Beale Air Force Base retires third U-2 of 2024
(FOX40.COM) — Less than two weeks after Beale Air Force Base retired its second U-2 Dragon Lady of 2024, the base announced the retirement of a third U-2 on Monday.
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After more than 24,000 flight hours, U-2 Dragon Lady 80-1066 completed its final flight on Monday.
The high-flying spy planes of Northern California
1066 was part of an order by the USAF to Lockheed Martin in 1980 for a new batch of U-2s. Since it arrived at Beale, 1066 has flown nearly 12,000 missions.
In January, Beale announced the retirement of TU-2S Dragon Lady 1065, which also arrived at the Yuba County base in the early 1980s.
Beale Air Force Base Beale Air Force Base Beale Air Force Base
While at Beale, 1065 completed 11,450 sorties (missions) and completed 24,042 flight hours.
In April, tail number 80-1085 completed its last flight, bringing its final flight hours to 17,882.3 or two years’ worth of flight.
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Not all of Beale’s U-2 fleet is on their way out though as TU-2S Dragon Lady 1078 returned to service after a multi-year rehabilitation and catching a new black paint job from the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Edwards Air Force Base.
U-2s have been stationed at Beale since 1976 when the first one arrived along with the creation of the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, replacing the 4200th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing and their SR-71 Blackbirds.
Today Beale is the home base for all of the United States Air Forces U-2Ss and TU-2s. The aircraft is deployed across the world for a variety of missions.
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