Lockheed U-2 Aircraft

Keyboards'Fear

Keyboards'Fear

Keyboards'Fear

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I watched a Mythbusters episode yesterday, and the main topic was the hardest aircraft to fly. It was all about the U-2 aircraft really, and before watching that I had (shamefully) never knew it existed.

What an incredible episode, but more so incredible aircraft!

An ultra-high altitude reconnaissance plane that operates at 70 000ft, over twice the hight of commercial airliners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_U-2

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The pilots have to wear pressurised suits, pretty much space suits, and have to go through an massive amount of training before being able to even just sit in the thing.

The fuel is kept in the wings, making them super heavy, so heavy in fact that they can't even support their own load, and need castor wheels attached to the wings that detach on take-off. And the planes wheel configuration is like none other, with just a set below the cockpit and a set to the rear just below the engine in a bicycle configuration, so is notoriously difficult to land.

When landing the pilot has little visibility on seeing the runway, so there has to be a chase vehicle driven by a trained U-2 pilot who will guide him on his landing.

The pilots usually spend about 12 hours at 70 000ft gathering intelligence, which is amazing for both pilot and aircraft when you think of it.

Anyway, enough of that. I'm sure all you aircraft fans know what it's all about :)

In the episode though, Adam, that geek with glasses actually gets to fly in the plane (after lots and lots of training, which is awesome to see) and they fly up to 70 000ft, you can see the blackness of space so easily as it's almost the top of earth's atmosphere really :eek: lucky *******.
The best bit is the take-off though, the plane takes off after a very short time of accelerating, and rises at an incredibly steep rate in a circular motion.

Basically that episode just wowed me and introduced me to a spectacular machine. And induced horrible jealousy :(

I know the SR-71 went higher, and faster, but not for sustained times like the U-2.

Just watch the episode if you can, I won't link the YouTube vid as it's sort of copyright infringement, but I can't stop you searching ;)

And yes there's not much point to this thread, just only hoping to introduce people to the U-2 like I was

EDIT: Sorry Surveyor, I thought Imgur had done it. Fixed now (1080p width too much?) Hopefully fixed now, :) Really sorry

Third time's a charm :)
 
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Both the U2 and SR71 are two of the most fantastic aircraft ever made. Both strategic reconnaissance, although in slightly different roles. Both required essentially astronaut selection to even get into the training program. The first couple of flights the Space Shuttle did actually had NASA borrow some U2 and SR71 suits for the crew as they hadn't got any of their own at that time.

Borrow *or take out a loan and buy as they really ain't cheap* a couple of books called Sled Driver and The Untouchables by Brian Shul.

He's a former SR71 pilot and a extremely nice chap. Spent a couple of hours with him at his soon to open gallery in California. He's also a superb photographer and writer. Some of the stories he has about flying at Mach 3.5+ at 70'000ft+ are amazing.
 
Flibster said:
Both the U2 and SR71 are two of the most fantastic aircraft ever made. Both strategic reconnaissance, although in slightly different roles. Both required essentially astronaut selection to even get into the training program. The first couple of flights the Space Shuttle did actually had NASA borrow some U2 and SR71 suits for the crew as they hadn't got any of their own at that time.

Borrow *or take out a loan and buy as they really ain't cheap* a couple of books called Sled Driver and The Untouchables by Brian Shul.

He's a former SR71 pilot and a extremely nice chap. Spent a couple of hours with him at his soon to open gallery in California. He's also a superb photographer and writer. Some of the stories he has about flying at Mach 3.5+ at 70'000ft+ are amazing.
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SR-71 (Blackbird :) ) is pretty much my favourite aircraft ever, it looks amazing and it did impossible things. But by god it still looks more modern and scientific (almost alien) than anything else today.

It's just something with the U-2, it's design (50yrs old) and everything else involved, that has truly captured my spirit. That's why I had to start this thread. People need to know about this aircraft
 
harry5522 said:
1080p most commonly is 1920x1080 1080p being height and 1920width :)
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Thanks for that, yea I see where I was going wrong. Was editing the wrong part in Imgur. I will remember for future and give Surveyor a rest, once again I apologise. All sorted now thankfully :) Apart from that red card which is actually a nice touch
 
Keyboards'Fear said:
It's just something with the U-2, it's design (50yrs old) and everything else involved, that has truly captured my spirit. That's why I had to start this thread. People need to know about this aircraft
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Saddens me we achieve so little really these days when back then they were doing the impossible "with a bit of shoe string" :S
 
To all those that told me to watch James May's show, it's pretty much exactly what I watched on Mythbusters, but doesn't show the things they did. Watch both if you haven't, you will feel something. Mythbusters shows more, but James May presents it best.

Anyway it's incredible that this was started 50 years ago, and as Rroff has said, it truly is sad we are not doing the impossible anymore.

That's why these incredible machines from the past are something to admire, and why they are still going
 
One of the saddest things about the improvement in orbital tech, and the end of the cold was is that we no longer need the likes of the u2 to get the images, and there is no longer the push of that sort of tech at the same rate there was :(

It's sad to think that we've basically given up on anything other than LEO for manned missions, and we've effectively dropped back about 30-50 years on some aspects of aircraft flight.

There is/was something awe inspiring about the likes of the strategic reconnaissance and other state of the art aircraft designed around that era, the U2, SR1, Vulcan, Concorde and Shuttle, now we don't seem to have anything that is so oddly beautiful and powerful looking as aircraft.
 
adam cool dude said:
Didn't even knew these still flew. How come these still fly compared to the SR-71?
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I suspect as mentioned above a lot is to do with their uptime ability - able to loiter for long periods at altitudes that most "enemy" aircraft will struggle at operationally.
 
I think I remember seeing U2s flying overhead when I was a nipper.

Round by where I grew up there were loads of USAF bases.
 
Werewolf said:
One of the saddest things about the improvement in orbital tech, and the end of the cold was is that we no longer need the likes of the u2 to get the images, and there is no longer the push of that sort of tech at the same rate there was :(

It's sad to think that we've basically given up on anything other than LEO for manned missions, and we've effectively dropped back about 30-50 years on some aspects of aircraft flight.

There is/was something awe inspiring about the likes of the strategic reconnaissance and other state of the art aircraft designed around that era, the U2, SR1, Vulcan, Concorde and Shuttle, now we don't seem to have anything that is so oddly beautiful and powerful looking as aircraft.
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Satellites with super extreme digital photographic capabilities. No manned aircraft will be as cheap as those unfortunately. Technology has risen so much that we don't need a human to do those sorts of reconnaissance anymore. And it's sad, as said above because of that we are doing things more cost effective, and scrapping human capabilities.

We accomplish the same task cheaply, but sacrificing the outreach of our human capabilities.
We aim to do things better, but without a human involved it means we're actually gaining nothing, just going backwards in a way
 
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adam cool dude said:
Didn't even knew these still flew. How come these still fly compared to the SR-71?
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Because the SR-71 is a totally different beast to the U2. Bu

Essentially the U2 is in comparison to the SR-71 a very simple plane. It's light but slow and that's about it.

The SR-71 is one of the fastest planes to ever fly. The technology behind that is impressive even to this day. It also had other (at the time) revolutionary features such as stealth technology. This of course makes them prohibitively expensive to operate, which is one reason why it's been retired.

Then there's the fact that the SR-71 was designed entirely to travel over the USSR and others so fast and so high that they couldn't do anything about it. Of course that's not the case any more, so there's not really a need for such an aircraft given it's costs. The U-2 is still viable in lower risk areas where it can loiter for much longer. For high risk areas they'll stick to satellites or use a drone.
 
Werewolf said:
One of the saddest things about the improvement in orbital tech, and the end of the cold was is that we no longer need the likes of the u2 to get the images, and there is no longer the push of that sort of tech at the same rate there was :(

It's sad to think that we've basically given up on anything other than LEO for manned missions, and we've effectively dropped back about 30-50 years on some aspects of aircraft flight.

There is/was something awe inspiring about the likes of the strategic reconnaissance and other state of the art aircraft designed around that era, the U2, SR1, Vulcan, Concorde and Shuttle, now we don't seem to have anything that is so oddly beautiful and powerful looking as aircraft.
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With recoonasance done by sattelite nowadays, it is indeed a sad time for high altitude aircraft such as the U2/SR71. Kelly johnson of the lockheed skunkworks was amazing, a guy who got stuff done using the simple technology of the time to build aircraft that could fly so high, so fast. To be involved in aviation at that period of time has to be the ultimate privilege in that field. Sure satellites can get the same kind of pictures, maybe even betther with the latest KH systems. But, theyre boring by comparison.

In northern ireland, we dont see many fast jets, but several years ago near the village of ballintoy on the north antrim coast here in northern ireland. I seen five dark grey F15E strike eagles flying in very low over the coast, brilliant to see. Probably heading over to lossiemouth in scotland. My father worked over there, and he has no interest in warplanes whatsoever. I asked him to take a few pics, his response was i cba.
 
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