Wanna Know What It’s Like To Fly The U2 Spy Plane?

Spotted this video on Gizmodo today and it was too cool to pass up. It shows James Mays flying 70,000 feet above the earths surface in the U2 Spy Plane courtesy of the United States Air Force.

The U2 was flown for the first time in 1955 as a spy plane for the United States government. It was the ideal candidate for secretive missions because of it’s ability to reach extreme altitudes, thus allowing it to fly through rain, snow and other variables during day and night conditions, while taking quick photographs of other countries at only a moments notice.

Sure several of the planes were shot down over Cuba, China and the Soviet Union at one time or another, but the U.S. government still flies their fleet of U2’s to this very day.

Not a bad view from the cockpit, which of course is the main reason they were shot down in the first place. [via Gizmodo]