{"id":265787,"date":"2025-08-13T00:00:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T14:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simpleflying.com\/how-many-lockeed-u-2-dragon-lady-spy-plane-left\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T00:00:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T14:00:18","slug":"how-many-lockheed-u-2-dragon-lady-spy-planes-are-left","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=265787","title":{"rendered":"How Many Lockheed U-2 Dragon Lady Spy Planes Are Left?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <span class=\"display-card-hyperlink-article\" data-id=\"2045306\"><a href=\"https:\/\/simpleflying.com\/usaf-oldest-cold-war-aircraft-still-operating\/\" >Lockheed U-2 &#8216;Dragon Lady&#8217; just turned 70 years old and just set some new records<\/a><\/span>, including possibly an altitude record in August 2025. The U-2 spy plane is one of the most iconic symbols of the Cold War, flying missions over the USSR and <span class=\"display-card-hyperlink display-card-hyperlink-no-vignette\" data-id=\"11590\"style=\";  ;\" class=\"display-card-hyperlink display-card-hyperlink-no-vignette\"><a href=\"https:\/\/simpleflying.com\/tag\/cuba\/\"  >Cuba<\/a><\/span>. It was the Lockheed U-2 that first discovered Soviet missiles being set up in Cuba, triggering the Cuban Missile Crisis. The U-2 was also the only aircraft lost by the US during the confrontation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fewer than 30 Lockheed U-2 Dragon Ladies remain in service with the USAF and NASA, with that number set to fall further in the coming months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,12466,3298,1328],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aircraft","category-lockheed-u-2","category-spy-plane","category-united-states-air-force"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=265787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":265788,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265787\/revisions\/265788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=265787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=265787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=265787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}