"U-2 Spy Plane With Fictitious NASA Markings" - NASA photo caption

I was searching NASA GRIN for some photos when I discovered this
little bit of Cold War history involving NASA and the U-2 in 1960.

There is a photo of a U-2 sitting on the tarmac at NASA Dryden on
May 6, 1960 (at the time it was just called "Flight Research Center").

http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRACTS/GPN-2000-000112.html

http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/MEDIU...000-000112.jpg

The photo caption and description read:

"U-2 Spy Plane With Fictitious NASA Markings"

"After Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union during
a CIA spy flight on May 1. 1960, NASA issued a press release with a
cover story about a U-2 conducting weather research that may have
strayed off course after the pilot reported difficulties with his
oxygen equipment. To bolster the cover-up, a U-2 was quickly painted
in NASA markings, with a fictitious NASA serial number, and put on
display for the news media at the NASA Flight Research Center at
Edwards Air Force Base on May 6, 1960. The U-2 cover story in 1956 was
that it was an NACA plane to conduct high-altitude weather research.
But various observers doubted this story from the beginning. Certainly
the Soviets did not believe it once the aircraft began overflying
their territory. The NASA cover story quickly blew up in the agency's
face when both Gary Powers and aircraft wreckage were displayed by the
Soviet Union, proving that it was a reconnaissance aircraft. This
caused embarrassment for several top NASA officials."


NASA didn't have any U-2's of it's own until quite some time later.

Interesting footnote to Cold War history.


--
Rusty Barton - Antelope, California