combat aircraft

rarely thought about in aircraft with

conventional landing gear.

Both IPs had warned me that there

were two distinctly di erent U-2CTs

always looking to graze o the side

of the runway at Beale. I had been

fortunate to have experienced the less

tricky of the two on my previous three

acceptance  ights. On this particular

day, however, I drew ‘the Goat’ from hell

— tail number 56-6953. Both trainers

were constructed from U-2Cs that had

crashed, placing a rear cockpit, slightly

elevated, in the camera bay. Aircraft

‘953’ had early A-model internal wing

ba ing that allowed fuel to  ow more

freely to the lower outboard wing tip and

raised inboard wing root, causing a rapid

fuel imbalance when a wing dropped

during landing. If a wing contacted

the runway, there was only one way to

raise the heavy wing:  rewall the

throttle and pray that enough air

speed was established for aileron

e ectiveness to raise the wing. Since

the lag time between idle and full power

was six to nine seconds, there was more

than su cient time to pray and issue

solemn oaths before becoming airborne,

usually at an angle across the runway.

The second option was to shut down

the engine and watch in slow motion as

‘the Goat’ went grazing o the side of

the runway.

Back to Beale

With the higher-altitude work done,

I requested an ILS approach. As we

intercepted the localizer and extended

the gear ‘MG’ gave me the magic power

setting of 73 per cent rpm, and as the

glide-slope centered, full  aps with speed

brakes were deployed. I

always loved instrument

 ying and this was the

most casual approach I

had ever  own. With the

threshold speed (T-speed) calculated

for our remaining fuel weight, we slowly

decelerated from T+10kt to T-speed (5kt

above the stall) at 10ft over the threshold

(optimum airspeed and altitude),

where ‘MG’ took over to demonstrate

the landing.

As expected, he made it look e ortless

while ‘HoHo’ gave us altitude calls to 2ft.

‘MG’ held the altitude steady until the

stall occurred. I took note of the small

inputs he applied to the ailerons and

rudder to keep us glued to the centerline

as he retracted the  aps and speed

brakes while setting the take-o trim. As

briefed, he then turned the controls over

Below left to

right: The author

receives his

coveted solo

patch from the

9th Strategic

Reconnaissance

Wing commander

on March 5, 1979.

Rick Bishop

Restricted

lateral vision is

illustrated by the

author. This is

caused by the

design of the

helmet, and is

something the

U-2 pilot must

adapt to.

Rick Bishop

When Bishop began

fl ying the U-2R there were

only eight examples in

existence, so the gravity

of taking one airborne for

the fi rst time was not to be

underestimated.

Ted Carlson/Fotodynamics

‘SKUNK WORKS’ AT 75 // U-2 ‘DRAGON LADY’

92 September 2018 //^ http://www.combataircraft.net

90-97 U2 part2 C.indd 92 20/07/2018 11:38