Not your average aircraft...

The lyrics are raunchy. Don't show it to the kids...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eamnTyfkUBY

What a handfull!

In that same group of videos on u-tube, the is a clip called "Lockheed U-2R landing on aircraft carrier". When the hook snags the wire, everything stops. I'm wondering, after looking at both videos, if they shouldn't be using arresting gear for all U-2 flights. I saw a mobile or portable arresting system which could be set up at any strip and could catch F-104s.

RG

Used to fly with a retired U-2 pilot. He never mentioned landing difficulties, but said you had to be extremely careful at or near the service ceiling. A stall could be catastrophic.

Yeah, they are blanced on the point of a needle when at altitude. An engineer I knew at Lockheed explained just how tricky and dangerous the U-2 can be at service ceiling. Just a tick too much speed, and they enter a transonic instability regime, with loss of ac. Just a tick too slow, and it'll stall with probable loss of ac. What fun!

Jet- congrats on 5000 posts.

RG

My son has been a U2 crewchief for 18yrs and is now the quality control person assigned to Lockheed. A U2 is flown about 95% of the time on auto pilot. They have a very narrow margin between stall and loosing control from excess speed. When they are landing another pilot chases the plane with a high performance Camaro telling the pilot what he needs to do. When it skids to a stop, the airman slid the pogos into the wings and it taxis back to the hanger. My wife has been lucky enough to ride in the Camaro with the chase pilot when my son was stationed at Beale AFB.

I read some time ago that the envelope between trans-sonic and stall at altitude was 11 knots. I don't know if that is the number or not, but it got my attention.

Apparently a very sharp coffin corner

Most of the U2s had the cable arrestors until a few years ago. The one series of landings were the last of it. The planes were not sturdy enough and they did not have enough room for the wings.
Butch

My old U2 buddy told me they have a small thumb wheel on the throttle to make minute power adjustments when at or near the ceiling. It's definitely a very touchy situation at max altitude.

So, why in the end are they patting the guy down and getting ready to put the cuffs on him.
Grizz

quote:

Originally posted by Grizzly Adams:
So, why in the end are they patting the guy down and getting ready to put the cuffs on him.
Grizz

I think they're checking for wet spots in his P suit...

Actually, I thought the background lyrics were spot-on.

Reminded me of so moments in another beasty .

Maybe the AF had the design flaw placed in the aircraft so they could do controlled crashes like the Navy, just a lot fewer of them so all that metal could be saved from the landing gear