U.S. Air Force considers pilotless U-2

The civilian chief of the U.S. Air Force says the retirement of the storied U-2 spy plane is on hold until the Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance aircraft can be an effective substitute.

The Air Force in late December 2005 got permission to retire the fleet of 33 U-2 "Dragonlady" spy planes by 2011. The retirement would save the Air Force about $1 billion, money that would be redirected into the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle built by Northrop Grumman.

The problem is the Global Hawk, as currently configured, can't do everything for which combatant commanders have come to rely on the U-2.

"Right now the U-2, in fact, collects some material that the current Global Hawk can't. So I've been asked to slow that down and prove to the combatant commanders that we intend to do that. I think it's going to take us a little time but, frankly, it was -- it was a mission area that we felt like had -- would diminish a little bit faster than the combatant commanders thought it would diminish," said Michael Wynne, in an interview on C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" slated to air Oct. 15.

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