RIDE THE U2

[alans1100]

Click on the link below to enjoy James May's ride in a U2.

Please read before clicking on link, it will explain and be more interesting. The U-2 is considered the most difficult plane in the world to fly. Each pilot has a co-pilot, who chases the plane on the runway in a sports car. Most of the cars are either Pontiac GTO's or Chevrolet Cameros, that the Air Force buys - American. The chase cars talk the pilot down as he lands on a bicycle-style landing gear. In that spacesuit, the pilot in the plane simply cannot get a good view of the runway. Upon takeoff, the wings on this plane, which extend 103 feet from tip to tip, literally, flap. To stabilize the wings on the runway, two pogo sticks on wheels prop up the ends of the wings. As the plane flies away, the pogo sticks drop off.

 The plane climbs at an amazing rate of nearly 10,000 feet a minute. Within about four minutes, I was at 40,000 feet higher than most commercial airplanes. We kept going up to 13 miles above Earth's surface. You get an incredible sensation up there. As you look out the windows, it feels like you're floating; it feels like you're not moving, but you're actually going 500 mph. The U-2 was built to go higher than any other aircraft. In fact, today, more than 50 years since it went into production, the U-2 flies higher than any aircraft in the world, with the exception of the space shuttle.

 It is flying more missions and longer missions than ever before, with nearly 70 missions a month over Iraq and Afghanistan , an operational tempo that is unequaled in history. The pilots fly for 11 hours at a time, sometimes more than 11 hours up there, alone. By flying so high, the U-2 has the capability of doing reconnaissance over a country without actually violating its airspace. It can look off to the side, peering 300 miles or more inside a country without actually flying over it. It can "see" in the dark and through clouds. It can also 'hear', intercepting conversations 14 miles below. The U-2, an incredible piece of history and also a current piece of high technology, is at the center of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan .

Enjoy the ride!

Click the link below. Go to the lower Right corner of the screen and click the icon immediately to the left of the volume control to bring up the full screen.

http://www.wimp.com/breathtakingfootage/
 
 

[ST2UP]

  

[STill dreaming]

Truly remarkable thanks for sharing. 

[Brock]

  

[Neale]

Good stuff. 

[Malcolm6112]

Awesome

 

[Gavo]

Awesome

 

Absolutly

[tj189]

  

[Sicman]

Amazing - They captured that same feeling you get after 5 mins of riding an Honda ST 

 

[STill dreaming]

Amazing - They captured that same feeling you get after 5 mins of riding an Honda ST 

 

Did it take that long for you

[Sicman]

Yep - Now I am older I can contain my excitement that little bit longer  

[Biggles]

Very well done.  The little rider at the end puts it all in perspective- we live on a speck of dust left over from the Big Bang.
And then there's each of us, feeling important on that tiny ball in space!

[pault]

"The pilots fly for 11 hours at a time, sometimes more than 11 hours up there"
wot if one has to pee

[Brock]

They are fitted with a catheter and a pee bag, No2s is a different matter

[Sabie]

Holy cow huh......amazing

[jimwilly]

Incredible images and amazing that an aircraft that old can still be flown as intended.

[Flip]

YUP !  Remembered so weird stories around back in the days of my mis-spent youth in the Oz army.
Dear old daddy was a Wing Commander in the Air Force. (purple orchards as we used to call those delicate, spoiled little flowers) He pulled several years posted in Washington DC as the Liaison Officer between the Oz Air Force and the USAF.
Some of the 'happenings' he and his friends used to talk about convinced me to keep both feet firmly on the ground !  Except when hitching a ride to play 'fly like and eagle'. (downwards - as in sky diving) 
The old man could never work out why anyone would want to jump out of a "perfectly good aircraft" as he put it.
After the stories I'd grown up hearing, I always figured I was MUCH safer making my own way through the air under a canopy than inside one of those so-called 'perfectly good aircraft. 
One of the interesting tales was of the wonderful U-2 beast. The early models, up into the early 1970's didn't have a real 'auto-pilot' as such.
Most of the flying was a 'hands on' affair.
Great fun when you consider that at it's operational altitude of 70,000ft. in that rarefied air, the difference between the U-2's maximum airspeed and it's stall (fall out of the sky without even being shot at) speed was a whole genuine 10 knots ! (19klm/per hour)
That's 19kph between risking ripping your wings off or stalling and falling out of the sky like a rock - thereby increasing your airspeed to the point where the wings got ripped off anyway. 

The pilots of those things, and that other beast, (SR-71) from Kelly Johnson's SKUNK WORK'S, should have been awarded a medal for bravery every time they went up in those things in the early days. 
Those guys REALLY where pilots ! The risks they took on every flight come under the 'change your underpants time' as far as I'm concerned. 

Just my 2 cents worth.


Flip.
 

  
VAROOOOOOOOOOOOOM !
 

[gaz]

Awesome

 

Absolutly

Positively