Top Gear rides the Dragon Lady

[Lawman]

Really? How do you guys keep your rating then?

The hell if I know. Apaches and Kiowas dont even have a VOR. I guess the Army figured "well theres only two of them in it so if they go inadvertant F it they've got a FLIR and a GPS."

 

[wlawr005]

Maybe I missed something in another video, but I was under the impression that this was a colateral duty for pilots from the squadron (like our RDO)

uh...if the dudes driving the cameros down the runway at 100 mph, and holding the wings during "early gear release" are O's, then sign me the fuck up

 

[Pugs]

Just finished reading Ben Rich's book "Skunk Works" that was mostly about the creation of the U-2, SR-71 and F-117. Lots of Navy hate in there but a good book about small teams doing great things.

Rich was the leader of the Skunk Works after Kelly Johnson retired and while Kelly Johnson's bio "More than my share of it all" was a good read Rich's covered a lot more technical work I enjoyed, including the question about how the heck do you get a jet engine to function at that altitdue.

 

[vick]

Random pilot-type question, but for birds like the U-2 and SR-71, when you go above FL600, is there any sort of contact between you and ATC (since technically it's uncontrolled at those altitudes) and when you come back down into class A, do you just call em up and let em know you're coming back down and where you're headed? Seems kinda funny since the ATC system wasn't really designed for people to go that high.

Pretty simple, VFR on top in CONUS.

And just to clarify, the mobile (the dude in the Camaro/GTO/G8) is another pilot. The altitude calls are something akin to LSO calls - no potential for a ramp strike or power bounce but gound loops aren't unheard of, so the calls are pretty helpful. He also does the preflight on mission jets since it's hard to do much on the ground in the pressure suit.

 

[Ralph]

Hopefully they will extend the date of retirement.

 

[vick]

They already have a few times. And every time the Global Hawk has another delay (an almost daily occurrence) the U-2's future looks brighter.

 

[skidkid]

Really? How do you guys keep your rating then?

They form a circle join hands and pray for the sun to return. At night they do the same for the moon.

 

[AllAmerican75]

Same way it works on deck. The thrust lapse is substantial, but the drag is lower up there, too. The engine only really cares about very few conditions, and most of them are non-dimensional, like Mach number, fuel ratio, etc. So as long as the Mach number at the inlet is in the correct range, and the air/fuel mass flow ratio is maintained by the control system, the engine should run just fine, but you won't get a lot of thrust out of it because the mass flow is so low. I'm sure Huggy could speak to how it "really" works, but that's the idea from a "theory guy."

Shock wave development in the compressor stage bad, very bad. Ah, the joys of compressible flow.

 

[HornyU2]

Same way it works on deck. The thrust lapse is substantial, but the drag is lower up there, too. The engine only really cares about very few conditions, and most of them are non-dimensional, like Mach number, fuel ratio, etc. So as long as the Mach number at the inlet is in the correct range, and the air/fuel mass flow ratio is maintained by the control system, the engine should run just fine, but you won't get a lot of thrust out of it because the mass flow is so low. I'm sure Huggy could speak to how it "really" works, but that's the idea from a "theory guy."

The new motor (S model versus the older R model) is pretty impressive - enough thrust to overspeed the airframe real quick if the nose is not kept high on climbout. Your are correct in your assumption about thrust up high. Obviously, neither Huggy, Vick, or I can share the numbers - but, I will say that you would be suprised at how little thrust that thing can get by with up at high altitudes. Those long wings can do quite a bit with not to much in the way of knots.

A beast (dragon) to fly down low - it's actually pretty graceful above about 45K. It likes to be high. Flying it down low is the price paid for the view up top.

 

[scoolbubba]

I don't know if it's been mentioned on here or not (probably has since Huggy is featured prominently in it), but Flying Magazine did a nice spread on the U-2 not too long ago. Great pictures, cool story too. It's pretty interesting to hear about the idiosyncrasies of the U-2, especially how its flight characteristics go from a mean bitch down low to a doll when she's where she wants to fly. The landings seemed especially sporty and interesting to read about.

 

[Pags]

No hate No Worries. Im currantly sitting in instruments contemplating slitting my wrists with my E6B while knowing theres a 50/50 shot of me never flying an instrument rated aircraft in the Army once this is over.

it's a whole lot better to know how to fly instruments and not use it, then not know how and have to use it.

that being said, there's not much point to a VOR in a helo for approaches, since the mins for most VOR approaches are so high you'd just be better off coming in SVFR. There's even less of a need for one if you can file with /G and go GPS direct.

 

[Gatordev]

it's a whole lot better to know how to fly instruments and not use it, then not know how and have to use it.

that being said, there's not much point to a VOR in a helo for approaches, since the mins for most VOR approaches are so high you'd just be better off coming in SVFR. There's even less of a need for one if you can file with /G and go GPS direct.

It's not just about the terminal phase of the flight. Getting to that terminal phase w/out hitting anything (a la TERPS) would be nice, too. I've been on several dets where Medevacs was conducted and even though the mission was accomplished, a VOR would have probably been a prudent thing to use had it been onboard.

 

[Pags]

It's not just about the terminal phase of the flight. Getting to that terminal phase w/out hitting anything (a la TERPS) would be nice, too. I've been on several dets where Medevacs was conducted and even though the mission was accomplished, a VOR would have probably been a prudent thing to use had it been onboard.

Touche. However, using the "this one time" argument, you can argue for putting just about any piece of gear on the bird (this one det, when we evaced that SEAL that looked like Bruce Willis or that other time we evaced those people from Jurassic Park....). But I can still see how when it comes down to pounds and dollars how the VOR gets left out (having an a/c that can't fly IFR with GPS in the 21st century is mildly criminal though).

 

[Jim123]

...that other time we evaced those people from Jurassic Park....

Don't be silly, there are NDBs in Jurassic Park. The VOR wasn't invented until much later in the Cretaceous period.

 

[BACONATOR]

Touche. However, using the "this one time" argument, you can argue for putting just about any piece of gear on the bird (this one det, when we evaced that SEAL that looked like Bruce Willis or that other time we evaced those people from Jurassic Park....). But I can still see how when it comes down to pounds and dollars how the VOR gets left out (having an a/c that can't fly IFR with GPS in the 21st century is mildly criminal though).

I thought the justification for that was a lack of support for GPS with moving ships (since it's an active system using position and velocity computation based off of 4 GPS satellite position fixes and time) and certainly a lack of GPS approaches into durkistan prevented it being an efficacious IFR navigation system for ship-based/tactical military aircraft. Whereas land-based aircraft are more likely to have it (doesn't the E-6/P-3 have IFR GPS?) since they are strictly airfield based and tend to land at bigger airports which have established GPS instrument approaches, which makes it useful for them to have.