“Would you like to ride in my Chinese spy balloon….”

Man ... talk about a proven platform.

The last U-2 was built in 1989.

 

Eye and eye
In the sky
You make me feel like I can fly
So high
Elevation

 

Dragon Ladies move in mysterious ways.

 

Mexico has launched a balloon over our airspace....

 

Outstanding!

 

Hit that with a missile at altitude and some poor kid will get brained by a guava at terminal velocity.

 

And B-52s.

 

This made my day.

 

Even if they have had their successors introduced, or about to be introduced, some of what we think of as our best combat aircraft are surprisingly old.
The last A-10 was produced in 1984.
The last B-2 stealth bomber was made in 2000.
The last F-22 — our best fighter plane, the one that ended our long national balloon nightmare — was made in 2012.

 

On the other hand, Lockheed is still building the C-130 Herc. First flight was in 1954.

 

When you consider issues like metal fatigue, these achievements are truly outstanding.

Of course, there are a lot of variants, engine and avionics upgrades, parts swap outs, etc. so a lot of these are modernized.

But still, you could probably have a B-52 airman say their great grandpa flew one too.

 

Raises an interesting Philosophy 201 puzzle:

if you replace every part - every nut, every bolt, every panel - on an airplane, is it the same airplane?