The rock band U2 took their name from the U-2 plane which is featured in this movie. The band's lead singer Bono's daughter Eve Hewson plays a role in the movie.
Just before the U-2 plane takes off in Bridge of Spies (2015), its auxiliary landing gear can be seen falling off the right wing. The U-2 was designed to be as light as possible to give it maximum range and altitude capability. So its auxiliary landing gear, or "pogos", were designed to fall away from its wings on takeoff to minimize weight. The plane lands with its nose and tail gear in an inline "bicycle" configuration, and its wingtips are equipped with titanium skid plates to prevent damage.
Bridge of Spies (2015) director Steven Spielberg has often tackled seminal historical events throughout his career. A history enthusiast, his knowledge of the Cold War dates back to childhood when his father told stories of the deep-seated feelings of animosity and distrust that existed between the U.S. and Soviet Union, stories he still remembers today. "My father had gone to Russia during the Cold War on a foreign exchange right after Francis Gary Powers was shot down," remembered Spielberg. "My dad and three other associates from General Electric stood in line because they were putting Powers' flight suit, helmet and the remains of the U-2 on display for everybody in Russia to see what America had done. He was about an hour away from the front of the line when a couple of Russian military officials approached my dad and asked for their passports, saw they were Americans and got them to the head of the line, not to convenience them, because after they got to the head of the line this Russian pointed to the U-2 and then pointed to my dad and his friends and said, 'Look what your country is doing to us,' which he repeated angrily several times before handing back their passports." "I never forgot that story," he says, "and because of that I never forgot what happened to Francis Gary Powers."
Flughafen Tempelhof Airport in the south-central section of Berlin, Germany is where the historic airlifts of 1948 and 1949 took place, and was an indispensable location for filming Bridge of Spies (2015). These airlifts took place when the Soviet Army closed off access to the western part of the city by all other means of transport. Planes from the USA, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa transported food and supplies to the city's inhabitants to prevent them from starving. Director Steven Spielberg filmed multiple scenes at Flughafen Tempelhof Airport, including the return home of both James B. Donovan (Tom Hanks) and Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) to the USA inside a U.S. Army cargo transport plane. Scenes featuring actual U-2 planes, both on the ground and in the air, were shot several months later at Beale Air Force Base in Yuba County, California.
The crash of Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell)'s U-2 spy plane for Bridge of Spies (2015) was shot via a large screen at Flughafen Tempelhof Airport, where production designer Adam Stockhausen and his team built a replica of the U-2's cockpit on a motion base which was used for all the close-ups of Powers in his aircraft. According to producer Kristie Macosko Krieger, "it was amazing to be able to shoot with these old airplanes at beautiful locations like Tempelhof where the events in the story actually took place . . . you can't re-create stuff like that."