Lockheed U-2 Aircraft

A U-2 on final approach:

4aZjh5S.jpg



James May has a flight:


About flying one:

 
couple of years ago I sat watching a u2 do touch and gos for about an hour - with a truck chasing it down the runway each time to call out the wing level :p

its spooky looking plane
 
It annoys me that people get horny for these US aircraft, yet we built a production supersonic intercept fighter that in test exercises was able to attain altitude and intercept U2s with one even being recorded as topping out at 88,000ft following a ballistic climb.

The English Electric Lighting, ladies and gentleman, a British aircraft! From a time when we could make the best stuff and push boundaries

I used to love watching them take off from RAF Gütersloh in Germany in the middle 70s just before the squadrons were disbanded, and day I saw 3 escorting in a Vulcan, I was :eek::D:D, a sight that will always stay with me.
 
Cool plane.

Just reading up on wikipedia and this caught my eye:

Most pilots chose to not take with them the suicide pill offered before missions. If put in the mouth and bitten, the "L-pill"—containing liquid potassium cyanide—would cause death in 10–15 seconds. After a pilot almost accidentally ingested an L-pill instead of candy during a December 1956 flight, the suicide pills were put into boxes to avoid confusion. When in 1960 the CIA realized that a pill breaking inside the cockpit would kill the pilot, it destroyed the L-pills, and as a replacement its Technical Services Division developed a needle poisoned with a powerful shellfish toxin and hidden in a silver dollar. Only one was made because, as the agency decided, if any pilot needed to use it the program would probably be canceled.
Click to expand...

:D
 
I remember a similar topic, possibly on this forum, possibly somewhere else... where there was an incident in the 1960's when the SR-71 was still top-secret.

An EE Lightning pilot was vectored onto an intercept, and found a long black shape flying along, at high speed... so he opened the taps on the Lighning to close the gap.

Four blue-yellow balls appeared from the twin jets of the as-yet unknown SR71 and it left the Lightning struggling and failing to catch it, until the Lightning ran low on fuel and had to RTB. Of course, his fellow pilots didn't believe him for ~20 years! :D

Anyone any idea who the pilot was, or can find that story? I've looked but had no success.
 
Was it this plane that the US tried to fly over the USSR but it got shot down, then the US denied it happened in a UN meeting so Russia paraded in bits of plane and pictures of a captured pilot?
 
matt_fsr said:
I remember a similar topic, possibly on this forum, possibly somewhere else... where there was an incident in the 1960's when the SR-71 was still top-secret.

An EE Lightning pilot was vectored onto an intercept, and found a long black shape flying along, at high speed... so he opened the taps on the Lighning to close the gap.

Four blue-yellow balls appeared from the twin jets of the as-yet unknown SR71 and it left the Lightning struggling and failing to catch it, until the Lightning ran low on fuel and had to RTB. Of course, his fellow pilots didn't believe him for ~20 years! :D

Anyone any idea who the pilot was, or can find that story? I've looked but had no success.
Click to expand...

That's awesome :D

IIRC the Swedes were the first to manage to intercept and mock shootdown the SR-71 with their Viggens, the USAF sent them a congratulatory fax (and probably did a lot of shouting/reprimanding behind closed doors lol).
 
This is one of my favorite aircraft, absolutely stunning. A high altitude bird, which is flown by an elite set of pilots.

What I wouldn't give to go up in one.
 
I'm not sure if people still read books around these parts, but I bought a copy of 'Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed' for my pops (an engineer and aviation buff) as an Xmas gift some years ago... He absolutely loved it and so I ended up reading it myself.

It's a fascinating insight in to the science and engineering associated with the U-2 and SR-71 (and F-117) from the mouth of one of their senior engineers. The political stuff was also very interesting. I would recommend.
 
ubersonic said:
Was it this plane that the US tried to fly over the USSR but it got shot down, then the US denied it happened in a UN meeting so Russia paraded in bits of plane and pictures of a captured pilot?
Click to expand...

You are talking about Gary Powers - the USA thought Russia didn't have a missile that could go that high and yes they shot it down.

U2 was redundant for flights over Russia then.
 
It was also pictures taken from a U2 that brought the World, arguably, the closest it's ever been to World War 3. The pictures taken between August and September 1962 over Cuba sparked the brinkmanship contest of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom