Was going to post on American Muscle, but too good for AvChat! From LATimes: The Air Force is in the midst of swapping out the fleet of high-speed sport cars that chase down its sinister-looking black spy planes at breakneck speeds. For more than 50 years, the chase cars have been critical to the high-flying U-2s mission. The jets have such long wingspans -- 105 feet -- that it's difficult for pilots to take off or land without people on the ground telling them about wing angles and clearance. So a pilot in the chase car radios to the pilot in the cockpit and lets him or her know how things look. We say the U-2 is the easiest plane to fly between 6 inches and 60,000 feet, said Drew Buchanan, an Air Force spokesman. But its the most difficult plane to land. The sports cars have to be in top shape to hurtle forward from a standstill to chase down the ominous U-2. Now the Air Force has opted for the new 400 horsepower V-8 Chevrolet Camaro SS to replace its fleet of Pontiac GTOs and Pontiac G8 GTs. Theyre not like normal cars; we run them pretty fast every time out there, Buchanan said, indicating that the cars can go in excess of 100 mph at times. The Air Force said all the vehicles are mechanically stock. They are outfitted with radios to allow communication with aircraft. U-2 pilots drive the chase cars and assist the landing pilots through radio calls. To become a U-2 pilot, you must also take a course that teaches you how to maintain high-performance cars at top speeds, the Air Force said. Pilots are trained near Sacramento at Beale Air Force Base, where the U-2s are based. The Air Force has a fleet of 33 U-2s and about 20 chase cars located across the globe. Image Unavailable, Please Login
A follow-on to my Camaro post; how is it that the U2 is still active, and the SR-71 has been retired? Blackbird replaced by satellites? Economics? Politics? Other?
James- Two reasons the SR-71 was retired. First and foremost was cost. They cost a ton of money to operate, plus needed their own KC-135 fleet for the JP-7 fuel they burned. Second was threats. The SR-71 was designed as an overflight system and the newer SAMs are way better now than they were a couple of decades ago. The U-2 has been continuously updated, currently with a B-2 engine, and does most of its work as a stand-off platform. It also costs way less to operate than the SR-71. They stay up for 12 hours or so in pressure suits, so by the end of their mission, they are really beat. The U-2s were colocated with us (48 TFW) at Taif RSAFB during Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
Funny... the SR-71 was the U-2's replacement but was retired years ago. The Global Hawk is supposed to be the next U-2 replacement, but for various reasons, including the U-2 program is less expensive, the AF has recently decided to cut back on the Global Hawk and keep the U-2 program at least another 10 years. The U-2 can pinpoint targets and call in attacks on fairly short notice... satellites can't do that, and it's better at that (and less expensive) than the SR-71 was, so it's here to stay for awhile. Reminds me of, 30 years ago, the Porsche 928 was the Porsche 911's replacement. The 928 has been gone for decades. (Yes, I know this is a Ferrari forum...)
A friend of mine was at Beale for years as a U2 Crew Chief. He told me a long time ago that there were simply no parts for SR and cannibalization had been going on for years to keep a few flying. One of the original contract stipulations was that after all aircraft and spares were made that all tooling be destroyed. The cost to make more spares was just not in anyones budget. In fact I think they just plain ran out of motors. When retired the few still airworthy days were numbered.
Tx Taz. 12 hours.....at xxty thousand feet.......that has to have some effect on you....must be a bit difficult to 'come down' from that....being on flat ground must be strange....a different breed of people....
James- Affirmative, plus they have to pre-breathe 100% oxygen for a period of time to get all the nitrogen out of their bloodstream to prevent getting the bends. Then after you land, your inner ear has absorbed all the pure oxygen you have been breathing so you have to valsalva (clear your ears of pressure) for quite a while or wake up with an earache. Never mind about some of the other bodily insults you have to endure.
I remember talking to a U-2 guy many years ago, and he said this was actually the main reason for the chase cars on landing-- they were just so beat from the missions that they wanted to have another set of eyes on the landings.
You wouldn't think such pilots would need any coaching about driving a fast car in a straight line! (ok well some unique aspects about matching speeds with descending plane .. but still) The 60's astronaut crowd had Corvettes etc.. I would have thought all this would have come naturally and with the territory.
The GTO chase cars, touch-and-go run [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJVW-eNjTWY]U2 Landing 1 - YouTube[/ame] A compilation of BAD landing days. /!\ Song contains F bomb, but relates to the Dragon Lady [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eamnTyfkUBY]U-2 Dragon Lady: Landings - YouTube[/ame]
Don- Remember they also drop the outboard wheels on take-off, so keeping the wings level until a very low speed cuts down on the damage to the wingtip skids. Advice on that is nice, as well as feet until touchdown. The outboard wheels are then fitted for taxi. Luckily the wingtips still fly pretty well, even after the spoilers deploy to keep her on the ground. I remember when the only good unclassified source of info on the U-2 in the 60s was Model Aircraft News, which had a three view drawing and pretty good specs. I cannot believe the improvement in performance now. Originally powered with a J57, then upgraded to a J75, then an F118, the last two engine versions made takeoffs that we called elevator one departures. Lift off, raise nose to 45 degrees or so, and just disappear upwards.
That Dragonlady landings video that RacerX posted shows that much of that driving isn't so much in a straight line... Yikes!
I once read somewhere that the original U-2's fuselage was directly derived from that of the F-104. Is this true?
Originally, that was the case, but I believe that by the time they reached production, there wasn't much of the F-104's structure left. Of course, the F-94 was derived from the F-80 (and T-33), and even the XF-90 was loosely based on the F-80, as well. That was fairly common; the Grumman F11F was originally called the F9F-9 and started out as a Cougar derivative, the first sketches for what became the Republic F-105 looked a bit like a stretched F-84F with an afterburner, and the McDonnell F3H-G, derived from the Demon, ultimately morphed into the F4H Phantom II.
High Performance cars back in the old days: 1963 Pontiac Catalina and 1956 Ford T-bird. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
You needed a high performance car to tow that X-24 predecessor, the M2-F1, into the air. You can see the tow cable in your photograph. The dry lake at Edwards/Dryden/Muroc made for all kinds of interesting test procedures.
I had read in a book on the spy planes that this was indeed the case. However, to reduce the weight, which was critical on this program, the skins were thinner and much of the internal reinforcement was simply deleted. As a result the U2 didn't have nearly the G factor capability or safety of a normal airplane. The idea was that they would get used for a while and then thrown away. Manuever loads were as low as +1.8G/-0.8G under some flight conditions, and a pitch upset at speed would literally tear the wings off of the airplane. To say the U2 was fragile is an understatement. The airplane had a patented load alleviation system to protect it from turbulence at low altitudes... It is believed that the third crash of a U2, where one broke up in flight near Wiesbaden was caused by turbulence from the jet wash of four nearby fighter aircraft.
In the U-2, the difference between the stall speed and the "never-exceed" speed was ridiculously small, so the pilots had to closely monitor their speed at all times. I suspect the current U-2Rs aren't quite as sensitive.
James May of Top Gear in the chase car... Benefits of being on Top Gear; he got a ride in the plane, too. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ulCHpn9pkY[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs1olcOx9Jc]Top Gear - James May on a U-2 spy plane - YouTube[/ame]
Jim- They are all that sensitive and that is why the U-2s all had dual range airspeed indicators. At very high altitude the difference between stall and structural damage is only a few knots, much less than 10, because the atmosphere is so thin at 60,000'+. The newer engines do give the pilots more throttle authority (thrust reserve) between stall and the wings coming off, but that is sometimes traded for extra altitude. A very delicate balancing act with the aircraft teetering on the CG. Not a problem if you are supersonic at that altitude, like an F-22A, but a real pilot's job subsonic. That balancing act is the same one the Airbus off Brazil failed.
"James May on the Moon" is a great DVD if you can find it in US format (or download it, or get a region free DVD player, etc). Lots of good U-2 info, as well as going back through Apollo. His visit to the flight doc is pretty funny.
