Anyone else see that U2 aircraft in the sky just now; 1:30pm on 12/12/20

auntiebling

auntiebling

megalomaniacal troglodyte
Staff member
i didn't know they were still in service!

it's funny that the military likes using them for the same reason i like pre-smog cars. way easier to work on!
 
gixxerjeff

gixxerjeff

Dogs best friend
I'm at work here in Glen Ellen. Not so much as a peep. It's very quiet out here, damn near silent actually.
If it went by it would've been hard not to hear it. What direction was it going?
 
GAJ

GAJ

Well-known member
gixxerjeff said:
I'm at work here in Glen Ellen. Not so much as a peep. It's very quiet out here, damn near silent actually.
If it went by it would've been hard not to hear it. What direction was it going?
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It was flying low to the Southeast and then 60 seconds later it was thousands of feet higher, didn't even see it climb/turn, headed due West.

A stunning sight.

My wife was on a walk and saw it as did everyone else.

Cars literally stopped and people got out to watch.

Very very impressive.

Needs a chase car to land so the wings don't hit the tarmac and same plane Gary Powers was shot down in 1960 over the USSR.

From Wiki.

Francis Gary Powers was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission in Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 incident. He later worked as a helicopter pilot for KNBC in Los Angeles and died in a 1977 helicopter crash.
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Mike95060

Mike95060

Work In Progress
Fly overs and low passes give me goosebumps with 100% efficiency.

I think the only thing that could top a U-2 Flyover would be the king of black jets. Do I even need to say the name?
 
wazzuFreddo

wazzuFreddo

WuTang is 4 the children
Map8 said:
They still fly the U2 out of Beale AFB.
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SR-71s from Beale used to go supersonic over where I grew up in eastern Washington. Sonic booms happened so often as a kid that I thought they were a regular occurrence everywhere. :laughing
 
dravnx

dravnx

Well-known member
Fly over

It was a fly over honoring Col. Dave Pinsky who passed away last week.
Quite the man. Flew U2s and SR-71s. A command pilot, he has flown over 5,500 hours in the FB-111, KC-135, F-106, F-102, T-38, T-33, T-37, T-29, and O-1 aircraft, including over 1,000 hours of Combat Time (614 combat missions over Vietnam).
Lost his house in the Tubbs fire. Executive director of the Pacific Coast Air Museum for many years.
 

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easter bunny

easter bunny

Amateur Hour
The one thing I remember about the U2 was that the difference between "falls out of sky" and "shit breaks" was about 10mph.

Planning a trip to the Air Force Museum in Ohio one of these years when things are back to normal to see some of these things in person.
 
bikeama

bikeama

Super Moderator
Staff member
wazzuFreddo said:
SR-71s from Beale used to go supersonic over where I grew up in eastern Washington. Sonic booms happened so often as a kid that I thought they were a regular occurrence everywhere. :laughing
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Went to school at Chico State in '70-'72. Went by Beale on the way up. One morning we saw an SR-71 takeoff. Slow rise then a lot of black smoke. It was out of sight quicker than it took you to read this. Just back smoke in the sky it was gone.
 
dravnx

dravnx

Well-known member
There used to be this old guy that kept a Piper Arrow parked out on the ramp in front of my office. Tom would fly it once or twice a week for a couple of hours. It was a real POS and Tom would never spend anything more then was absolutely the minimum to keep it airworthy. Tom became pretty feeble and bent over looking towards the end and we doubted he even had a medical anymore but he kept flying.
Tom passed away a few years ago and when his family came out to deal with the airplane, I got to talking to his daughter. Turns out Tom was retired Air Force and his last assignment was flying U2s. He was a kinda famous U2 pilot as he had a flameout over Japan and managed to dead stick the aircraft and successfully land it on a small airstrip. They boxed the airplane up, shipped it back to the US and repaired it.
The very first mission this U2 flew after the repair was flown by Francis Powell who was shot down by the USSR.
 
Mike95060

Mike95060

Work In Progress
dravnx said:
There used to be this old guy that kept a Piper Arrow parked out on the ramp in front of my office. Tom would fly it once or twice a week for a couple of hours. It was a real POS and Tom would never spend anything more then was absolutely the minimum to keep it airworthy. Tom became pretty feeble and bent over looking towards the end and we doubted he even had a medical anymore but he kept flying.
Tom passed away a few years ago and when his family came out to deal with the airplane, I got to talking to his daughter. Turns out Tom was retired Air Force and his last assignment was flying U2s. He was a kinda famous U2 pilot as he had a flameout over Japan and managed to dead stick the aircraft and successfully land it on a small airstrip. They boxed the airplane up, shipped it back to the US and repaired it.
The very first mission this U2 flew after the repair was flown by Francis Powell who was shot down by the USSR.
Click to expand...

GTFO!! That’s an awesome story!
 
m0t0_ryder

m0t0_ryder

RYD!
I remember, back in the 80's, the NASA U2 (ER2) regularly taking off from Moffitt field.
I worked not far from there and we would head outside when we heard that distinguishable loud jet noise.
It took off almost straight up.
Awesome to see... and hear.

memories...

youtu.be/VDQ8TSHhd1o
 
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951dude

951dude

Well-known member
Pretty common to see them here in Sacramento as they descend down into Beale. There was one at the Sac Air Show last year.
 
Hooli

Hooli

Big Ugly
When I worked at Moffett there was a parked-up U2 wearing NASA livery right by the big skeletal dirigible hanger. My route went right by it (there was also an F-104 Starfighter there as well.

Cool as the U2 is, I'd really like to see an SR-71 do a flyover. Maybe in my next life. :p
 
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