Lockheed U-2 Dragon Lady.
documentedsource_actorPrivate Aerospace Contractors
High-altitude (70,000 ft) CIA reconnaissance aircraft (Project Aquatone), designed by Kelly Johnson. Its secret testing need created Area 51 at Groom Lake in 1955.
Single-engine, glider-winged spy plane developed in the early-mid 1950s to overfly the USSR above Soviet radar/interceptor reach. Because it had to stay secret, Kelly Johnson surveyed remote sites and chose the Groom Lake salt flat next to the Nevada nuclear test range — the CIA/USAF built the airfield that became Area 51. The U-2 began flying from the Nevada site in 1955. Still in USAF service decades later.