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The Lucky Puppy :: View topic - U2's Are Hard to Land

How does that saying go that any landing you can walk away from is a good one? Not the most glamorous things I have seen but as the comments say, I guess it is not the easiest thing in the world to do.

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Looks like trying to land a unicycle.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

Just visit any airstrip that has gliders . . . you'll see pretty much the same thing, with less wing.

Landing a U2 is difficult

..........On a pitching deck. At night.

U-2 carrier take offs and landings - YouTube

Who's flying these things? CIA pilots? USAF pilots?

Pretty cool, Dynalow. Thanks.

USAF & CIA fly them. So does NASA. I'll bet the choice of pilot depends on the funding agency and mission. I think the U2 painted blue and white in the first film might be the NASA version, called ER-2.

Music should be NSFE (not suitable for ears) Cool visuals though. Here's a landing operation explained with some better music...

Landing the U2 - YouTube

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1993 320TE M104
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amazing that they make a plane worth such money which routinely is a problem getting landed. It looks like its design makes it sort of 'light' and difficult to get down.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Tom,
Wasn't the idea originally basically a glider design with jet engines? The landing issues were just part of the compromises involved in getting such high performance while in flight.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

yes. I believe it is basically a fighter (f104?) that they put very long wings on so it can fly at very very high altitudes in very thin air.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

I don't know the design history, but given the short time-frame for its development, I would suspect Kelly Johnson used as much off-the-shelf stuff as he could.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

I looked in Wiki and found this which speaks to the film clips above:

The U-2 is very sensitive to crosswinds which, together with its tendency to float over the runway, makes the U-2 notoriously difficult to land. As the aircraft approaches the runway, the cushion of air provided by the high-lift wings in ground effect is so pronounced that the U-2 will not land unless the wing is fully stalled. To assist the pilot, the landing U-2 is paced by a chase car (usually a "souped-up" performance model including a Ford Mustang SSP, Chevrolet Camaro B4C, Pontiac GTO, and the Pontiac G8 GT) with an assistant (another U-2 pilot) who "talks" the pilot down by calling off the declining height of the aircraft in feet as it decreases in airspeed.

It also said it was based on the f 104.

also it said the stall speed was just 5 mph slower than its normal cruising speed so it makes it a very difficult plane to fly without stalling.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

I was just waiting for the chase car to get underneath the wing and stabilize it!

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You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Robert A. Zimmerman

I remember watching these things land at Carswell AFB in Fort Worth during the late 50's, early 60's. They seemed to just float down.

And they were totally silent when landing. You never knew one was coming in unless you just looked up and saw it.

I lived in Lake Worth, Texas, at the time and all the aircraft came over the house when landing or taking off. The B-52's rattled the windows, and some large prop bomber (B-36?) would rattle your teeth.

The U-2's would slip through the air with no sound at all.

cool!

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.