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There's no way this picture was taken from a U-2, it's almost certainly from a RF-101 or RF-8. Look at the angle of the trees, this was taken at low level.
Because if the plane is too high things will not have any perspective to them (it will be a top-down shot only), and U-2 planes fly pretty high. --Fastfission04:22, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What if the plane was really high but not above the target. If the plane was downrange and so viewing the gorund at 60 degrees then the trees would be 30 degrees to the normal of the photo. 143.210.37.6215:44, 18 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Most credible and detailed technical literature concerning reconnaisance aircraft of the time dismisses the "U2 photograph" idea as a military urban legend, akin to the now thoroughly debunked myth of Constance Babbington-Smith's location of V1 launch sites by cleverly noticing scorch marks on the ground.
It is pointed not only are the U2A models cameras mounted in fuselage bays pointed straight down, but that aircraft of the period would not possess the navigation systems or camera controls necessary to pinpoint such a small target from high altitude, and relied on high speed rolls of ultra-wide film to cover a large swath of landscape. It is also contended that the film stock and lenses available at the time could not have possibly have produced images of that resolution from high altitude, particularly through turbulent tropical air. The U2 is much too slow to survive at low level in hostile airspace.
The pictures are however, are completely consistent with the results typically obtained by a low-level, high-speed penetration by an RF-101 Voodoo "alone, unarmed and unafraid" with its nose mounted camera. Reconnaisance pilots from the period usually contend the photographs were taken by an Navy RF-101A, out of Pennsacola, Florida, which is a lot more plausable, especially when compared with other declassified U2 shots from the sixties.
It is speculated that labelling them U2 shots would have greater cachet, and enhance their public reception. It would also be of great assistance in justifying the hugely expensive technology purchasing programs underway, and hopefully deceive the Soviets with respect to what U2 overflghts of Soviet territory could reveal.
Despite an oft repeated and powerful myth to the contrary, these are almost certainly not U2 pictures at all, but from a far more mundane and conventional source. Let the legend die.
I think I have seen this picture in the Thirteen Days (film) preview (I didn't see the movie) where this exact pictuere was taken supposedly made by a low flying reconneisance jets (RF-101 Voodoo?) during the conflict. Mieciu K21:28, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
