Hoppin’ around the blogosphere and I found my other favorite girl, and she’s a Dragon Lady! AF.mil has a short piece on the Dragon Lady getting a face-lift. Here’s a short quote:

Airmen from the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., help their pilot out of a U-2 Dragon Lady at Hickam AFB, Hawaii, on Tuesday, June 13. The aircraft is en route to South Korea. U-2s are undergoing a $1.5 billion upgrade. Cockpit instruments will be modernized with full-color displays that replace gauges and dials with state-of-the-art, touch-screen technology.

Egress from the U-2 on the ground is tricky business. There are tons of sharp edges everywhere. Those suits are tough, but you still don’t want to take a chance with any type of degradation of the fabric. It is a very hostile environment at altitude for the pilot.

Here she is, wingtip to wingtip:

U.S. Air Force Photo by Tech. Sgt. Shane A. Cuomo

If you look carefully, to the left of the photo, you see the pre-post-flight debrief. The environmental team does some early talking to get anything out of the way now. Especially if there is a quick-turn for the bird. Every team is very possessive (in a good way) when it comes to the pilot. We all make sure everything is safe and the mission is a success.

Now you see the pilot being escorted by an environmental team member - notice he is completely sealed:

U.S. Air Force Photo by Tech. Sgt. Shane A. Cuomo

Both teams, SR-71 and U-2/TR-1, go through extensive preparation prior to flight. A perfect analogy is if you know anything about what the NASA Space Shuttle or Apollo Teams went through, well, pretty much the same. The Dragon Lady pilot has so much more to do, as it is a one seater, and must handle both the flight and mission profiles. There’s so much going on, it is a very stressful duty.

And, here’s a snap I found of the Dragon Lady in flight:

Photo Courtesy AF.mil

I can’t tell you where this was taken - I’d have to kill you.

TAGS: Fix4RSO, Milblog, Military, U2, Dragon+Lady, Mission

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 21st, 2006 at 21:12 and is filed under Commitment, Fix4RSO, USAF. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.