U-2 and Oxcart Programs: Recently Declassified Material

Pilot Fighter said:
Was pleased to find a complete book.
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My flight commander from UPT is a U-2 driver now, and loved the old U-2 Dash 1 someone posted a while back. According to him, aside from some avionics upgrades, the aircraft has changed very little since the 50's. Kelly Johnson really knocked it put of the park, and so far as I've read in the book, the CIA and AF have pulled off some very ballsy and innovative ops with it.
 
The Fez said:
My flight commander from UPT is a U-2 driver now, and loved the old U-2 Dash 1 someone posted a while back. According to him, aside from some avionics upgrades, the aircraft has changed very little since the 50's. Kelly Johnson really knocked it put of the park, and so far as I've read in the book, the CIA and AF have pulled off some very ballsy and innovative ops with it.
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Every since I saw the Francis Gary Powers movie with Lee Majors as a kid, I've been fascinated by the U-2.
 
The Fez said:
My flight commander from UPT is a U-2 driver now, and loved the old U-2 Dash 1 someone posted a while back. According to him, aside from some avionics upgrades, the aircraft has changed very little since the 50's. Kelly Johnson really knocked it put of the park, and so far as I've read in the book, the CIA and AF have pulled off some very ballsy and innovative ops with it.
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The book does address the question of whether a "golden BB" ever struck an A-12 or SR-71.
 
Pilot Fighter said:
Every since I saw the Francis Gary Powers movie with Lee Majors as a kid, I've been fascinated by the U-2.
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Remember a 1981 Lee Majors movie called The Last Chase, where Majors is beign tracked down by a retired Korean War AF pilot in a black F-86 who wants to kill him?
 
MikeD said:
Remember a 1981 Lee Majors movie called The Last Chase, where Majors is beign tracked down by a retired Korean War AF pilot in a black F-86 who wants to kill him?
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Who could forget? Wasn't he driving a Porsche 917 or Pantera? ..... off to the Interwebs to answer this and other trivial questions.
 
Blindbat29 said:
Comedic view of the difficulties of flying that thing...great video, irony in the soundtrack. Sorry for the thread drift.

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I remember this video! This is up at Beale AFB outside Sacramento, CA. So many ground loops! And is that chase car spinning doughnuts on the runway at 2:15??! :D
 
Pilot Fighter said:
http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/DOC_0000190094.pdf

Note: 406 pages
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Holy cow this book is fantastic! I skipped ahead to the OXCART program, and I am blown away by how much has been officially declassified. Among other things, the CIA has provided an excellent history of the development of Area 51 as it grew from the original U-2 program to accommodate the A-12... first as a remote RCS range and later with a lengthened runway. I already knew about the Roadrunners Internationale, which has always been an excellent resource for the history of the A-12 as it has been declassified, but this book fills in a lot of little details. Like test pilot Louis Schalk's unannounced unofficial first flight ("a Lockheed tradition!") where he only reached 20 ft because the flight controls were rigged wrong. Or his second "first flight" the next day in which the titanium triangular fillets which made up the chines started falling off the aircraft after takeoff.

This is an amazing book!
 
inigo88 said:
Holy cow this book is fantastic! I skipped ahead to the OXCART program, and I am blown away by how much has been officially declassified. Among other things, the CIA has provided an excellent history of the development of Area 51 as it grew from the original U-2 program to accommodate the A-12... first as a remote RCS range and later with a lengthened runway. I already knew about the Roadrunners Internationale, which has always been an excellent resource for the history of the A-12 as it has been declassified, but this book fills in a lot of little details. Like test pilot Louis Schalk's unannounced unofficial first flight ("a Lockheed tradition!") where he only reached 20 ft because the flight controls were rigged wrong. Or his second "first flight" the next day in which the titanium triangular fillets which made up the chines started falling off the aircraft after takeoff.

This is an amazing book!
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The CIA is declassifying some pretty remarkable stuff. When I'm in the DC area, I hope to try to see what's available about Project Dark Gene.
 
A Beale U-2 pilot sold my friend an Audi a week or two ago and I ended up talking with him for several hours and watching some cool videos including the one posted in this thread. He told me the guy who made that video sorted thru hours and hours of footage of people's first landings trying to find the worst ones haha. I had read the U-2 was difficult to land/taxi but after hours of his stories, I'm really blown away. He told me those chase cars are called "mobiles" driven by U-2 pilots and they try to assist the pilot in flying at 2 feet AGL until the tail stalls on the runway, and often times they help push when jets go off the taxiway lol.

I'll be reading this over the next few shifts at work, thanks for sharing.
 
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