Retired U2 pilot who lives in Montana describes flying at the edge of space By: Jay Kohn - MTN News Posted at 6:00 PM, Dec 29, 2020 and last updated 2020-12-29 20:19:06-05 Fewer than one thousand pilots have ever soloed at the controls of a U.S. Air Force U2 spy plane - and one of them lives just outside of Livingston in Montana. "You literally feel like you're on top of the world," said retired Air Force Colonel Ed Walby. "You can see the curvature of the earth. You can see stars during the day." Capable of cruising at altitudes of more than 70,000 feet, the U2 operates at the edge of space, beyond the reach of the systems of the former Soviet Union. During the early years of the Cold War in the 1950s, high resolution photographs taken from the U2 became an immediate game changer in the world of intelligence gathering. In 1960, American U2 pilot Gary Powers was shot down over Soviet air space and captured. Two years later, in October of 1962, U2 photos revealed the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, sparking the Cuban Missile Crisis between Russia and the United States.