In 1954 Locheed presented the CIA with a proposal to build a high altitude spy plane. The CIA accepted the proposal in eight months later the first U-2 was flown. In its first flight the test pilot Tony LeVier was forced to make five attempts before he was able to successfully land the plane. A U-2 was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960 and its pilot Francis Gary Powers was captured. The plane was insturmental in discovering the Russiand missiles in Cuba in 1962. A newer version of the U-2 known as the TR-1 is still flown by the US airforce today.
