ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl finally got his long-sought flight in a high-flying U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. He made the flight—one of the very few civilians to do so—last week, after completing two days of indoctrination and preparation. The Air Force has been making upgrades to the U-2 fleet, but it does plan to retire them around 2011.
The Air Force awarded a $13.08 billion contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation on April 26 for its Survivable Airborne Operations Center aircraft, the successor to the service’s E-4B “Doomsday” plane. Like the E-4B, officially called the National Airborne Operations Center, the SAOC will be meant to withstand a nuclear attack and keep…