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[Zipper]

Downtown Meadville after more of the street lights have been removed.
 

Insane Indian Traffic

[Zipper]

Pomona? Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww!

Hahaha.

[Zipper]

Recent earthquakes in California. Updated hourly.

http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/

[lifefeedsonlife]

That U2 footage was amazing. Had my kids transfixed.

[Zipper]

That U2 footage was amazing. Had my kids transfixed.

Nice, huh? I am too afraid of heights to fully appreciate the beauty, but he is right about one thing. It would change the world if the leaders of the world could see it from up there.

We are merely a speck.

[NightmarePatrol]

I used to work with a guy who was career air force and was on an SR71 crew for about 15 years. He had lots of cool stuff to say about the bird. Too bad there more he couldn't say then he could. Considering the design is around 50 years old it makes me wonder what's airborne that we don't have a clue about aside from the rumblings of the Aurora and Blackswift.

[Puffin]

Zippity, loved the U2 flight. Got anything else like it?

[Zipper]

This is really fun to watch.
Difficult U2 landings.
 
Strong language in the music... F-word a lot. If watching with kids, mute the sound first.
 

U-2 Dragon Lady: Landings

 
 

[Amidala]

wow - that first U2 clip was breathtaking.

[gore range]

    .…its an interesting bird with just as interesting history….

   ….only the B-52- has been in the inventory longer; 56 years- although as with the BUFF, the U-2 has morphed through several models over the decades….

….its quite the simple plane to fly with two notable exceptions-

....at it’s maximum upper operating altitude, due to the ultra-thin air  (the super wide high aspect ratio glider-like wings allowed it to climb to over 70K feet)  there is only aprx 20 mph difference between its max speed and it’s stall  speed; U-2 pilots call it the ‘coffin corner’, a rather narrow range in which to maintain flying speed in the middle of an often busy mission navigating the bird over a rather hostile territory, with the issue being stalling the bird at altitude resulting in an uncontrollable loss of flight attitude, with the wings departing the aircraft shortly there after ( the earlier models lacked an injection seat…. “don’t need one- ...flys so high it will never get shot down…”

….and the second notable departure from being the simple aircraft to fly, as obvious from Zip’s video above- the landing; being essentially a glider, and an empty light-weight glider the end of a mission- with all that wing  it didn’t really want to quit flying and putting it down on the runway was quite the challenge….

….of course exasperated by it only having the one main ‘uni-cycle’ landing wheel….

….in the vid above, as with every U-2 landing, the plane is pursued/followed  by a souped-up sports car down the runway  driven by other U-2 pilots literally talking the landing bird down, endeavoring to avoid the all-too common ‘uni-cycle’ ground-looping results depicted above, and the 'Keystone Sky-Cops' jacking up the grounded-looped U-2 pilot at the end of the clip above (bad landings are an embarrassing  sore point w/pilots)….

….there is only one 2-place training U-2 airframe, featured in the first vid, with a second cockpit retro-fitted into an existing U-2 air-frame- a result of unleashing jet-jockeys in a single-seat unicycle-landing gear glider none too successfully….

….in the pre-SR-71 days, they did evaluate carrier operations w/the U-2 to increase its range/coverage-

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o265/WDW_Megaraptor/USS_America_28CV-6629_with_a_U-2.jpg

….it went rather well, but as they pretty much had to clear the deck to launch/recover the bird, it didn't sit well  at all with the entrenched squid jet-jockey bureaucracy ….

…..though, the U-2 isn’t the biggest bird tested on a carrier-

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4015390308129405896

….needless to say-

http://www.theaviationzone.com/art-bin/photos/c130_5.jpg

….that too didn’t sit well with the Navy need-to-clear-the-deck jet-jockey-entrenched bureaucracy, either….

….with the evolution of the UAV/drone technology, the U-2’s days are now numbered…. 

[NightmarePatrol]

Spy planes are being replaced by satellites like the KH-12 and whatever the next revision of spy technology is. The KH-12 provides a ground resolution of 6 inches which is pretty impressive. Add fractal software on the ground to process things and a very clear representation can be produced. The KH-12 is about 15 years old now and has surely been updated by something better. I'm sure the whatever-it-is probably takes your temperature and pulse and respiration too. Black budget stuff can stay off the public radar for decades, maybe longer for some stuff.

[Janetplanet]

Switching gears here - sorry, but the topic is anything goes.  Anyways, need a recommendation of a good computer person.  Someone who can run virus scans and do general maintenance.  The guy I am using now isn't working for me.  Mine is a laptop so I can drop it off at their location. I am in Meadville.  I am a heavy user but not as proficient at technical stuff. 
Janet

[gore range]

    ....J-  I'm pretty sure Zip has that wired pretty solidly and can/will steer you in a productive direction....
 
 ....sliding back to the U-2 rachet-jawing above if only because I ain't so ready to hit the sack yet, and am looking to burn myself out here as it is way too late to be running the table saw out in the shop here in the mile-high burbs…
 
 .... back in the day I taught a classified History of Reconnaissance course to fledgling intel butter-bars (second lieutenants entering the intelligence career field) here at Lowry AFB, and among other subjects, I gave 3-hour lecture on the development/operation of the U-2; which…..the thought of  just prompted me to recall I had http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad301/HomersWorld/Bunker%20Stuff/Blackbird.jpg]  this model [/url] of a U-2 that I  fabricated… with obvious artistic license (carved balsa raptor wings )… and had hanging over head in my office, stashed down in a box in the basement. It was damaged during one of the numerous PCS (change of assignment) moves and I never got around to repairing it; might have to ponder such now….

….my U-2 lecture included a 1 hour spiel on the Gary Powers incident and the cascading chain of intel failures therein, which was a lot more George Carlin-esque than the S.O.P. tech school lectures; I was most fortunate that it predated the developing politically-correct mentality  that soon after became oh-so-vogue….

….on the other side of the coin, I can’t begin to count the number of times over the ensuing years all over the world when an intel puke (intelligence specialist) who I had no recollection who they were would greet me with a big smile and say, “I never forget anything you told us that day in class!”; one could hazard a hunch as to why der Gore did not gravitate to public education post military ….

….the reality is spy planes are being replaced by the spy-unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as witnessed by the literal explosion in the UAV technology/application over the last decade around the globe….

….cost wise they can’t begin to be touched, particularly with the timeliness and quality of their product provided to the battlefield commanders on the ground in theater, not to over look the real-time targeting(kill)-capability of numerous models….

….and, few today realize the evolution of both the U-2 and spy satellites were pretty much in parallel, unknown to each other as well as most of the military brass….

…. a fact lost to history- Gary Powers was shot down on the very first  (and just as suddenly -only) U-2 mission planned to actually fly all the way across the USSR. The previous U-2 USSR U-2 spy flights were in & out penetration missions where the bird flew into the USSR, took its pics then turned around exiting the Rooksie motherland pretty much in the same direction it ingressed. Power’s flight was to be the first mission to fly across the USSR from one side to the other- actually from the secret CIA base in Pakistan, across to Norway, however, fate intervened that day….

….another fact lost to history, at the time of Power’s shoot down, Eisenhower wasn’t concerned one iota about the pending lost of intelligence-gathering over the USSR due to the sudden termination of the U-2 USSR reconnaissance over flights as-

….our first spy satellite had just gone on line shortly before….


….and for the last 50 years, both the “air-breather” recce platforms (reconnaissance aircraft)  continued to evolve in parallel w/the “overhead” recce platforms (satellite) ….

….the reason the “overhead” recce technology did/has/will not supplant the “air-breather” technology is there are widely differential plusses and minuses to both recce technologies, with each performing its own missions nicely in their designed arenas where the other is incapable of doing so; “air-breather” and “overhead” systems will continue to supplement each other like gloves for the foreseeable future due their inherent limitations…

….in spite of its limitations, the U-2/TR-1 lasted as long as it did because it was relatively simple/cheap to build/operate yielding highly cost-beneficial intel….

….the list of retired & now little-remembered recce “super” birds over the same 50 year period is long and rather comparatively undistinguished ….

….even with all its overly impressive lengthy list of highly advanced technology and capabilities, the vaunted SR-71 program was terminated as it cost just too damned much  money to continue to operate; a rule of thumb back in the day was that every time a Blackbird (SR-71) pulled chocks (took off), there was a minimum of three aerial-refueling tankers, and all their inherent expensive operating costs, already orbiting in the air burning holes in the sky just waiting to refuel the Blackfire; in the cost/benefits columns, it could be argued that it was cheaper to launch “overhead” platforms than to operate the diminishing fleet of SR-71s….

…. the last active-duty SR-71 mission was flown in late ’89; few realize there were no SR-71 over-flights/recce for DESERT STORM, and ala Gary Powers, there were definitely no U-2/TR-1 over- flights either….

.…the storm is where the UAV crowd started to crawl out of their technological egg….

….another little known fact to most taxpayers- most of the new UAV recce birds that are deployed all over the globe are actually flown by pilot-technicians sitting in comfy chair in air-conditioned rooms located at a little known pretty-much rinky-dink ex-WWII air force base out in the boonies between Las Vegas and Area 51; of course, not that Gore knows the location of Area 51 ….

….as has been the case over the last 5 decades, due to their inherent physiological limitations, spy satellites will not replace the rapidly evolving field of next-generation UAV “air breathers” for the foreseeable future, and they will continue to complement each other in the roles….

….of significant note, Israel developed/launched its own spy satellite back in ’02; not withstanding -    the future marches on….

....though, you're not going to see too many YOUTUBE vids of a sports car driven by jet jockeys speeding down a runway chasing a bouncing & zig-zagging UAV veering off the runway in order to bust the non-pilot's chops ....

[lifefeedsonlife]

Thanks Gore - always an interesting read. Was poking around for Gary Powers information as a lazy Sunday thing yesterday. Better you than Wiki though!

[Amidala]

Switching gears here - sorry, but the topic is anything goes.  Anyways, need a recommendation of a good computer person.  Someone who can run virus scans and do general maintenance.  The guy I am using now isn't working for me.  Mine is a laptop so I can drop it off at their location. I am in Meadville.  I am a heavy user but not as proficient at technical stuff. 
Janet

Janet, Anakin is a computer whiz and has a little business going. Send me a private message if you are interested.