Posted on 09/20/2016 2:19:03 PM PDT by Ray76
“At altitude, stall speed is 7 kts slower than cruise.”
Yes, and that’s not an easy “dance” to do. Most folks don’t understand density altitude. The higher these planes go, the more narrow this delta becomes, until they run out of any atmosphere on which to fly at all.
Active Duty ping.
Wow!
I was watching a rerun of Mythbusters last night and Adam scored a ride in one. Amazing view from 70k feet!
Possibly an auto sequence on ejection that also ejects the remote sensing gear?
Good theory. Or maybe laptops with security docs and encryption codes. The laptops could be plugged into a special ejection container and accessed onboard, and then unplugged and removed after the flight.
My nephew is at Beale now, and works on the U-2. I suspect they are checking maintenance records now.
The U-2 variant that crashed was the TU-2S. This is the trainer variant.
A 7 kt window between flight and stall ?
Why would anyone want to fly it ?
Here is an amazing early U-2 adventure story with a better outcome than yesterday: http://www.historynet.com/dragon-lady-down.htm
There is a video of the pilot returning to Cortez 50 years later to tell his story, but I can’t find it right now.
I don't know, but I don't think there's been many accidents with it.
A story years ago of a U-2 pilot who had a flame out and sent out a Mayday; he was a couple hundred miles from Bermuda which answered his mayday, requesting his location and rescue instructions....He radioed back to not bother, as he had enough altitude to glide to their runway.
2 el camino’s guys in back to set the outboard landing gear in place. very fun to watch, always wanted to do that at least once.
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