Speaker 1: told them that he had taken off from Peshawar in Pakistan,
Speaker 1: UM and he was told to fly over the Soviet
Speaker 1: Union um basically over the Errold Sea. Were Sverdlovsk, Kirov,
Speaker 1: our King I can't pronounce that word, our King Glisk
Speaker 1: and Murmansk to the Bodo Military Airfield in Norway, and
Speaker 1: so they he he told them he they said, he
Speaker 1: told them the exact route he was supposed to fly um.
Speaker 1: And of course you know that the United States after
Speaker 1: that was still saying, well that that really wasn't wasn't
Speaker 1: what was going on there. It was just very hard
Speaker 1: to deny when they had so much and there was
Speaker 1: and there was a supposed to be a summit that
Speaker 1: was going to be going on, like I think a
Speaker 1: week or two after this happened, and it caused quite
Speaker 1: a stir and international polity picks that this and it
Speaker 1: was it was considered to be a very huge humiliating
Speaker 1: embarrassment for the United States and demanded that the United
Speaker 1: States stopped flying over the Soviet Union or you know,
Speaker 1: they'd leave. Do I need to take my shoe off again?
Speaker 1: Put it back on? And uh. Ultimately the international community
Speaker 1: ended up sighting more with the United States than with
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union. But other outcomes of this Powers was
Speaker 1: was tried and convicted in the Soviet Union in August
Speaker 1: that year. He was sentenced to several years of prison,
Speaker 1: followed by I think seven years of hard labor. But
Speaker 1: he ended up getting released as part of an exchange,
Speaker 1: a prisoner exchange for Rudolph Able. Yeah, and that that
Speaker 1: took place. All right, kids, you might not know this,
Speaker 1: but when I was a kid, there were two Germany's.
Speaker 1: There's an East Germany and there was a West Germany.
Speaker 1: And the exchange actually took place on a bridge between
Speaker 1: the borders of East Berlin and West Berlin. And it
Speaker 1: was a very famous event. So now there's no longer
Speaker 1: in East Germany and West Germany, but back when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, there was and that this is what
Speaker 1: you know, this took place at that location because the
Speaker 1: there was a Soviet controlled part and there was the
Speaker 1: German controlled part. All that is in the past. Now
Speaker 1: ask your parents about the Berlin Wall kids, Well, there
Speaker 1: there were no Really, I don't recall any other major
Speaker 1: famous incidents in which a YouTube was involved. There was
Speaker 1: the Zaropa Tour, yes, and I was wondering how long
Speaker 1: I could go without making a YouTube joke, and then
Speaker 1: the answer was twenty seven minutes. Um. But ironically enough,
Speaker 1: I find um uh. NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
Speaker 1: has used the e R two, which is basically a
Speaker 1: model fied YouTube, to collect information on um the on
Speaker 1: space phenomena, and on the Earth itself. So yes, in fact,
Speaker 1: it does make it pretty good, uh you know, weather
Speaker 1: in and observation plane for other purposes than just spying,
Speaker 1: but still being used as a as a spy plane.
Speaker 1: According to I just thought it was kind of funny.
Speaker 1: Then yeah, you know, then Niles and then well, as
Speaker 1: it turns out, you can use it for that. So
Speaker 1: I found out some more information about and I was
Speaker 1: gonna say talk about the blackbird and about how it
Speaker 1: was supposed to be. That was also developed an Area
Speaker 1: fifty one. It was originally called the A twelve that
Speaker 1: was its 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 when it was
Speaker 1: retired for the second time. So it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a professional wrestler, you know, it retires and then comes
Speaker 1: back and then retires again, but in this case only
Speaker 1: retired the two times. And and there's no real way
Speaker 1: of making more of them because they destroyed the tooling
Speaker 1: machinery back in the sixties when they built a blackbird,
Speaker 1: the idea being that they didn't want it to fall
Speaker 1: into any other hands, and so this was a way
Speaker 1: of maintaining secrecy. The downside of that is that once
Speaker 1: you run out of blackbirds, you don't have any more
Speaker 1: of them. Uh, there's no way to make more UM.
Speaker 1: And so they actually had a lot of issues with that,
Speaker 1: and there were several blackbirds that were involved in various accidents,
Speaker 1: and the incidence that made them either they either were
Speaker 1: destroyed as a result or they were inoperable. Uh So
Speaker 1: they now all exist pretty much in museums. I think
Speaker 1: there might 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, a well one point seven billion with
Speaker 1: a B dollars have been poured into the YouTube program
Speaker 1: to keep it up to date, to modernize it, make
Speaker 1: sure that it's you know, operating at at a level
Speaker 1: that 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 nine
Speaker 1: five thousand hours using the YouTube. Keep in mind there
Speaker 1: only thirty three of these things. That's pretty impressive. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: well the uh, in case you're wondering, the r Q
Speaker 1: four may not be off the table. Um. It is
Speaker 1: presumed that North Grumman, the company that makes Well, the
Speaker 1: primary company that makes it, will try to get it
Speaker 1: put back into the into the budget. And it may
Speaker 1: just be that it's a delay more than anything else.
Speaker 1: In fact, most of those sources I saw was that
Speaker 1: it's it's it's that the date keeps getting pushed back,
Speaker 1: like originally the the YouTube was supposed to be retired
Speaker 1: by the most recent date I saw it was, yeah,
Speaker 1: And then I saw one that said it may be
Speaker 1: flying as late as twenty fifty, which means it would
Speaker 1: be a hundred years old. Almost. Yeah, yeah, well, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh, it takes three people to fly in r
Speaker 1: Q four. You know, you have to have an l
Speaker 1: R E pilot, an m C E pilot, and a
Speaker 1: sensor operator. And it only flies up to sixty thousand
Speaker 1: feet which is about eighteen thousand, two eight meters um.
Speaker 1: It uh has a maximum speed of three seven miles
Speaker 1: per hour about three D ten knots um. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's comparable in some ways, but in others, you know,
Speaker 1: the you two still out does it. So, um, it's
Speaker 1: it's impressive stuff. But it's kind of funny to me
Speaker 1: that that tried and true YOU two is still hanging
Speaker 1: in there despite all these other things that that could
Speaker 1: replace it. Yeah. Part of that is the the qualities
Speaker 1: of the U two, and part of that is is
Speaker 1: purely economical. She said, you know, there's just not the
Speaker 1: money to replace it, and that you know, we do
Speaker 1: have a need for reconnaissance vehicles. And you might ask, well,
Speaker 1: why do we need that, because we've got satellites now right,
Speaker 1: We've got satellites that can spy on stuff. And that's true,
Speaker 1: we do have satellites, but satellites are not yeah stuff
Speaker 1: the beeps. Satellites are not capable of of focusing in
Speaker 1: on a very specific region at a reasonable amount of
Speaker 1: time in many cases, So it may be that you've
Speaker 1: got a great view of this one region, but the
Speaker 1: problem is that the issue that you need to look
Speaker 1: at is just outside of that that view, and in
Speaker 1: order to change the view on the satellite is going
Speaker 1: to take hours. Whereas you could send a YouTube plane
Speaker 1: stationed in a nearby country to fly over and get
Speaker 1: a look right then and there, and the way the
Speaker 1: world works, we need information instantly. We can't wait anymore.
Speaker 1: So Yeah, for for instance, they might have intelligence that
Speaker 1: a specific operation is going on right now, and they're
Speaker 1: going to hide whatever it is that they're moving, you know,
Speaker 1: some some kind of weapons technology or some you know, uh,
Speaker 1: something like that, or or a caravan of people or something.
Speaker 1: You know, it could be a variety of things that
Speaker 1: you want to see. Um And by the time the
Speaker 1: Earth rotates back to where the satellite could take a
Speaker 1: good picture of it, it'll be too late. Um. So
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, yep, yep, spy stuff is cool,
Speaker 1: and yes it is, but um oh, but and it
Speaker 1: did play a major part in the the Cuban missile
Speaker 1: crisis in the nineteen six Pieces was able to get
Speaker 1: a good picture of what was going on there between
Speaker 1: the Soviets and the Cubans. Um do you and you
Speaker 1: know we didn't mention it, But do you know what
Speaker 1: the nickname is for the YouTube? Oh? I did see
Speaker 1: it a moment ago, and then I scrolled past it
Speaker 1: 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 you do 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 YouTube. Like I said, we'll try and do
Speaker 1: one about Area fifty one specifically. At some point we
Speaker 1: can talk about the other vehicles and technologies that came
Speaker 1: out of that research facility, uh, and also talk about
Speaker 1: why it was so secret and uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: whole craziness that surrounds Area fifty one and and how
Speaker 1: it plays a part in conspiracy theories because you know
Speaker 1: it does, you might not have heard about it. Um,
Speaker 1: you need to watch this documentary series called The X
Speaker 1: Files goes all into it, all right. And that was
Speaker 1: our classic tech stuff episode on the YouTube spy Plane.
Speaker 1: We've talked about several other times, obviously when we talked
Speaker 1: about Area fifty one and some of the other surveillance
Speaker 1: and spy technology podcasts. But I really enjoyed that original episode.
Speaker 1: I hope you guys did too. If you have any
Speaker 1: suggestions for future episodes, you can write to me. My
Speaker 1: email address is tech stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: or drop me a line on Facebook, Twitter, or Tumbler
Speaker 1: to handle it. All three of those is text stuff
Speaker 1: h SW and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics. Does
Speaker 1: it how staff works dot com