Does the Dragon Lady spit hot fire? Does she quietly rumble, and wait in the weeds? Does she hide like a child? Does she wound with her eyes? Does she ruin of the faith of her enemies with her casual lies?

Maybe. Or maybe we’re just quoting Billy Joel to throw you off the scent and be completely stunned when you click “play” on the following video, which offers a partial first-person viewpoint from a U-2 spy plane (aka “Dragon Lady”, in case you were wondering) after it took off in 2012 from Beale Air Force Base in California.

It’s kind of like being in space (it more or less is — you can see the curvature of Earth, etc.) …

More on the spy plane and its history from We Are The Mighty:

The U2 was produced in 1955 by Lockheed’s Skunk Works for aerial reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union. The proposal to build a plane that could fly 70,000 feet came from the need to fly beyond the reach of Soviet fighters, missiles, and radar; basically, anything that could threaten it.

The U.S. Air Force solicited designs from several aircraft companies, including Lockheed before settling on the winning concept. Lockheed’s first try, by Clarence “Kelly” Johnson—its best aeronautical engineer at the time—included the base of an XF-104 with elongated wings and a shortened fuselage named CL-282. The design was essentially a jet-powered glider; it had a single jet engine, had no landing gear, but could reach an altitude of 73,000 feet. Gen. Curtis LeMay famously walked out during the design’s presentation, saying that he was not interested in an airplane without wheels or guns.

She still moves pretty good for a senior citizen, huh?