Delivered to Groom Lake on 5 March 1956. With Det A on initial deployment in late April 1956. Served at Lakenheath England, Wiesbaden and Giebelstadt in West Germany. Returned to US in November 1957.
This aircraft operated as Civil N801X, to a U-2G, to a U-2C, to NASA 808, to NAS Moffet Field.
CIA U-2G Arcticle 348, serial number 56-6681 was ferried to Taoyuan AB around June, 1964, and flown by Lockheed pilot, Bob Schumacher, as well as the Chinese and CIA pilots on hand in a test program to cure a flameout problem that had developed after a new fuel control had been installed in all the aircraft a few months earlier. The solution was new climb schedule with engine exhaust gas temperature (EGT) adjusted per outside air temp. 56-6681 was not used on any operations during this trip and was returned to the US after a few weeks. The N801X tail number was probably kept on it the whole time it was at Taoyuan AB.
NASA received 56-6681 (N708NA) in early June of 1971. This aircraft was retired by NASA in June 1987 and can be viewed on display as a U-2C at NASA Ames Research Center, NAS Moffett Field.
|
Return to Top of Page |
This page is located at
http://www.pinetreeline.org/metz/other/U-2/56-6681.html
Updated: December 6, 2003