[Photo] Five U-2 Spyplanes lined up in front of 9th RW hangar at Beale Air Force Base

Actually, you can spot more than five U-2 Drangon Lady aircraft in this cool image

Beale Air Force Base, home of the 9th Reconnaissance Wing, north of Sacramento, hosts the last U.S. Air Force’s U-2 Dragon Lady spyplanes.

The image in this post shows five of them (along with two more U-2s whose tails appear right and left of the lined aircraft) in front of one of the base hangars.

U-2s, which are often deployed across the world, require some special landing assistance by chase car driven by experienced pilot who talk their colleagues aboard the U-2s during (take off or) landing: since the pilot’s view on a Dragon Lady is obstructed by the airframe, chase cars drivers provide additional information about distance to touchdown and altitude in order to make landings less tricky.

Also based at Beale AFB are RQ-4 Global Hawks  drones, which require the same kind of landing assistance by chase cars.

Image credit: U.S. Air Force

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About David Cenciotti

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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.