Dragon Hearts
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U-2s recently were retrofitted with glass cockpit technology, but they're all still fly-by-cable airplanes that are a handful at low altitudes.
"When I got [to the U-2] I had 2,000 tailwheel hours," says former U-2 pilot Bill Williams, "And my worst T-6 landing was a walk in the park compared to the U-2." Maj. John "Cabi" Cabigas, the instructor pilot who flew me in the U-2, heartily agreed. "Of all the inventory of the Air Force," he told me, "[the U-2] is the most difficult airplane to land."
In case I needed any reinforcement on that, Cabi suggested I follow through with him on our first landing, after our high flight. I dutifully put my gloved hands on the yoke and my booted feet on the rudder pedals and valiantly tried to keep up with Cabi as he wrestled the plane down final against gusty, 12- to 15-knot crosswinds. But within a few seconds, I jerked my hands and feet as far back from the controls as I could get them as I watched the controls go through more apoplectically rapid contortions and combinations of full-stop deflections in all axes than I've ever seen a pilot manage. No wonder the U-2 carries the moniker "Dragon Lady."
And while the tandem gear is part of the reason the U-2 is such a handful, it's not the only reason. Another factor is the long, high-aspect-ratio wing (104 feet, tip-to-tip, on the U-2S), which floats in ground effect and won't land unless it's fully stalled. The U-2 also lacks boosted controls -- one of many weight-saving trade-offs Lockheed made to meet the plane's challenging design goal. Other sacrifices included the lack of an ejection seat in the early models and a low G-force limit on the airframe.
How low is low? "We try to keep it below two Gs," says U-2 instructor pilot Lt. Col. Jon "Huggy" Huggins. I ask how many Gs the aircraft is actually stressed to take. "We try to keep it below two Gs," Huggy repeats, nodding for emphasis.
As for the lack of boosted controls ... while it makes landings more challenging, it's most noticeable in the higher-power, higher-speed flight realms of flight -- at least, until the U-2 gets up high. To demonstrate, Cabi had me try some simple 30-degree turns at various speeds and altitudes. (Although, just to make sure it's clear for the record ... my instructor pilot remained in command of the aircraft at all times, as per official military regulations.)
At 10,000 feet and 90 knots, the U-2 takes 60 pounds of force to roll the yoke over, and 150 pounds of force to push the rudder pedals to the floor. But still, the plane handles much like other solid, rudder-heavy airplanes I've flown, like the DC-3. At 130 knots, however, that starts to change. It's a real challenge to get enough rudder and aileron movement to get that 30-degree bank accomplished. And at 220 knots, the task is all but impossible. I put two hands on the yoke and turn, hard. No luck. I have my full body force leaning into the yoke before I get it to move.
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Lane shaking hands with the U-2 ground crew; and ready to fire up the engines.
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But there's also a reason the U-2 is referred to as a "Lady" as well as a Dragon. Because at 62,000 feet (which the U-2 reaches in a mere 20 minutes) and cruise speed (about .71 Mach), the U-2 becomes the smoothest-handling sports car you'd ever want to fly. She's a delight of harmonized grace, with finger-touch controls. This is a plane that's very clear about where she wants to be. And she gets grouchy and cantankerous if you try to fly her anywhere else.
"You either wrestle with the dragon or dance with the lady," Cabi tells me. "And you're never quite sure which one she's going to be."
Operational U-2 pilots also do that wrestling and dancing for more than 10 hours at a stretch, all alone, over hostile territory, in a cumbersome space suit that makes even a task like scratching your nose a major production. Early U-2 pilots had it worse -- their partial pressure suits constricted to maintain a survivable pressure, often leaving pilots with terrible bruises and blisters after a long mission. Today's full-pressure suits are a vast improvement. But they're still awkward, and the pressurized cabin altitude in a U-2 is still 29,500 feet. As one U-2 pilot put it, "you're about as comfortable as you can be encased in rubber, sitting in a phone booth, on top of Mt. Everest."
So the $64,000 question is ... why do pilots who could be flying F-15s choose instead to take on all the discomforts and challenges of a cantankerous, 50-year-old airplane that's highly likely to humble them on a regular basis? The question is relevant, because every single U-2 pilot is a volunteer. You have to apply (including an essay on "Why I want to fly the U-2"), and the process includes an arduous, two-week interview/try-out at Beale AFB in Northern California -- the training and home base of all 33 remaining U-2S and TU-2S aircraft.
For some, it's the mission. "The best part for me," Williams said, "was having the President hold up photos and say 'here's the proof' of something, and know I took those photos." The datalink capabilities of the U-2s flying over Afghanistan and Iraq today are so good that detailed images of moving targets on the ground can arrive at an intelligence ground station within seconds. And if the need is acute, specialists can analyze the images and forward them on to commanders in the field within minutes. U-2 pilots can sometimes see ordnance landing on targets they've photographed while they're still flying overhead.
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