1998: At Beale AFB, Calif., reconnaissance pilot, Maj Alan Zwick, shattered a world record by flying his U-2 and payload to an altitude more than 12 ½ miles above the Earth. Zwick broke the previous record of Rudolf Fiam, a Czechoslovakian pilot, who flew a Yakovlev 40 on 24 February 1979 to an altitude of 28,513 feet with a payload of 4,400 pounds. Zwick surpassed that record 12 minutes into his flight, and he continued to climb to over 66,800 feet, or 38,287 feet higher than the Czechoslovakian record.
