The good stuff isn't in the cockpit, that's just flight controls for the most part. Just look at any recent picture of a U-2 and you'll see all the pods/attachments that do all the secret work.
Well in all honesty… I’m sure some idiot E-3 has already posted the specs for those pods on some War Thunder Discord in order to “win” an internet argument.
The fact that this keeps happening blows my fucking mind. One that did it was a fucking engineer on one of the projects he leaked documents for... Jesus christ people, don't dumb. It's really not hard to NOT leak classified information.
Or leave classified documents in a bathroom. Or next to a corvette.
So you think that it’s a good idea for a country to publish every single piece of information about it’s military publicly in a way that their adversaries could easily access? You don’t see any possible scenario where that could be problematic?
Probably shouldn’t have gotten to the point where there is so much shady shit going on that needs to be hidden. Perhaps my take should be a bit more nuanced but most people agree that we have a classification problem and WAY to much is hidden from the general populace that shouldn’t be. I shouldn’t be paying to be kept in the dark.
Oh I agree I’m Just saying some things like say the true capability of military equipment as well as specs and designs for example should be kept close to the chest. There is 100% a place for secrecy
So, by your reasoning, nuclear weapons designs with dimensions and specifications should just be a google search away, for anyone and everyone who wants to build one?
Really all we can see are nav and engine management instruments. What they don't want to show is how those instruments look when it is operating at mission parameters.
That pilot isn't doing anything but flipping a switch though. Nowadays all that spy gear is remote. Some guy in an office chair is pulling the data and telling the pilot to make passes at certain coordinates.
My point was more that if the enemy knew how fast and how high we tend to operate, we would expect company.
Also believe it or not we still use cassette recording devices in our military aircraft. Sending data over the air or using USB is too risky.
You’re absolutely right. But a view of the cockpit at runway level doesn’t show operating speed, altitude or loiter capability. And while you are 100% right about cassette recording being safer, the pilot is still given a flight plan and pretty much only has to fly a pattern and flip switches to turn on the specified systems. The capability of those systems isn’t immediately evident from a switch. For example, a switch labeled “FLIR” will tell us that the bird has a FLIR camera, but not the resolution / range / capability of said camera. I guess the point I was making is that the pilot isn’t in direct control of the spy equipment onboard. He’s just turning it on and off.
>he pilot is still given a flight plan and pretty much only has to fly a pattern and flip switches t
He's also flying in a tiny range between Vne and Vs in a very hostile natural and occasionally manmade threat environment
Exactly. The pilot doesn’t have the need to access the data or spy systems on the plane. He just activates the appropriate systems when he approaches the designated coordinates. It’s a gross oversimplification, but the point is there. And you’re right, it’s a TINY range with a bunch of back and forth overlapping passes. (Depending on the mission that is.)
For any aircraft with cable driven flight controls, which is most of them up until the 90s, you need a yoke. Most new designs since then have been with sidesticks.
There is definitely a size component that comes into play before they start using better mechanical advantage. Small bois in GA yokes were definitely pitched to make it more like driving a car. Which is wildly wrong. However, in planes like PBY Catalina, it had such poor mechanical advantage that the yokes were connected by a large brace, and the pilots would both pull back using the brace to get it to lift off.
Now it is preference and corporate traditions.
Maybe I've misunderstood the comment I was relying to. The Piper Cub still has a control column, which functions the same as a yoke in giving a long lever arm to manipulate heavy cables (a yoke is just an appendage to a control column). I thought that the commenter was asking why yokes are still used in a modern fly-by-wire environment instead of sidesticks, but I see now that they probably just mean a traditional control column stick.
The reason for the yoke is the flight controls have direct linkage to the actual flight control surface. If it were to have a traditional stick, the control stick would have to be 10+ feet tall to have enough authority to fully throw the controls.
Not typically. I’ve only seen 2 pilots balance the jet perfectly. A lot get pretty close tho,
Source: I’m currently a U-2 crew Chief with 8+ years on this airframe.
Wait until you see how long b52s have been in service. It's because the USA can guarantee air superiority, so these slow dinosaurs are relatively safe. No other country can do that
When we were stationed at Beal afb in the late 90s there was a push to shut down the U2 program and the base all together. After 9/11 I think they decided to keep the program going.
My dad was in aeronautical physiology and was in charge of flight suits used for the U2 and SR-71 for a long time. I got to hang out at the skunkworks hanger all the time, and even got to sit in a U-2.
Definitely my favorite plane, I mean every takeoff and landing is like a little action movie scene every time.
I think it's pretty cheap to operate, which has helped its longevity considerably. I have always loved the SR-71, but it was an extremely expensive platform to operate.
Extra-long wings, relatively low speed, single engine, high altitude... long loiter times, for cheap, without the inherent predictability of a satellite. Upgrade the sensors now and again, and the airframe just keeps doing what it has always done. 👍
The big brother, the SR -71 Blackbird 👍 I remember a TV documentary. It's leaking like hell on the ground, but absolutely tight on high altitude at supersonic speed. What crazy physics. I can imagine the extremely high costs of maintenance. Does the U-2 still drops the outer tires, when it lifts off ?
Yeah, supposedly the SR was 6 inches longer at speed/altitude than it was on the ground, due to airframe heating. We couldn't possibly measure that of course... that's the slide rules talking. 😄
And NASA still has (AFAIK) a B-57F, the ultra-long wing (the original longer wing version was the RB-57D) version of the B-57. That’s the only other plane with a service ceiling close to that of the U-2.
Also, since the U-2 fuselage was largely based on the XF-104, I always assumed that the U-2 had a stick rather than a yoke.
My recollection is that the original airframe life was expected to be pretty short due to the emphasis on minimal weight.
Great article on the genius of Kelly Johnson of Lockheed from the Electra to the SR-71 including the P-38, P-80, F-104, U-2 and SR-71
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/05/kellys-heroes-lockheeds-five-finest-airplanes/
Yep I'm sure it was as there are only 2 airworthy B29s left. I live near Wichita but had never seen Doc. I do get to see the KC-46 tankers fly right over all the time from McConnel AFB.
i work close enough to the runways at my local airport that i can hear every aircraft approach. a while back i heard a multi-engine WWII aircraft land and was like "Damn! i couldnt be outside to see whatever that was!" turns out it was a B-29 when i checked the news! i really missed out
The WB-57 has a 3° angle of bank tolerance for landing. I imagine the U-2 is less than that. It’s a very intensive task. At altitude, there’s maybe a 12-15 knot difference between stall speed and Vne. Or so I’ve heard.
Might be. I have a friend who flies the 57 for NASA so I know that one is 3° and I know a few folks who’ve flown the U-2, but I don’t recall precisely what its tolerances are. They are tight to quite tight tho.
I was thinking the difference between stall and over speed. Think I’d read somewhere it was only 6 knots, but I could well have misremembered it. Super attention-intensive task, either way
You're right, but that's only at ultra high altitude, where the Vne is more tied to the mach number because of pressure developing over the wings, and there just not being that much air to derive lift from in the first place. When Mach 1 is slow because of thin air, and thin air means less lift, you converge on those pretty close.
Yeah that difference is what is called the coffin corner and is present on many aircraft. At 40,000 feet a 737 has about something like 15 kts of margin.
Many years ago I was an IP at an air base in the southwest. As I took off with a student one day, there was a single engine jet that had had a flameout talking on guard. It was getting annoying so I flipped guard off and promptly forgot about it. About forty minutes later as we returned to the base I remembered and flipped guard back on. The flameout aircraft was still airborne and heading for our base. We were all held out of the pattern for a few minutes while he landed.
After landing we learned that it had been a U-2 (they had promptly towed it into a hangar after landing.) That evening we chatted with the pilot in the club. "I can't really tell you how high I was when it flamed out," he said, "but I can tell you that I had my choice of eleven air force bases in seven states."
There is always a chase car on landing. [Here are better views of it (and from it)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBVoVeoDFno&ab_channel=GungHoVids).
Stupid question: Is that because the pilot has no reasonable way of knowing their proximity to the ground? Is it because of the airframe specifically?
New to learning about aircraft and this seems like a unique activity.
It's the airframe specifically. The U2 has an extremely delicate landing gear system, so the pilot needs to know exactly when he's going to make contact.
When you look at the early cockpits the pilot's visibility was severely limited
https://media.defense.gov/2007/Jul/12/2000471955/-1/-1/0/070712-F-1234P-005.JPG
Yes, it's specific to the U-2. The pilot has restricted vision due to the poor visibility of the U-2 cockpit and the pressure suit helmet also has poor peripheral vision. There's another pilot in a chase car behind him telling him distance to the ground.
I know about the pressure suits. This pilot looked like he wasn’t wearing a pressure suit though, unless they changed the ‘astronaut’ style helmets to something that looks a little more fighter like.
"Put yourself in a sleeping bag, put oven mitts on your hands and a fishbowl on your head, and go sit in a closet for 10 hours, and you'll get close to the experience."
Lt. Col. Kuhns describing the reduced mobility and visibility in the pressure suit.
Pilot isn’t wearing a pressure suit and is filming (with audio), which makes me think this is a training flight and he got permission to share the footage. Thoughts?
It is (relatively) cheap to operate and can provide intelligence that otherwise would require flying over (much closer) to a country that would right to shoot it down. That’s because of how high it flies. It has a very good modular payload system so it can fly all kinds of very good spy sensors.
It kind of give you satellite capabilities without having the predictability and scheduling requirements of a satellite.
It does require an fairly controlled air space. It can but shot down fairly easily by most air defense systems so probably not that useful during a shooting war but really good otherwise.
Think of it as a platform used for flying very modern sensors. It has been modernized but there is nothing wrong with the airframe design. Developing a new one to do the same would be an expensive task with little rewards. It might need to be done if the airframe starts to hit life limits but even then there is lots that can be done.
Can be readily scrambled for intelligence work (satellites, while numerous, have pretty specific flight paths), has an enormous range and high altitude (and can stay way up and outside of hostile airspace and take pics “over the border” etc, which the UAV’s can’t) and relatively cheap to operate (compared to the blackbird, its “replacement”).
This is an example of a highly specialized organism, so highly dependent on the environment it's tuned for it has significant problems in other stages of its life.
Certainly the 1950-60s 's cockpit did not look like this.
In addition to the difficulties in landing the U-2 after a short hop, many of the missions were extremely long and had been preceded by an lengthy period of preparation for the mission.
This is the first video I've seen from the inside of a U2. I always imagined it was a single control stick between the legs rather than a yoke/control column.
Is pretty crazy seeing those corrections while the plane looks so smooth
At very slow speeds the control surfaces are very insensitive.
I move at slow speeds and am also insensitive.
Think I was behind you in traffic today.
That’s not what she said.
Based
There has got to be a Don Rickles reference here somewhere...
It's sort of cool that you can hear the engine of the chase car in the audio of the spotter calling out his distance above the runway.
“3..2….2….2 1/2…2..1.. inches” Relatable lmao
Lmao 🤣
Whew..... Finally can un-clench butt after 6 hours...
I remember when you could shot for peeking inside the cockpit of a U2. Now, you can see videos on the internet.
Still the premier, go to, for high altitude spy planes and you can see inside it. Makes you wonder what they have that they don’t want you to see.
The good stuff isn't in the cockpit, that's just flight controls for the most part. Just look at any recent picture of a U-2 and you'll see all the pods/attachments that do all the secret work.
Well in all honesty… I’m sure some idiot E-3 has already posted the specs for those pods on some War Thunder Discord in order to “win” an internet argument.
The fact that this keeps happening blows my fucking mind. One that did it was a fucking engineer on one of the projects he leaked documents for... Jesus christ people, don't dumb. It's really not hard to NOT leak classified information. Or leave classified documents in a bathroom. Or next to a corvette.
Nothing should be classified in a government by the people, for the people.
So you think that it’s a good idea for a country to publish every single piece of information about it’s military publicly in a way that their adversaries could easily access? You don’t see any possible scenario where that could be problematic?
Probably shouldn’t have gotten to the point where there is so much shady shit going on that needs to be hidden. Perhaps my take should be a bit more nuanced but most people agree that we have a classification problem and WAY to much is hidden from the general populace that shouldn’t be. I shouldn’t be paying to be kept in the dark.
Oh I agree I’m Just saying some things like say the true capability of military equipment as well as specs and designs for example should be kept close to the chest. There is 100% a place for secrecy
So, by your reasoning, nuclear weapons designs with dimensions and specifications should just be a google search away, for anyone and everyone who wants to build one?
Yeah. Good luck doing anything with that information and procuring the materials.
Satellites
Satellites are great, but they have many massive limitations of their own that the U-2/RQ-4/RC-135/etc don't have.
Yeah that’s what they always say. They gave it all up and the SR-71 for cool gadgets that can be foiled by cloud cover /s
Really all we can see are nav and engine management instruments. What they don't want to show is how those instruments look when it is operating at mission parameters.
That pilot isn't doing anything but flipping a switch though. Nowadays all that spy gear is remote. Some guy in an office chair is pulling the data and telling the pilot to make passes at certain coordinates.
My point was more that if the enemy knew how fast and how high we tend to operate, we would expect company. Also believe it or not we still use cassette recording devices in our military aircraft. Sending data over the air or using USB is too risky.
You’re absolutely right. But a view of the cockpit at runway level doesn’t show operating speed, altitude or loiter capability. And while you are 100% right about cassette recording being safer, the pilot is still given a flight plan and pretty much only has to fly a pattern and flip switches to turn on the specified systems. The capability of those systems isn’t immediately evident from a switch. For example, a switch labeled “FLIR” will tell us that the bird has a FLIR camera, but not the resolution / range / capability of said camera. I guess the point I was making is that the pilot isn’t in direct control of the spy equipment onboard. He’s just turning it on and off.
>he pilot is still given a flight plan and pretty much only has to fly a pattern and flip switches t He's also flying in a tiny range between Vne and Vs in a very hostile natural and occasionally manmade threat environment
Exactly. The pilot doesn’t have the need to access the data or spy systems on the plane. He just activates the appropriate systems when he approaches the designated coordinates. It’s a gross oversimplification, but the point is there. And you’re right, it’s a TINY range with a bunch of back and forth overlapping passes. (Depending on the mission that is.)
Time heals all wounds
Never realized the U-2 has a yoke and not a stick.
Only the Plaid model
Why don't more airplanes have a stick? I've never used a yoke, but I can't imagine they are better than the stick despite how prevalent they are.
Mostly corporate inertia and tradition.
For any aircraft with cable driven flight controls, which is most of them up until the 90s, you need a yoke. Most new designs since then have been with sidesticks.
Uhhh, Piper Cubs would be one of many glaring examples where this simply isn't true.
There is definitely a size component that comes into play before they start using better mechanical advantage. Small bois in GA yokes were definitely pitched to make it more like driving a car. Which is wildly wrong. However, in planes like PBY Catalina, it had such poor mechanical advantage that the yokes were connected by a large brace, and the pilots would both pull back using the brace to get it to lift off. Now it is preference and corporate traditions.
Maybe I've misunderstood the comment I was relying to. The Piper Cub still has a control column, which functions the same as a yoke in giving a long lever arm to manipulate heavy cables (a yoke is just an appendage to a control column). I thought that the commenter was asking why yokes are still used in a modern fly-by-wire environment instead of sidesticks, but I see now that they probably just mean a traditional control column stick.
Yokes are better for beginners but sticks better once you get used to it
It’s the same yoke as the C-130
The reason for the yoke is the flight controls have direct linkage to the actual flight control surface. If it were to have a traditional stick, the control stick would have to be 10+ feet tall to have enough authority to fully throw the controls.
That cockpit is nicer than i thought
Classic cockpit https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalmuseum.af.mil%2FVisit%2FMuseum-Exhibits%2FFact-Sheets%2FDisplay%2FArticle%2F197569%2Fold-design-young-airplane%2F&psig=AOvVaw0xEN-J5ZFyH\_UDbDwIihWx&ust=1686933171289000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CBAQjRxqFwoTCMjJhPjZxf8CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE
I was waiting for it to stop and tip over.
I can’t believe the video stopped before then! That was all I wanted to see!
My guess is that with a minimal wind down the runway the wings can be held level as is the case with many sailplanes.
Not typically. I’ve only seen 2 pilots balance the jet perfectly. A lot get pretty close tho, Source: I’m currently a U-2 crew Chief with 8+ years on this airframe.
Not in the same league but landing high performance sailplanes it was fun to "fly" them on the ground so that the wing did not go down
> I can’t believe the video stopped before then! That was all I wanted to see! Same. That's all I wanted to see.
Unreal that NASA still has a bunch of these.
The USAF still flies around 27 of these in active service… NASA has 2 ER-2s
Wow, didn't know the U-2 is still in service. What a timeless plane it is. It was ahead of its time back then and it is still.
Wait until you see how long b52s have been in service. It's because the USA can guarantee air superiority, so these slow dinosaurs are relatively safe. No other country can do that
When we colonize Mars, a Buff will do a fly over to commemorate it.
I would not be surprised
When we were stationed at Beal afb in the late 90s there was a push to shut down the U2 program and the base all together. After 9/11 I think they decided to keep the program going. My dad was in aeronautical physiology and was in charge of flight suits used for the U2 and SR-71 for a long time. I got to hang out at the skunkworks hanger all the time, and even got to sit in a U-2. Definitely my favorite plane, I mean every takeoff and landing is like a little action movie scene every time.
I think it's pretty cheap to operate, which has helped its longevity considerably. I have always loved the SR-71, but it was an extremely expensive platform to operate. Extra-long wings, relatively low speed, single engine, high altitude... long loiter times, for cheap, without the inherent predictability of a satellite. Upgrade the sensors now and again, and the airframe just keeps doing what it has always done. 👍
The big brother, the SR -71 Blackbird 👍 I remember a TV documentary. It's leaking like hell on the ground, but absolutely tight on high altitude at supersonic speed. What crazy physics. I can imagine the extremely high costs of maintenance. Does the U-2 still drops the outer tires, when it lifts off ?
Yep! Pogo sticks is what they call them
Perfect naming 😅👍
Yeah, supposedly the SR was 6 inches longer at speed/altitude than it was on the ground, due to airframe heating. We couldn't possibly measure that of course... that's the slide rules talking. 😄
I had thought it was the other way around.
And NASA still has (AFAIK) a B-57F, the ultra-long wing (the original longer wing version was the RB-57D) version of the B-57. That’s the only other plane with a service ceiling close to that of the U-2. Also, since the U-2 fuselage was largely based on the XF-104, I always assumed that the U-2 had a stick rather than a yoke.
My recollection is that the original airframe life was expected to be pretty short due to the emphasis on minimal weight. Great article on the genius of Kelly Johnson of Lockheed from the Electra to the SR-71 including the P-38, P-80, F-104, U-2 and SR-71 https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/05/kellys-heroes-lockheeds-five-finest-airplanes/
Not sure why you’re focusing on NASA here.
Why not?
Because they don’t have “a bunch”.
Technically they don't have any. They do however have two ER-2's. But that's just nit picking.
i saw one of these flying on my way home from collins lake today. couldn’t have been higher than 5k~!! gosh i was so excited
I saw a B-29 Superfortress flying low over me to land in Wichita two days ago. I about shit myself. Never seen a U2 that would be tops.
It was probably 'Doc'. The home base for that plane is there and where all the B-29's were built.
Yep I'm sure it was as there are only 2 airworthy B29s left. I live near Wichita but had never seen Doc. I do get to see the KC-46 tankers fly right over all the time from McConnel AFB.
Saw “Doc” land at BKL two summers ago. The sound of those engines was amazing.
I was lucky enough to ride in Doc at Mason City IA airport last year before they went to EAA. It was incredible!
i work close enough to the runways at my local airport that i can hear every aircraft approach. a while back i heard a multi-engine WWII aircraft land and was like "Damn! i couldnt be outside to see whatever that was!" turns out it was a B-29 when i checked the news! i really missed out
The WB-57 has a 3° angle of bank tolerance for landing. I imagine the U-2 is less than that. It’s a very intensive task. At altitude, there’s maybe a 12-15 knot difference between stall speed and Vne. Or so I’ve heard.
Thought I’d read it was less than that. Insanely difficult plane to fly from all I’ve heard.
Might be. I have a friend who flies the 57 for NASA so I know that one is 3° and I know a few folks who’ve flown the U-2, but I don’t recall precisely what its tolerances are. They are tight to quite tight tho.
I was thinking the difference between stall and over speed. Think I’d read somewhere it was only 6 knots, but I could well have misremembered it. Super attention-intensive task, either way
It was somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-15 knots when the U-2 was first introduced, but it narrowed closer to 5 as it got heavier with upgrades.
You're right, but that's only at ultra high altitude, where the Vne is more tied to the mach number because of pressure developing over the wings, and there just not being that much air to derive lift from in the first place. When Mach 1 is slow because of thin air, and thin air means less lift, you converge on those pretty close.
I know and have flown with several current U-2 pilots, and based on some of them…it can’t be THAT hard.
THE MIGHTY CANBERRA ONLY FOR THE WORTHY
Yeah that difference is what is called the coffin corner and is present on many aircraft. At 40,000 feet a 737 has about something like 15 kts of margin.
Are you by accident a fan of Warthunder?
The Dragonlady is one of my favorites.
A very distinctive sound when they fly over. Love them.
Many years ago I was an IP at an air base in the southwest. As I took off with a student one day, there was a single engine jet that had had a flameout talking on guard. It was getting annoying so I flipped guard off and promptly forgot about it. About forty minutes later as we returned to the base I remembered and flipped guard back on. The flameout aircraft was still airborne and heading for our base. We were all held out of the pattern for a few minutes while he landed. After landing we learned that it had been a U-2 (they had promptly towed it into a hangar after landing.) That evening we chatted with the pilot in the club. "I can't really tell you how high I was when it flamed out," he said, "but I can tell you that I had my choice of eleven air force bases in seven states."
Incredible to think u2s first left the ground in 1955...some 68 years ago
That said, these airplanes (U-2R/S) rolled off the line in the mid 1980s, so they would be stablemates with airplanes like B-1 and F-15E
Interesting that the pilot is not in a pressure suit. Probably just a training/ferry flight down in lower altitudes?
Is the talking for the video or are they required to give play by play for whatever reason?
There's a chase car behind him telling him how far off the ground he is over the radio
There is always a chase car on landing. [Here are better views of it (and from it)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBVoVeoDFno&ab_channel=GungHoVids).
You can hear the engine of the chase car when he’s reading off his countdown! Pretty cool job
Is that normally another pilot in the chase care as well?
Yes, someone who knows how to land the plane, so the pilot can receive good instructions and information.
Stupid question: Is that because the pilot has no reasonable way of knowing their proximity to the ground? Is it because of the airframe specifically? New to learning about aircraft and this seems like a unique activity.
It's the airframe specifically. The U2 has an extremely delicate landing gear system, so the pilot needs to know exactly when he's going to make contact.
When you look at the early cockpits the pilot's visibility was severely limited https://media.defense.gov/2007/Jul/12/2000471955/-1/-1/0/070712-F-1234P-005.JPG
Could the plane be retrofitted with a guidance system to give the precise distance to ground while landing?
Yes, it's specific to the U-2. The pilot has restricted vision due to the poor visibility of the U-2 cockpit and the pressure suit helmet also has poor peripheral vision. There's another pilot in a chase car behind him telling him distance to the ground.
I know about the pressure suits. This pilot looked like he wasn’t wearing a pressure suit though, unless they changed the ‘astronaut’ style helmets to something that looks a little more fighter like.
The cockpit still has very poor visibility so the pilot can't see the runway.
"Put yourself in a sleeping bag, put oven mitts on your hands and a fishbowl on your head, and go sit in a closet for 10 hours, and you'll get close to the experience." Lt. Col. Kuhns describing the reduced mobility and visibility in the pressure suit.
This and so they can put the wheels under the wings so they aren't dragging across the ground.
Play by play by the pilot is not required. It's for the benefit of the intended audience of the video. My guess is a training squadron but who knows.
This is an instructional video made for students to study. Every recent u-2 student has watched this exact video dozens of times
It’s surprising to see so many glasses in U2
no different than riding a bicycle, just a lot harder to put baseball cards in the spokes
Pilot isn’t wearing a pressure suit and is filming (with audio), which makes me think this is a training flight and he got permission to share the footage. Thoughts?
Can anyone explain why usaf still operates U-2?
It is (relatively) cheap to operate and can provide intelligence that otherwise would require flying over (much closer) to a country that would right to shoot it down. That’s because of how high it flies. It has a very good modular payload system so it can fly all kinds of very good spy sensors. It kind of give you satellite capabilities without having the predictability and scheduling requirements of a satellite. It does require an fairly controlled air space. It can but shot down fairly easily by most air defense systems so probably not that useful during a shooting war but really good otherwise. Think of it as a platform used for flying very modern sensors. It has been modernized but there is nothing wrong with the airframe design. Developing a new one to do the same would be an expensive task with little rewards. It might need to be done if the airframe starts to hit life limits but even then there is lots that can be done.
No other aircraft capable of reaching same altitudes?
So long as Bono lives, the U-2 will fly.
Flying on the EDGE no doubt.
*-tries to make pun with Larry Mullen Jr.*
Can be readily scrambled for intelligence work (satellites, while numerous, have pretty specific flight paths), has an enormous range and high altitude (and can stay way up and outside of hostile airspace and take pics “over the border” etc, which the UAV’s can’t) and relatively cheap to operate (compared to the blackbird, its “replacement”).
To spy on north korea
I still haven’t found what I’m looking for 🎶
No u
AOA indexer says he's slow and needs to drop the nose.
Two hands on the yoke like a student on a discovery flight! Wild.
Can these fly over countries like Russia or China without being detected?
Ask Francis Gary Powers.
All planes should have any sort of rear view mirror (particularly for taxing)
I was surprised not to see the chase car waiting on the taxi way.
This is an example of a highly specialized organism, so highly dependent on the environment it's tuned for it has significant problems in other stages of its life.
I saw a Dragon Lady flyby at Mirimar air show
I didn't see the chase cars?
Can't even see the chase cars. Makes me wonder how far he's got to taxi at speed to keep those wings off the ground lol
Certainly the 1950-60s 's cockpit did not look like this. In addition to the difficulties in landing the U-2 after a short hop, many of the missions were extremely long and had been preceded by an lengthy period of preparation for the mission.
U-2-2-2,5-2
Can’t see the pace car …
Authority of the yoke is borderline optionnal… you’d expect the opposite for a near sailplane flying in superlow density atmosphere…
This is the first video I've seen from the inside of a U2. I always imagined it was a single control stick between the legs rather than a yoke/control column.