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Inside America's U-2 Spyplane [video]
11–20 of 35 posts
Re: Inside America's U-2 Spyplane [video]
#12Fascinating history. The original intention of the planes was for the purpose of breaking international law (violating airspace in a way believed to be undetectable) until flights, in practice, showed that other countries were in fact able to detect them. Rather than retract the program, the US doubled down on stealth technologies so that it would be able to continue. Also, the history (70 year old plane) has a great…
Note that overflights of the USSR started well before the U-2. As early as 1946, the US was flying reconnaissance planes (usually modified strategic bombers) over the Soviet Union. The U-2 came about because the Soviets began to gain the ability to intercept and possibly shoot down those flights.
Re: Inside America's U-2 Spyplane [video]
#13wow, they still use analog film
When what you’re after is very high resolution, film still scales better than digital; the largest (somewhat common) film format is 8x10».
A sheet of slow (fine grain) film at this size can capture detail way beyond what any digital sensor I know of - surely it can be scanned with the equivalent of multi-gigapixel resolution - and if one were to develop such a monster sensor, it would have a hard time competing with the film in all but a few edge cases. (Most notably the ability to transmit imagery to the ground immediately, provided the necessary bandwidth is available.)
Re: Inside America's U-2 Spyplane [video]
#14if you're interested in the mechanics of flying a u-2 and the protocols usaf pilots used (at least in the 50s and 60s), i transcribed a series of letters my grandfather wrote about it after his career ended.
Re: Inside America's U-2 Spyplane [video]
#15Fascinating history. The original intention of the planes was for the purpose of breaking international law (violating airspace in a way believed to be undetectable) until flights, in practice, showed that other countries were in fact able to detect them. Rather than retract the program, the US doubled down on stealth technologies so that it would be able to continue. Also, the history (70 year old plane) has a great…
And it was introduced before the SR-71, and is still in service (the SR-71 was retired in '98/'99). If you compare the price differences, one U-2 costs ~3% of a SR-71, though that's excluding maintenance.
Re: Inside America's U-2 Spyplane [video]
#16https://youtu.be/hJtrZrPCUuY is a full episode on U2 from Smithsonian channel and has lots more details.
Re: Inside America's U-2 Spyplane [video]
#17Fascinating history. The original intention of the planes was for the purpose of breaking international law (violating airspace in a way believed to be undetectable) until flights, in practice, showed that other countries were in fact able to detect them. Rather than retract the program, the US doubled down on stealth technologies so that it would be able to continue. Also, the history (70 year old plane) has a great…
That's not really accurate.
It was never intended to be undetectable, just unhittable, because it flew so high that missles and guns didn't have enough velocity to even reach that high.
Re: Inside America's U-2 Spyplane [video]
#18The details about the camera equipment seems to be newly declassified. Super interesting.
If you enjoyed this video definitely check out Skunk Works by Ben Rich. He ran the experimental R&D wing that developed the U2, SR-71 and the F-117. It has really interesting information about the development and operation of all these planes. Some of which I was shocked as allowed to be printed.
It was gifted to me by @davidu when I worked for him, and I finally started reading it last night!
Re: Inside America's U-2 Spyplane [video]
#19What happened to the SR-71? Is it still flying? If not, why did the U-2 last longer in service?
Re: Inside America's U-2 Spyplane [video]
#20What happened to the SR-71? Is it still flying? If not, why did the U-2 last longer in service?
Cost. SR-71 was very expensive to operate.
LA Times article from 1989 when it was discussed (the first time; the SR-71 was retired twice):
http://articles.latimes.com/1989-04-09/opinion/op-1582_1_air...