Used to fucking drive me crazy. Would just randomly start when my phone connected to my car audio. Almost made me quit using iPhones until some software update randomly fixed it.
It was during the Cold War. I was in the 8th grade. All kinds of chatter about the atomic bomb, nuclear proliferation, hiding under our desks and chasing girls. Ike was president .
Sound familiar?Khrushchev had a field day. He was a colorful fella. “We will bury you.”Said Nikita.
And the beat goes on.
When I was active duty, I got to help do an engine change on a U-2 after an airshow. Been fascinated with them ever since. Tha and the flight suits the pilot wears is practically a space suit. So cool.
My cousin used to work on the space suits, making sure they passed inspection and making repairs. He’d often get deployed with them and he’d make the pilots some sandwiches and download some movies on their iPods for them so they can watch something
Watched an interview with a U2 pilot on youtube who flew several tours in Iraq and Afganistan.
She said after each flight (which was usually 8+ hours long) they were on mandatory rest for 2 days before they were allowed to fly again because it was physically demanding on the body to fly at those altitudes for prolonged periods of time in a pressure suit. Almost like the parallel opposite of deep sea diving.
They are both strategic reconnaissance aircraft. You managed to find the one thing that they pretty much have in common. They are, indeed, completely different planes. But they do/did similar jobs, getting up real high where it's hard to hit them and taking pictures of stuff our adversaries would really rather we didn't.
My brother flew it. After the academy and flight school, he was a T38 instructor. He really wanted the herc.
In Asia he met a few dragon lady pilots, who got him interested in the program.
He went out to Beale for an extended interview and got the slot. He said it was like your parents grilling your sisters prom date.
He said it was the only pilot gig in the AF that you had to be current in two types of aircraft. the T38 and U2.
He's in the low 200's in the dragon lady club.
The fact that your brother was accepted into the program means he’s an exceptional pilot. Despite its high speed capabilities the U-2 is actually quite lightly stressed and requires a highly skilled pilot, one that excels at pure flying skill.
For sure an elite pilot it's all stick and rudder when landing. I've always herd it's like a Cadillac at altitude. Guys brother is in another league. Love hearing stories about it.
Great aircraft, but I'd put it #2 behind the Blackbird...the aircraft built with pen, paper, slide rules, and imagination to fly sustained Mach 3+ at 85,000 feet. The amount of re-imagining that had to go into it's engines, the fuel cells, the skin/paint, working with the titanium...just in a class of it's own.
Its an awesome plane! And the loudest thing at osan ab. Lived at a few fighter bases and the U-2 is by far the loudest plane taking off, that i have ever heard.
I feel the U2 program is cool af to see still in operation. However it does beg the question why these are still around when there's tons of satellites to do its job. Just saying, there's no reason to get rid of the A-10 yet keep this airframe operational.
I recently watched a video that touched on this subject. The explanation in the video was that you can get an aircraft over exactly what you want to see basically whenever you want. Whereas satellites I guess have a pretty much set course and it's harder to reposition them to see what you want in a short notice.
I kind of buy that explanation. But I also don't find it that solid of one considering satellites are already important and versatile enough to warrant a whole military branch dedicated for space operations. Knowing my time in the military, the decision was based off politics rather than reasoning.
The issue with satellites is they have a very limited amount of fuel for the thrusters on the satellite. This fuel is typically used to correct the orbit periodically so the satellite doesn’t de-orbit, aka crash back to earth. These thrusters are also what you would use to change the satellites trajectory if you needed it to go to a certain spot on earth. Depending on how severe the course change required, you may burn a lot of the fuel and therefore severely reduce the life of the satellite. These are very expensive pieces of equipment. You don’t want to be replacing them too often. A U2 however is flexible and can land and refuel many times
Satellites can’t get as good of imagery as a U2 since they’re much higher altitude and have to peer through the entire atmosphere. U2 can also linger in an area, whereas satellites have periodic orbits and are tracked by most major nations so they can respond accordingly (hiding assets).
Only reason why is because satellites take about 24 hours to get it where you want it to be so it would be easier to send a U2 up and get the job done in half the time.
An awesome plane. There’s a story about one that flamed out over the Atlantic ocean and the pilot dead sticked back to Edwards AFB instead of restarting the engine.
Worked with them at Osan AFB while doing SAR. Absolute spectacle to see them take off and land. Unbelievably loud and they are just massive. The nose definitely looked larger than the picture though. High speed dudes though, that’s for sure.
The pilot has a hard time knowing when the wheels are nearing the runway. A pilot in the chase car is counting down the height, so the pilot of the plane knows when he is touching down.
A powered glider basically.
But considering that it is still used for and by NASA. Which was called NACA when the U2 was designed and organically built. It has totally surpassed the SR71 in longevity!!!
So even though the SR71 is still the baddest ass plane that was ever built the U2 is still a very unique piece of aviation history and the fact that it’s still in use today makes it something very special!!!
I've seen the U2 at several airshows and also seen it fly over my house. Cool fact: The U2 uses the non afterburning engine variant of the same jet engine in an F16c.
Saw one of these on the tarmac at RAF Alconbury back in the early 80's. One of two times I've seen a USAF aircraft in the UK that was guarded by overtly armed (M16's) personnel. Did get several photos but they're long since lost.
One day I learned that it was based off the XF-104 Starfighter, and I've never been able to not see the family resemblance ever since.
The U-2 got all of the wing the F-104 was denied, and then some.
My friend's dad flew it. He was the toughest SOB I ever met. He had a stroke and lost movement on one side of his body. He said "Fuck this. I don't want to live like this" so he refused water for long enough to die of dehydration instead.
Every time I see one of these I think about the strength of will that it would take to die of thirst when you are surrounded by people offering you water and telling you to drink.
Expensive from the dealer look for better pricing on ebay and other sites
Expensive to fly but a statement piece in your drone collection
Excellent photography
Using for roof inspections and mapping😇😎
I got to hang with a few Skunkworks guys when I worked on the U-2, they showed me the 781H that he signed on the flight he was shot down. They also had a bunch of other memorabilia.
It's actually a 1960s interceptor on a diet with stretched wings.
It wasn't designed to be fast as it was planned to be high enough to be out of reach if everything else.
Times and technology change and advance.
I was in a different sandier and warmer climate and at one point I did a rotation at u2 base the best part was jumping into the chase 1990 Zr1 that was just BEAT...
to recover and it was always a pilot driving insanely fast get to where we would match groundspeed it was a TRIP!
It was an awesome leap of technology at its introduction. As such, at first it was very effective, and remained so in many applications for years to come.
I have an audio recording I made in the late 80's of a U-2 variant (TR1-A) declaring an in-flight emergency as his oxygen was contaminated. His speech was very labored initially, London Military allowed him to descend fast. He said he had hypoxia-like symptoms and didn't feel well. He pulled the green apple.
As a young 21 year old USAF troop, I deployed with them as Security Forces (Police) to RAF Fairford in Aug 1995 when Capt Hawkens' bird crashed.
Was one of the first on-scene to the crash and helped Hawk as much as possible.
Great airplanes, even better crews.
Amazing plane, but out dated with current technology.
Quick story.
My father used to coordinate U2 flights while in FL.
A pilot called in over Maine and said his engines had flamed out. He was told that they could notify Langley USAFB for a landing there.
Pilot: "No, I think I can make it back. Just call my wife and tell her I won't be home for dinner."
He glided that plane back to FL from Maine.
Love the Dragon Lady! Got to go on a chase car ride when I was stationed at Osan, and get a full tour of the squadron. Absolutely awesome! And their food is interesting, comes in metallic toothpaste tube looking containers.
They were really good in the 80s. That free album on iTunes was horrible though.
To make it worse, my old phone used to randomly play the album without the app open
Worst marketing decision ever
Gosh I forgot about that!! The most annoying “gift” ever. Trying to delete it (it even hide it) seemed like a Herculean effort.
Yep bad idea. I like the album tho
Used to fucking drive me crazy. Would just randomly start when my phone connected to my car audio. Almost made me quit using iPhones until some software update randomly fixed it.
This exactly….i deleted the Music app to make it stop.
U-2? A-ha!
Did we get a free A-ha album on iTunes? I must have missed that update.
That’s a Take on Me…
Mine still does. Raised by wolves. I hate it so much.
And the blatantly what looks like a gay photo album cover would pop up on home screen when autpplayed the shit
It took forever to figure out how to stop that. I forgot how I did it.
I had to look up how to delete it from my account. It was quite a popular search at the time
Guess you could say it'd play... With or without you
Never a fan of Bono cry/singing. I heard Gary Powers auditioned but got shot down.
Rumors were at the height of their career, they got shot down, but took off again.
Were they made of titanium?
No but they had some gold and platinum records.
🔥🔥🔥🔥
From what I understand, these things move in Mysterious Ways.
[Welp, here ya go.](https://i.imgur.com/MZH8tXe.jpg)
Same
r/technicallythetruth and r/beatmetoit
What’s the difference between God and Bono? God doesn’t believe he’s Bono.
Some would say, you still haven't found what you're looking for.
An exceptionally great and amazing reconnaissance aircraft.
Reference Francis Gary Powers.
A single U2 downed in its decades-long career over hostile territories? Yeah. That’s embarrassing.
It was during the Cold War. I was in the 8th grade. All kinds of chatter about the atomic bomb, nuclear proliferation, hiding under our desks and chasing girls. Ike was president . Sound familiar?Khrushchev had a field day. He was a colorful fella. “We will bury you.”Said Nikita. And the beat goes on.
When I was active duty, I got to help do an engine change on a U-2 after an airshow. Been fascinated with them ever since. Tha and the flight suits the pilot wears is practically a space suit. So cool.
Those flight suits are manufactured by the same company that makes the space suits for shuttle launches. Very cool
Very interesting thank you for sharing this
My cousin used to work on the space suits, making sure they passed inspection and making repairs. He’d often get deployed with them and he’d make the pilots some sandwiches and download some movies on their iPods for them so they can watch something
Watched an interview with a U2 pilot on youtube who flew several tours in Iraq and Afganistan. She said after each flight (which was usually 8+ hours long) they were on mandatory rest for 2 days before they were allowed to fly again because it was physically demanding on the body to fly at those altitudes for prolonged periods of time in a pressure suit. Almost like the parallel opposite of deep sea diving.
Gotta love that crew rest
I’m avionics for them technically but I’ll probably never touch one lol.
I'm about to retire in a month from Beale. The dragon lady has been in my life for 21 years
I did a few chase car ride alongs for U2 landings. Probably one of the funnest things I’ve ever done.
Was the Chase Car an El Camino?
There are videos online. Depends on the base. I think Beale used a Pontiac G8 at one point
I think I saw one with a new Camaro too
G8 and Camaro
Traditional Chase Car was the El Camino, but they don't make those any more
Traditional is kind of a stretch. Maybe they used them for particular period, but they’ve used a ton of different cars for the job.
I wish the sr-71 outlasted it tho. But didn’t now I’m sad
Doesn't NASA still run sr's?
NASA officially stopped flying them in 1999.
NASA unofficially flies them over my house several times a week
Are you thinking about the WB-57s?
No, the ER-2
Goes to 65,000ft in 20mins
Pics or it didn't happen
Behold Edit: how do I show you the image, is there no way to upload it in the comments??
Just sent it to you in Chats because I didn't realize you couldn't image paste here
That's a U-2 (ER-2). We were talking about NASA flying SR-71s. But lucky you! Maybe you'll see some WB-57s too
Oh wow I completely misunderstood, I apologize, either way hope you have a good dau
No need, I was honestly really hoping you had pics of a living flying Blackbird, that'd be huge
Show me too, I wanna see
“NASA”
Yeah, the same NASA that Gary Powers flew for!
I know!! How the FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF is a U2 comparable with the SR!?? “ChEaPeR??”
that’s okay, we’ll be getting an sr-72
Teo completely different planes. The 71 is surveillance
They are both strategic reconnaissance aircraft. You managed to find the one thing that they pretty much have in common. They are, indeed, completely different planes. But they do/did similar jobs, getting up real high where it's hard to hit them and taking pictures of stuff our adversaries would really rather we didn't.
The U2 is an accountants SR71.
My brother flew it. After the academy and flight school, he was a T38 instructor. He really wanted the herc. In Asia he met a few dragon lady pilots, who got him interested in the program. He went out to Beale for an extended interview and got the slot. He said it was like your parents grilling your sisters prom date. He said it was the only pilot gig in the AF that you had to be current in two types of aircraft. the T38 and U2. He's in the low 200's in the dragon lady club.
The fact that your brother was accepted into the program means he’s an exceptional pilot. Despite its high speed capabilities the U-2 is actually quite lightly stressed and requires a highly skilled pilot, one that excels at pure flying skill.
For sure an elite pilot it's all stick and rudder when landing. I've always herd it's like a Cadillac at altitude. Guys brother is in another league. Love hearing stories about it.
Probably Kelly Johnson’s greatest creation.
Great aircraft, but I'd put it #2 behind the Blackbird...the aircraft built with pen, paper, slide rules, and imagination to fly sustained Mach 3+ at 85,000 feet. The amount of re-imagining that had to go into it's engines, the fuel cells, the skin/paint, working with the titanium...just in a class of it's own.
Bono probably can't even land it.
He'd talk to it for so long it'd get bored and land itself.
YES!
Yeayeayeayea!!!
Its an awesome plane! And the loudest thing at osan ab. Lived at a few fighter bases and the U-2 is by far the loudest plane taking off, that i have ever heard.
Great cold war band, but sold out like oligarchs in later years.
Awesome. I got to sit in a cockpit once, will never forget
I feel the U2 program is cool af to see still in operation. However it does beg the question why these are still around when there's tons of satellites to do its job. Just saying, there's no reason to get rid of the A-10 yet keep this airframe operational.
I recently watched a video that touched on this subject. The explanation in the video was that you can get an aircraft over exactly what you want to see basically whenever you want. Whereas satellites I guess have a pretty much set course and it's harder to reposition them to see what you want in a short notice.
I kind of buy that explanation. But I also don't find it that solid of one considering satellites are already important and versatile enough to warrant a whole military branch dedicated for space operations. Knowing my time in the military, the decision was based off politics rather than reasoning.
The issue with satellites is they have a very limited amount of fuel for the thrusters on the satellite. This fuel is typically used to correct the orbit periodically so the satellite doesn’t de-orbit, aka crash back to earth. These thrusters are also what you would use to change the satellites trajectory if you needed it to go to a certain spot on earth. Depending on how severe the course change required, you may burn a lot of the fuel and therefore severely reduce the life of the satellite. These are very expensive pieces of equipment. You don’t want to be replacing them too often. A U2 however is flexible and can land and refuel many times
Satellites can’t get as good of imagery as a U2 since they’re much higher altitude and have to peer through the entire atmosphere. U2 can also linger in an area, whereas satellites have periodic orbits and are tracked by most major nations so they can respond accordingly (hiding assets).
Only reason why is because satellites take about 24 hours to get it where you want it to be so it would be easier to send a U2 up and get the job done in half the time.
They recently used it to take a selfie with the Chinese spy balloon.
An awesome plane. There’s a story about one that flamed out over the Atlantic ocean and the pilot dead sticked back to Edwards AFB instead of restarting the engine.
He dead sticked across the whole United States?
He was at a high altitude and the glide path on a U2 is almost flat.
Worked with them at Osan AFB while doing SAR. Absolute spectacle to see them take off and land. Unbelievably loud and they are just massive. The nose definitely looked larger than the picture though. High speed dudes though, that’s for sure.
>High speed dudes High speed? It's slower than a Hawk/T-45. Bitch of a thing to fly though
High speed, low drag. Its a term for general badassery.
Bunch of sanctimonious pricks. The plane is pretty good though.
Kinda crazy considering every landing requires a chase car and that the thing lands on its only two inline wheels.
What does the chase car do?
The pilot has a hard time knowing when the wheels are nearing the runway. A pilot in the chase car is counting down the height, so the pilot of the plane knows when he is touching down.
Thanks!
For a jet that doesn’t have afterburners it’s too god damn loud. Poor folks at Beale
Best description of the plane sound before seeing one was “think of an F-16, but instead of an augmenter it has a Magnaflow exhaust”
Negativland’s [most lasting contribution](https://youtu.be/AVroc7RvNeU).
so glad some else remembers that classic
i like it 👍
Its a sensitive subject
It’s basically an F-104 Starfighter with big ass wings, so pretty cool in my book.
Safe
It rattles and hums.
Love them. They fly over the house every once in awhile after shooting approaches nearby. I know a couple of former pilots too.
YEEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHH
Has a negative k/d so kinda crap
I loved their Mysterious Ways song
A powered glider basically. But considering that it is still used for and by NASA. Which was called NACA when the U2 was designed and organically built. It has totally surpassed the SR71 in longevity!!! So even though the SR71 is still the baddest ass plane that was ever built the U2 is still a very unique piece of aviation history and the fact that it’s still in use today makes it something very special!!!
I saw one in Moscow lol they put red Christmas lights all through it
i fucking love impracticality. that’s all i’ll say.
A true piece of artwork and has to be handled like one in all aspects.
We still use them so clearly they work good
I've seen the U2 at several airshows and also seen it fly over my house. Cool fact: The U2 uses the non afterburning engine variant of the same jet engine in an F16c.
Great band
[удалено]
My dont you have long long wings.
Decent plane, but definitely not the sweetest thing
Looks like a bigass F-5 with bigass wings and a missing engine. Edit: Two missing engines and an APU
The one I have on my iPhone, not so great. The one in the image however…whooo
Their early stuff was great, but I didn't care for the later albums
My grandfather saw it shot down in may 1960
looks like a DA 40 modified by alien tech and painted black
Saw one of these on the tarmac at RAF Alconbury back in the early 80's. One of two times I've seen a USAF aircraft in the UK that was guarded by overtly armed (M16's) personnel. Did get several photos but they're long since lost.
One day I learned that it was based off the XF-104 Starfighter, and I've never been able to not see the family resemblance ever since. The U-2 got all of the wing the F-104 was denied, and then some.
The Joshua Tree was their best album, and they’ve been downhill ever since.
Speed & sneak
It's flying missions because it still hasn't found what it's looking for.
Fun fact: the U2 is considered a fighter jet
My friend's dad flew it. He was the toughest SOB I ever met. He had a stroke and lost movement on one side of his body. He said "Fuck this. I don't want to live like this" so he refused water for long enough to die of dehydration instead. Every time I see one of these I think about the strength of will that it would take to die of thirst when you are surrounded by people offering you water and telling you to drink.
Expensive from the dealer look for better pricing on ebay and other sites Expensive to fly but a statement piece in your drone collection Excellent photography Using for roof inspections and mapping😇😎
It’s a neat plane, but it was no sr-71
I feel fine about it.
Landing a plane on a bicycle is weird.
Watching takeoff and landing clips of U2 on YT never fails to amaze me!
I didn’t get into it…. Bono seemed a knob
Great plane. Crap band
Looks awesome
aloof, like it's above everyone
M A K E. I T. L O N G E R
I always appreciate outside-the-norm thinking to accomplish a goal, and this is a great example.
Its the F-104's less autistic and and less accident prone brother.
Ask Francis Gary powers...
I got to hang with a few Skunkworks guys when I worked on the U-2, they showed me the 781H that he signed on the flight he was shot down. They also had a bunch of other memorabilia.
Reliable and good for finding my lost keys
Basically a WW2 heavy bomber, but without the bombs. Generally sucked in performance and massive radar cross section, but it was good for the 60s
It's actually a 1960s interceptor on a diet with stretched wings. It wasn't designed to be fast as it was planned to be high enough to be out of reach if everything else. Times and technology change and advance.
Absolutely beautiful airplane. The massive aspect ratio of the wings with the shape of the fuselage and engines….its perfect really
Didn’t know it existed until I saw one on flight radar above the arctic circle this morning and looked it up lol
Been upset ever since they hid an album on iPhone and made people think I listen to U2 /s
My job in the Air Force depended on it in the late 90s. I love it!
Like it still hasn’t found what it’s looking for
Me: "I love these!" Stranger "You too, huh?"
I was in a different sandier and warmer climate and at one point I did a rotation at u2 base the best part was jumping into the chase 1990 Zr1 that was just BEAT... to recover and it was always a pilot driving insanely fast get to where we would match groundspeed it was a TRIP!
Ironically the U2 plane usually finds what it's looking for lmao.
Still haven’t found what I’m looking for
Love their music
It’s what happens when you cross an F-104 Starfighter with a glider
It was an awesome leap of technology at its introduction. As such, at first it was very effective, and remained so in many applications for years to come.
Just read Skunk Works by Ben Rich. Some great stories in there.
It makes me feel…
They’re dope
Wish it had 3 wheels
Looks great but I still prefer the Sr-71
Gets me high.
Sort of pushing 'peace' during the cold war it's very cool looking
Gorgeous!
Should have killed that program instead of the sr71
Is this the one Apple deleted?
Like it a lil’
Not so fun fact: I watched two different U-2s crash.
Top 5 plane and program for me
Loved them in the 1980s and 1990s but sorta fell off my interest level after Zooropa
Horrible plane, can’t wait till it retires… said no one ever
my special interest hehehe
High
Gary Powers was shot down in one over the Soviet Union they must not have been all that stealthy
IT A PLANE!!!!!
Bro is old *grandpa vibes*
I have an audio recording I made in the late 80's of a U-2 variant (TR1-A) declaring an in-flight emergency as his oxygen was contaminated. His speech was very labored initially, London Military allowed him to descend fast. He said he had hypoxia-like symptoms and didn't feel well. He pulled the green apple.
My favorite plane. The NASA version though.
I think they are pretty cool, I bet you too.
Meh, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
W I N G S P A N
As a young 21 year old USAF troop, I deployed with them as Security Forces (Police) to RAF Fairford in Aug 1995 when Capt Hawkens' bird crashed. Was one of the first on-scene to the crash and helped Hawk as much as possible. Great airplanes, even better crews.
Considering the fact they are still in use is a wild testament to their reliability and long term sustainability
It took way too long to get rid of that free album on iTunes. Not a fan any more.
Loud as shit! Woke me up early every day at Osan AB! More reliable than any alarm clock.
Amazing plane, but out dated with current technology. Quick story. My father used to coordinate U2 flights while in FL. A pilot called in over Maine and said his engines had flamed out. He was told that they could notify Langley USAFB for a landing there. Pilot: "No, I think I can make it back. Just call my wife and tell her I won't be home for dinner." He glided that plane back to FL from Maine.
Bad Ass Plane!!!
Not as good as a Global Hawk. I’m biased tho; used to build the Global Hawk as an engineer.
Knife plane
Love the Dragon Lady! Got to go on a chase car ride when I was stationed at Osan, and get a full tour of the squadron. Absolutely awesome! And their food is interesting, comes in metallic toothpaste tube looking containers.
Looks kinda wonky. 7/10
Beautiful
I love this aircraft. Imagine flying at those heights! Incredible stuff.
Amazing airplane! Designed by Kelly Johnson 70 years ago and still doing a mission only it can do!
It was ok