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Bad ingAss
He talks too much, but it's absolutely understandable.
Incredible.
How much would you pay to take a ride like this?
Bad ingAss
God I wish it wasnt 10mins, but I am watching it as we speak.
A former employee of mine has a nephew who flies the U2 plane. I wouldnt have known that if she hadnt shown me his video he made as a submission to the Air Force's Marketing Contest.
The AF was looking for cool to show on their commercials, so this cat takes a camera into the follow car you see when the plane is landing. The sponsorship for that car changes hands quite a bit, but during the video he took, it was a very-suped-up Mustang.
Its pretty badass. She showed me a picture of a map that his parents (her sister) keep on their wall of all the missions he's flown in. Over 26 in 3 years at those al udes.
He is only one of 26 certified U2 pilots in the world. Thats pretty amazing.
Couldnt have said it better. I'd probably be in tears when I landed.
Found the video. Guy driving the car is her nephew. I am uploading the video to Photobucket right now.
....rewatching the video, its a Camaro, not a 'Stang.
The U2 pilots cant see the ground from the pit so they need a follow car behind them to call out their distance between them and the ground. Also, the U2 plane is a very unbalanced aircraft from wing to wing. It easily tips if left unattended. So they have to put on training wheels under the wings when taxiing from hangar to airstrip.
Another thing is its cruise speed. I dont remember the terminology, so forgive me, but most conventional planes have a very wide "non-stall" velocity range. That is, go too slow, you stall. Go too fast, rip wings off or something similar.
The U2 has no such luxury. IIRC, its optimal operating velocity range is something like 20 knots. That is, slower than the low end, its wide wing span and weight-to-lift ratio has that er fall like a stone. Go faster than that at or low al udes (iirc) and you'll tear the wings off. Its designed to fly as high as the previous video...specially designed for that purpose alone. Not cruising at 35k. Wind resistance with the thicker atmosphere is a real problem, but just as soon as you break atmosphere, it flies like a bird.
That plane is truly one of the modern marvels of aeronautic design.
Last edited by DarkReign; 08-06-2009 at 12:37 PM.
freakin' amazing! i have always wished to go to space. thanks for sharing CH.
Fantastic info. Thanks, DR.
Top Gear rocks!
One of my favourite youtubes from their show:
At first I was like, "why is everyone laughing?"
And then I read the tagline.
O.
M.
G.
I dont know whether thats funny or insensitive.
it, Im not Polish. I vote funny.
When was the U2 modified for an additional passenger???
i think there were a couple that were made for 2 people
IIRC those were for training.
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