Sites, ready to launch their bombers at a moment's notice. For its role in testing a new deputy-commander organizational concept to improve America's immediate retaliatory strike capability, the 5th received an Air Force Outstanding Unit Award in 1958. It maintained alert during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. Strategic Reconnaissance By 1966, however, the B-47 was obsolete, replaced by the newer, larger B-52 Stratofortress. On 25 Bomb Wing and its subordinate units inactivated at Mountain Home AFB. Although the 9th immediately activated at Beale AFB, California as the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, only the 1st and 99th squadrons activated with it. When the 9th Wing moved to Beale AFB in 1966, it became the parent organization for the SR-71 "Blackbird." Ten years later the U-2 "DragonLady" joined the 9th. The wing was the home for both America's high altitude, manned, reconnaissance aircraft. In 1986, the 5th activated and rejoined the 9th as the 5th Strategic Reconnaissance Training Squadron. The squadron recruited, screened, and trained U-2 pilots to fly operational missions around the world. Because the U-2 is so unique and difficult to fly, the instructor-to-student ratio was one-to-one. For the next four years, 5th pilots taught students at Beale AFB and also flew operational missions around the world. When the Air Force removed the SR-71 from active service in 1990, however, U-2 pilot training moved to the 1st Reconnaissance Squadron and the 5th again inactivated. From the 1990s in Korea On 1 October 1994, the 5 RS was reactivated as a subordinate unit to the 9th Operations Group, 9th Reconnaissance Wing, at Beale Air Force Base, California. It replaced the 9th Reconnaissance Wing's Detachment 2 at Osan AB, Korea. Detachment 2, the "Blackcats," had operated from Osan AB since 1976. The 5th had a "real world" mission-flying classified reconnaissance in Korea and the Far East. In 1995 the 5th RS was the first unit to have the new U-2S model aircraft fully operational and on 20 October 1995, Lieutenant Colonel Charles P. Wilson II flew the first ever U-2S operational mission. Additionally, in 1995 the U-2 flew the 2000th Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar System mission. The squadron was the recipient of the 1995 Lockheed Advanced Development Corporation Hughes Trophy, distinguishing the unit as Best Reconnaissance Squadron in the 9th Reconnaissance Wing and was also nominated for the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation. Since 1976, the unit has flown