HuggyU2

Ultralord flies his 1,000th U-2 sortie. Old guys rule.

Yes, I was aware of his numerous hours. Other than that, I know nothing about this pilot. And as such, I'm unable to judge his "experience" level (hence my "correction" to your quote). That will have to be explained by those that flew with him. My opinion is that "hours" tells me very little as to how hard the pilot worked to become better after each flight. I know pilots with 500 hours in type that are superior to others with 1500 hours in the same type. It goes back to what I stated previously: do you have 5000 hours? Or 1 hour, 5000 times? I'm speaking in generalities and not about this pilot or incident, since the accident report doesn't really shed enough light on how much quality proficiency training he had accomplished in the previous year. A good example I know of is Lee Lauderback. Lee has logged more P-51 time than anyone in history. And Lee works very hard at his craft.... which is why most P-51 pilots go to Lee to learn the Mustang, or go through a recurrency course. I'm told he makes you a much better pilot after every 1.0 hours in the aircraft. The fact that he's also a great guy is just icing on the cake.

Oh, there's been plenty of that for some time. The whole thing amazes me. When I knew some of the Collings folks, it seemed like they had a ton of money and a lot of good talent. If corners were cut, how does this happen in an organization with the cash resources, and talent to avoid it? And finally: training. I have no idea the quality of training that many warbird pilots accomplish. Actually, that goes for any pilot of any type of aircraft. Do they have 5000 hours in type? or 1 hour, 5000 times? "Deliberate practice". I've seen a lack of it in the military, and a lack of it in the GA world. I have no idea if that was a problem at Collings, but a failure to constantly train will rear its ugly head many more times over the course of our aviation adventure. Fortunately, I've seen some great examples of how to continually step up your game in aviation, and I've learned a lot from those people. Some of them are on this forum. They have done everything in their power to avoid ending up as a debrief on Kathryn's Report.

I have no idea what is done today, but years ago that is how it was done... minus the additional 3 year thing.

Well that's the problem, now isn't it?

This is NOT the case in the U-2.

I've posted this before but my last PT test was a month before I turned 49 or 50. One of my best friends was in the group and he was 47. There was a Captain around 31 and 6 enlisted from around 20-28. I figured I'd get crushed since I'm not Joe Workout. As it turns out, I ran the 1.5 in about 10:20, with my bud about a 10:40. The last 2-3 were simply pathetic. Of course, being the sensitive guys we are (you U-2 guys know the other person... Dingle), we heckled everyone with jeers of "Old guys rule!!". Frankly, though, it was sad to see. Our youth are not in really good shape. (epilogue: after we were done, we went to the bar and drank. Old guys do rule...)

Beale was named after a Navy Lieutenant that died 10 years before the Wright Brothers historic flight. He even graduated from the precursor to Annapolis. I will be surprised if the Beale name sticks.

True or not, that's pretty much been USAF lore since at least the early 80's (when I first heard it).

Are you in Northern CA?

Anyone care to wager how long it takes for a proposal to rename Beale to Yeager AFB to hit Congress?

Too bad it is during the Covid ridiculousness. It will certainly impact the magnitude of the ceremonies and memorials to him.

I am amazed she had the cajones to give a "pep talk" to the team. Had she been a military brat, maybe she would have known about never passing up the opportunity to keep your cake hole shut until you've been around the squadron for a while.

Unbelievably shocking and unexpected. How dare they!! https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20201207-iran-centrifuge-plan-alarms-european-trio What should be done????

Yes, looking forward to it. The pilot doing the first flight is a former Beale U-2 Driver. Great guy, great pilot.

NASA has been doing a lot of interesting sonic boom research... all leading to this demonstrator. It looks like it might be flying in 2021. https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/quesst.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/lowboom/team The pilot doing the first flight says you cannot see out of cockpit: you land it watching a camera image on an MFD.

I recall a great Eagle HUD video taken by Nick Kehoe (later retired as a 3-star) when he got disoriented over the Atlantic and pull 12 G's to avoid hitting the water. When you see someone literally pull for their life, it makes a point. I remember it well.

When did USAF fighter/attack quit flying night overheads?

I have! Many times. But Beale has a 12,000 runway so no factor, even in the T-38. That said, the F-16 mishap doesn't appear to be a duckunder, but rather a misinterpretation of the lighting that he saw. And as stated elsewhere, the F-35 Class A seems to be more a function of poor decision making in that he didn't go around on final when he had problems, long before he crossed the runway threshold (although the Board President didn't address that issue... shockingly, IMO). "Thing on the thing on the thing"... my gut feeling tells me that letting UPT students land the T-38 30% of the time without the HUD might have some benefits. But what the fuck do I know? I had a pretty long post planned about "admin" and such during the briefing. Having edited it down, I'll tell you this: one of my two best friends in UPT died 7 months after we got our wings in a landing accident. In my 34 years since that date, it seems an inordinate number of pilots have Class A'd aircraft on approaches and landings. Fighters, bombers, heavies, trainers... none are immune. "Admin" or not, if you fuck it up, it will allow the ChiCom's to chalk up a kill

I'm sure it was an article written by Kit Darby,... ...the eternal optimist when it comes to pilot hiring.

Hacker, I know you well enough to know that's a rhetorical question... and you know the answer better than most. I feel your frustration. I wish more people like you were still in charge. I heard an amazing story today... albeit no life-threatening consequences... of the former CoS (Welsh) and the Commandant of Air War College arguing in front of everyone in attendance... completely unable to take responsibility for an issue they decided to push on to the Majors in attendance to solve.

The C-21 pilots used to do that regularly. A great deal if you can pull it off.

You have a valid point. I'll pay up when I'm in the bar on Monday.

Better timing control than some jets I've seen. Prozac, are you saying that's Doc Fogelsong?

Thank you! You've made my point. "These are different", and the mission planning can bring in other factors that you won't encounter in Afghanistan. To include not having GPS coordinates for a flyover. Even if you're a shit-hot bomb dropper, you'll probably never drop a bomb in LAX's Class B Airspace... but you will need to account for some other things during the multitude of phone calls you'll have with SoCal approach if you're going to do a flyover without getting violated.