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**Vince**

Arved Sandstrom wrote:
"Vince" wrote in message
...
Tankfixer wrote:
In article ,
mumbled
TMOliver wrote:
"Vince" wrote ...

Spies get shot at all the time Doesn't make it a
"battlefield" they were CIA flights

I guess they forgot to tell you that those VFP-62 pilots were
in Navy flight suits flying USNavy a/c - big bright stars and
all - out of NAS Key West, JAX or off CVA decks.

TMO

the U-2 flights were cia
Yes, but did they take the photo's of the SA-2 sites from under
500 feet and in excess of 700 mph ?

No, they didn't
that is correct, but not the point of the discussion

the Military is much better equipped and focused on battlefield
reconnaissance than the CIA

The U-2 was overwhelmingly a CIA project at that time. Part of the
reason was that CIA missions violated the domestic or municipal law
of the countries we were overflying. A U-2 pilot on an overflight
was a spy and could be shot quite legally. No one could be
"ordered" on such a mission.

The low level flights were different. They were clearly
belligerent acts by the US armed forces. As an act of war, anyone
shot down was a POW.

Vince

The argument could be made that if you fly as high as a U-2,
especially back in the early days, were you really in national
airspace anyway? According to the FAI (Int'l Aeronautical Federation)
near-space starts at 75,000 feet, and according to Wiki the U-2R has
a service ceiling of 90,000 feet.

no question

if a plane can reach it is national airspace

(ad coelem)

To the best of my knowledge there isn't even any accepted altitude
below which one is in territorial airspace. Clearly there sort of
must be such an altitude, because nobody reasonably suggests that a
satellite at 250 km is violating anything. Also, you can't
necessarily say that airspace goes up to the level that balloons can
reach or suborbital craft can reach or airfoils can maintain lift,
because the definition of the maximum limits of a territorial sea is
12 miles, which in this day and age is highly artificial also.

AHS

there is a treaty on outer space. satellites are in outer space
But that is a long way up

Vince