Captain Slow gets high....

Nforce

...VERY high!:eek::cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Pm4tJWVIwA

A fantastic oportunity to travel to the edge of Space. James May....you're one lucky b@stard!;):D

Dublin_Gunner

Saw this a few weeks ago when it aired. Pretty cool job that fecker has.

CaptainSkidmark

in fairness! captain slow has been up to 75,000 feet in that and he's been on the eurofighter!

pretty impressive!

vigos

what type of plane is that they went up on?

Dublin_Gunner

vigos wrote: »

what type of plane is that they went up on?

U2

vigos

ok thanks never saw a two seater version before just looked it up it seems to be a U2-TR1B

Just an observation, how come the pilot is wearing glasses? I thought you needed to have perfect eyesight if you´re going to fly in the air force? Or maybe there aren´t many trained pilots left to fly this type of plane?

donkey balls

your allowed to wear glasses in comercial aviation dont know about the airforce

vigos

well just finished watching clip, looks like he´s not wearing them outside of the plane after he landed so maybe they have another function rather than to correct vision

Johnny Storm

vigos wrote: »

Just an observation, how come the pilot is wearing glasses? I thought you needed to have perfect eyesight if you´re going to fly in the air force? Or maybe there aren´t many trained pilots left to fly this type of plane?

He had some major set of goggles on him alright.
Possibly he had perfect vision when he signed up?

Dublin_Gunner

vigos wrote: »

well just finished watching clip, looks like he´s not wearing them outside of the plane after he landed so maybe they have another function rather than to correct vision

The U2 is de-commissioned, therefore standard USAF pilot rules dont apply (as the plane in question is not in active service, so techinically, once they say 'yay' they could let anyone qualified to fly it, even ex-USAF, if they want, fly it).

Secondly, I'm pretty sure the corrective lense rule only applies to 'fighter' pilots - not any of the many other pilot jobs in the airforce, including reconnaissance.

Nforce

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

The U2 is de-commissioned, therefore standard USAF pilot rules dont apply (as the plane in question is not in active service, so techinically, once they say 'yay' they could let anyone qualified to fly it, even ex-USAF, if they want, fly it).

Secondly, I'm pretty sure the corrective lense rule only applies to 'fighter' pilots - not any of the many other pilot jobs in the airforce, including reconnaissance.

Nope...the U-2 is still in active service and will be for a few years yet (It's planned that Global Hawk will take over this mission). As a matter of fact , only recently,the USAF were actively seeking pilots to transfer to the U2 squadrons.

Nforce

Did you ever know that the U-2 was involved in carrier trials early in it's development?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gYouxgI8R0

more footage here

Dublin_Gunner

Nforce wrote: »

Nope...the U-2 is still in active service and will be for a few years yet (It's planned that Global Hawk will take over this mission). As a matter of fact , only recently,the USAF were actively seeking pilots to transfer to the U2 squadrons.

Ya learn something new everyday!! I had assumed it was decomissioned as I hadn't heard anything about it in donkeys.

You'd wonder why they still require a spy plane of this nature?

Captain Chaos

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

You'd wonder why they still require a spy plane of this nature?

The US still need real time recce and the ability to orbit the target area for hours while relaying images in real time. A satellite cannot do that and can take hours to get into position for a few mins of observation.

The U2 will be replaced with recce drones like the QR-4 Global Hawk and possibly a variant of the reborn Dark Star.

Delta Kilo

I'd say a lot of those restrictions such as having to have perfect eyesight are wavered for experienced pilots such as this guy. They would hardly show a guy with thousands of hours and bags of experience the door and replace him with a newbie just because he is -0.1 in his right eye.

pclancy

Incredible design, considering how high and fast it flies that it lands at 70kts! Great vid, thanks for sharing.

donkey balls

considering how high and fast it flies that it lands at 70kts

going slightly of topic here but do you know that the space shuttle has a 17kts cross wind limitation its the same as the warrior i was in florida.

Nforce

pclancy wrote: »

Incredible design, considering how high and fast it flies that it lands at 70kts! Great vid, thanks for sharing.

Amazingly they don't fly that fast at those heights....they're almost on the brink of stalling.:)
It's all the more impressive to think that in 1984 an RAF EE Lightning intercepted one at 66,000ft during a NATO training mission. I believe the Lightning has been up to 90,000ft+ :eek::cool:

Captain Chaos

Nforce wrote: »

It's all the more impressive to think that in 1984 an RAF EE Lightning intercepted one at 66,000ft during a NATO training mission. I believe the Lightning has been up to 90,000ft+ :eek::cool:

The EE Lightning was an amazing fighter for its time, even though it had a very limited armament it could out perform the USAF superfighter at the time, the F-15 in time to climb performance and run rings around the F-4.

The US F-15 has gone up 92,000ft in zoom climb tests with a standard airframe, not stripped down at all like the Streak Eagle which was used to set 27 time to climb world records, which the Russians went to to break a few with a modified Su-27. An F-15 can maintain 65-70k untill its fuel is gone though which would be about 10 mins in full AB.

Russian MiG-25s and 31s had done similar feats.

The SR-71 has unofficially gone above 100,000ft, top end classified and has exceeded M3.2 again top end classified even though its retired 10 years.