At The Edge Of Space

U-2 pilot Cholene Espinoza remembers her trips almost to space, on the fiftieth anniversary of the shoot-down of Francis Gary Powers:

Were the risks worth it? Absolutely. The advantage of having a human being in the pilot’s seat of a reconnaissance plane is overwhelming. A person can troubleshoot problems in mid-flight, with creativity that a computer lacks and a proximity to the problem that a remote-control pilot can never achieve. A pilot also has unique situational awareness: I’ve been on more than one mission in which I was able to distinguish promising details that a drone would have missed.

It was worth it personally, too. I’ll never forget the adrenaline surge of landing what was basically a multimillion-dollar jet-powered glider on its 12-inch tail wheel from a full stall while wearing a space suit. And I’ll always remember the peace of sitting alone on the quiet edge of space, out of radio contact for hours.

People would pay for that. Sounds like they would need better suits, though.

12 thoughts on “At The Edge Of Space”

  1. I used to be in the Navy with a guy who, when he heard the words “you two”, “you too”, or “you to’, would invariably pipe in with,

    “You too, yes you too, like Gary Powers, can learn to fly!!”

  2. The U-2 is a hard airplane to fly and especially to land. I saw a video a year or so ago on YouTube showing pilots learning to land the plane. The music playing in the background said it all: “The bitch just hates me, she f**king hates me.”

  3. larry j, I’ve enjoyed flying a fair number of aircraft over the years, some I would have preferred had permanently full tanks (don’t wanna land this critter!), and had to go look up that video. I’ve been laughing for the last hour and as soon as my side quits hurting, I’ll go watch it again! Thanks!

    The sound track is sweet, kinda X-rated for Rand’s blog, otherwise I’d link.

  4. This has got me beat. The U-2 landing gear configuration is the same as that on most sailplanes built since the late 60’s.

    Thousands of sport sailplane pilots land their aircraft without drama every weekend.

    The secret is the two point landing, not doing a “wheeler” on the main gear first. Fly into that angle just above the ground and wait for the airspeed to bleed off until it touches down.
    The other point I noticed when watching a TV program about the U-2 (or TR-1) recently is that they leave the rather large landing flaps down after touchdown. Sailplane pilots immediately raise the flaps which makes the aircraft stick(it won’t fly again), increases aileron effectiveness and makes the aircraft less sensitive to wind gusts on the ground.

  5. IIRC, when Lockheed test pilot Tony Levier was getting ready to make the first flight in the U-2 prototype, Kelly Johnson told him to make a 2 point landing. Levier tried it several times and just about destroyed the plane. He then made a wheel landing and was able to keep it under control. That pretty much set the standard for landing the U-2.

    Unlike sailplanes, the U-2 has a jet engine producing a significant amount of residual thrust even at idle. It also has fuel in the wings that – if not balanced properly – makes things interesting. I once read that for each foot of excess altitude the pilot has when crossing the runway threshold, the plane will likely float 1000 feet down the runway, primarily due to ground effect. I’ve also read that no one has ever been able to build a flight simulator that accurately replicated what it takes to land a U-2.

    I’ve noticed in recent years that most airliners don’t immediately retract their flaps after landing. Instead, they use spoilers to kill the excess lift (like the U-2). I’ve read that one reason is that there were too many incidents where pilots went to retract the flaps and pulled the landing gear lever instead. Maybe, but I don’t know for sure if that’s a factor with the U-2 or not.

    They’ve been flying the various models of U-2 since about 1954. In 56 years of operations, you’d think that if there was a better way to land the plane, someone would’ve found it by now. The Air Force Academy (visibile from my home) has a very active glider program and it seems likely that at least some U-2 pilots have had sailplane experience. Like I said, if there was an easier or safer way to land the plane, you’d think they would’ve found it by now. Apparently, there isn’t one.

  6. I remember reading someplace (perhaps it is an urban myth) that at altitude, the stall speed of a U2 is only 5 knots less then the over speed (if that is the right term, I’m a software engineer, not an aeronautical one). If it is true, that must make flying the thing pretty interesting.

  7. Larry J , you have the landing technique exactly reversed. They do do two point landings. In the film clip I saw it was actually one point – tailwheel first. About what I do in my sailplane.

    It does take really good airspeed control just before the flare. Sailplanes also nowadays can carry large amounts of water ballast and they may land with it or with significant amounts of it left and not always balanced each side. In any case if you don’t raise the flaps before slowing on the ground roll your aileron effectiveness will vanish an lot sooner than if you do which can result in a ground loop.

    I never could figure out why Lockheed didn’t buy or borrow a sailplane from someone before testing the U-2

  8. Sailplanes back in the early 1950s were not nearly as sophisticated as modern ones. There simply wasn’t much comparison. The U-2 is reputed to be one of the hardest planes to land and if there were an easier way, I’m sure someone would’ve discovered it by now.

    I remember reading someplace (perhaps it is an urban myth) that at altitude, the stall speed of a U2 is only 5 knots less then the over speed (if that is the right term, I’m a software engineer, not an aeronautical one). If it is true, that must make flying the thing pretty interesting.

    Depending on how close the U-2 is to its absolute ceiling, the difference between stall speed and critical Mach can be under 10 knots. Go too fast and exceed critical Mach and pieces may start breaking. Go too slow and stall, you’ll pick up speed rapidly when the nose drops and soon exceed critical Mach. I’ve heard this narrow operating window at altitude referred to as “the throat.” If the autopilot fails, the pilot has to be able to hand-fly the plane inside of this very narrow range of speeds. You can widen the throat by decreasing altitude but that can introduce new problems.

  9. Does she make the case that we need human eyeballs with brains attached rather than just rely on robots or telerobots? I think she does and makes the argument an obvious… Duh!

    Ok. Go back to arguing costs.

  10. We keep the U-2 because it continually needs upgrades to its defensive systems, thus it continues to produce money for the government contractor that made it. We flushed the SR-71 because 50 years later a missile still couldn’t touch it and thus it was not making any money for its government contractor. Blessed be the government contractor.

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