LOL classic aviator humor. Dragon Lady indeed! Thanks for sharing. I can only imagine how fun it must have been try to get an aircraft that does not want to land with a huge wingspan onto a carrier deck. Wonder what that guys insurance rates must be like!
 
yasotay said:
I can only imagine how fun it must have been try to get an aircraft that does not want to land with a huge wingspan onto a carrier deck. Wonder what that guys insurance rates must be like!

I 've read a good article about the operation - not sure where though (possibly an old Flight Journal).

Regards,

Greg
 
Looks like somebody screwed up and is looking for a convenient scapegoat.
 
Video on link from the 9th Reconnaissance Wing Public Affairs.

http://worldwarwings.com/this-declassified-footage-of-flying-at-70k-ft-is-breathtaking?a=mk&var=ww2-70k-ride
 
Flyaway said:
Video on link from the 9th Reconnaissance Wing Public Affairs.

http://worldwarwings.com/this-declassified-footage-of-flying-at-70k-ft-is-breathtaking?a=mk&var=ww2-70k-ride

This has been on youtube for two years. Then there was when James May and Adam Savage both flew at 70,000'+ in the back seat. . . (Wish there was some Mach 3+ 85,000 foot Blackbird footage.)
 
sferrin said:
Flyaway said:
Video on link from the 9th Reconnaissance Wing Public Affairs.

http://worldwarwings.com/this-declassified-footage-of-flying-at-70k-ft-is-breathtaking?a=mk&var=ww2-70k-ride

This has been on youtube for two years. Then there was when James May and Adam Savage both flew at 70,000'+ in the back seat. . . (Wish there was some Mach 3+ 85,000 foot Blackbird footage.)

Sorry about that was posted as new, and new to me as well.
 
"Then there was when James May and Adam Savage both flew at 70,000'+ in the back seat"

Speaking of jammy b'stards...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwgfU228clE

I now know why he grins all the time.

Chris
 
There's one where he's in the back seat of a Typhoon in an (apparently) unrestricted climb. Pretty amusing.
 
As the U-2 remains one of my favourite military aircraft I thought I would start a dedicated thread for it. As well as it being one of the more venerable models of aircraft still flying.

 
Only a few years ago there was talk of retiring the U-2 and replacing it with the Global Hawk, now with the future upgrades it looks as if the U-2 could be like the B-52 and go on until the 2030s-2040s
 
FlightGlobal (Flight International) story on the upgrade:
 

I watched it when it was first aired on Forces Tv, and it contained a lot of information that I never new about the U-2 before.
 
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Maybe it’s just me but I was surprised to see the paint peeling off some of the U-2s in it. Doesn’t the paint perform some kind of small ‘stealth’ function?
 
Maybe it’s just me but I was surprised to see the paint peeling off some of the U-2s in it. Doesn’t the paint perform some kind of small ‘stealth’ function?

I had known about the previous attempts to add stealth technology to the U-2 shortly after the Garry Powers shoot down by adding metal string covered in Radar Absorbent Material, but it failed, could this be a modern attempt?
 
With all the RB-57D and U-2 shot down over China, Cuba (plus of course the Gary Power aircraft) - I was wondering if the Soviets examined their cameras and sensors ? Did they got any tech advances out of them ?
 
This upgrading of the U-2 makes financial and time sense. The Powers U-2 apparently crashed like a glider. I recall a photo published by the Russians that showed it on the ground with structural breaks at the usual/expected places.
 
The usual "naked provocation." I'm sure Cuba had similar thoughts during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Meanwhile, the US has to make sure that our current new Cold War enemy number one gets a good look from to time.
 
China complains on the U-2 overflight to not look embarrassed by USN carrier tempering their macho attitude toward Taiwan (3 differents military exercice on the same time) trawling around.
European nations that have lost WWII that day in Munich should be there also. Forefront.
 
Any ideas as to how the Air Force updated the software during the flight? Sounds like it was over some form of network enabled hardware. :confused:

Clearly the U-2 have a datalink. That takes care of it.

------------

The bigger implications especially nowadays is that It will allow digital countermeasure or updates to weapon software to be deployed In flight. Missiles etc, can be manufactured with just basic testing algorithm without any target tracking or countermeasure algorithm etc. ESM aircraft may analyze, develop and actually patch Jammer aircraft's jammer software with real-time developed technique.
 
Any ideas as to how the Air Force updated the software during the flight? Sounds like it was over some form of network enabled hardware. :confused:

Clearly the U-2 have a datalink. That takes care of it.

------------

The bigger implications especially nowadays is that It will allow digital countermeasure or updates to weapon software to be deployed In flight. Missiles etc, can be manufactured with just basic testing algorithm without any target tracking or countermeasure algorithm etc. ESM aircraft may analyze, develop and actually patch Jammer aircraft's jammer software with real-time developed technique.

Thanks for the info stealthflanker. One further question, is the datalink system Link16 by any chance? That is the only datalink that I currently know about.
 
The Global Hawk and I suspect other unmanned systems have such a link. But China cannot know...
 
As the U-2 remains one of my favourite military aircraft I thought I would start a dedicated thread for it. As well as it being one of the more venerable models of aircraft still flying.


I can add some old photos I took/had taken many moons ago...
 

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Artuµ was created by the U-2 Federal Laboratory, which in October successfully updated the plane′s software while it was flying — a first for the U.S. military. The event was made possible by deploying Kubernetes, an open-source, containerized method for automating software updates.
Artuμ is based on a gaming algorithm known as µZero, which has been used to beat human players in chess and Go, Roper explained in an op-ed on Popular Mechanics. The U-2 lab specially trained the AI co-pilot to manipulate the U-2′s sensor suite during “over half a million” computer-simulated missions, according to the Air Force.
“With no pilot override, ARTUµ made final calls on devoting the radar to missile hunting versus self-protection,” Roper wrote.
 

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