On This Day – February 10th

On February 10th 1962 Gary Powers was released from imprisonment during a prisoner exchange with the Soviet Union. Powers had been held since crash landing his CIA U-2 spy plane two years earlier whilst in Soviet airspace.

The 1960 U-2 incident occurred during the Cold War on 1st May 1960, the era of Eisenhower and Khrushchev. The spy plane was performing photographic aerial reconnaissance when it was hit by a surface-to-air missile and crashed near Sverdlovsk. Powers parachuted safely and was captured.

Initially the United States government tried to cover up the plane's purpose and mission, but was forced to admit its military nature when the Soviet government came forward with the captured pilot and remains of the U-2 including spying technology that had survived the crash as well as photos of military bases in the Soviet Union taken by the aircraft. Coming roughly two weeks before the scheduled opening of an east-west summit in Paris, the incident was a great embarrassment to the United States and prompted a marked deterioration in its relations with the Soviet Union.

Powers was convicted of espionage and sentenced to three years of imprisonment plus seven years of hard-labour but, despite this sentence, was well treated during his imprisonment. He spent most of the time doing handicrafts.

He released after two years, in exchange for Soviet officer Rudolf Abel, was brokered by american Lawyer James Donovan. The 2015 film Bridge of Spies, which dramatised the negotiations to repatriate Powers, starred Tom Hanks as James Donovan.

Today's question is...

The U-2 flew at very high altitude to avoid detection – when orders were placed with a manufacturer for altimeters to suit the plane a cover story had to be invented involving experimental rockets.

What was the U-2's standard operating altitude?

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