U-2 using color film instead of black and white film
The U-2 offers surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities at high altitudes and in all weather conditions, both during the day and night, directly supporting US and allied military operations. It provides essential imagery and signals intelligence to decision-makers during all stages of conflict, encompassing peacetime alerts, low-intensity conflicts, and large-scale military engagements.
The aircraft is equipped with these sensor systems: an electro-optical infrared camera, an optical bar camera, a sophisticated synthetic aperture radar, signals intelligence capabilities, and network-centric communication.
Typically, the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft relies on black and white film, similar to the SR-71. However, during a unique humanitarian mission, a U-2 utilized the more costly color film, as explained by MSgt (Ret.) Darwin Evelsizer, a former US Air Force (USAF) Intelligence Specialist/Technician/Supervisor.
The “Great Orange Speck”
‘One event from my time at Beale that sticks out in my mind is the episode of the “Great Orange Speck.” Several VIP-type people left San Francisco on a sailboat on their way to Hawaii for a vacation. Their boat developed some type of problem and sank, leaving the people floating in a life raft somewhere between Frisco and Honolulu. A U-2R flown by Doc Hahn was tasked to fly a series of parallel “tracks” over the area where the boat was thought to be. The U-2 and the SR-71 normally carried only black-and-white film, both because it was cheaper and it produced considerably better resolution than did color film. Color film was selected for this search mission because it was felt that the contrast of the orange life raft against the blue-green ocean would outweigh the loss of image quality.’
‘Every PI in the shop was brought in to scan the film in an attempt to locate the boat or raft. We knew from the size of the raft that it was going to be extremely small on the film and very difficult, if not impossible, to detect. I think that it was during the second day of searching that I found an almost imperceptible “speck” on the film that appeared to have a faint trace of orange color to it. The photo-processing folks took a careful look at the film to ensure that it wasn’t a speck of dirt, a pinhole in the emulsion, or some other film defect.’
Raft with people in it
‘There is a clock picture on each frame of imagery, and we compared the time of this frame to the pilot’s log and location of the speck within the frame in a W.A.G. (Wild A _ _ Guess) attempt to determine the location of what we hoped was the raft. These coordinates were sent to the Coast Guard, and they applied their S.W.A.G. (Scientific Wild A _ _ Guess) formulas for wind and current drift to determine the theoretical, present location.’
Evelsizer concludes;
‘They sent a C-130 search and rescue bird to the anticipated location to begin a systematic search pattern. They arrived at the coordinates, and BINGO, there was the raft with several people in it! The media gave considerable coverage to the safe return of these folks, but very little was mentioned about the role the 9SRW and 9 RTS performed in the rescue.’
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Photo by U.S. Air Force
