reconnaissance aircraft

“The Lockheed U-2 is a long-range, high-altitude strategic reconnaissance aircraft that is a primary component of the U.S. "national technical means" of intelligence collection.”

Strategic Air Command: People Aircraft and Missiles 2nd Edition

“Our reconnaissance aircraft could take target photographs before and after raids and our choppers, which needed their A1E escorts (we called them Spads, because the AlE's age and performance approached that of the World War I machine with the same nickname), could sometimes get in and out of enemy territory to accomplish a rescue.”

Thud Ridge

“Special reconnaissance aircraft fitted for electronic surveillance; compartment in bomb bay housed equipment and operators; 220,000 Ibs. gross takeoff (could be refueled in flight to 221,000 Ibs.); 5-6 crew; first flight June 1955; 32 built.”

Strategic Air Command: People Aircraft and Missiles 2nd Edition

“Just as other crises such as the Bay of Pigs in 1961, the downing of a reconnaissance aircraft by North Korea in 1969, the Soviet rejection of the ambitious Strategic Arms Control proposal in 1977, and Iran-Contra in 1986 had produced needed changes in the way previous administrations made decisions, so the failed Panama coup led to a welcome revamping of the process in the Bush administration.”

Simon & Schuster: In the Shadow of the Oval Office

“From mid-1968 on, all carrier-based fighter, attack, and reconnaissance aircraft were jet-powered.”

On Yankee Station

“Chances were some lucky civilian had caught a glimpse of one of the NRO's fifty-seven fast-moving, unmanned reconnaissance aircraft known as Global Hawks – oblong, remote-controlled aircraft that looked like nothing else in the sky.”

Deception Point

“The McDonnell RF-101 reconnaissance aircraft and newer additions to the lineup (the fighter and reconnaissance versions of the McDonnell F-4C were visible to the press from Udorn, Thailand, to Da Nang and Saigon in South Vietnam.”

Thud Ridge

“Most of the F-13 reconnaissance aircraft had only tail guns or were completely unarmed.”

Strategic Air Command: People Aircraft and Missiles 2nd Edition