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Yes... no doubt it's photo shopped. I tried numerous times in my career to get U-2's in formation. Disapproved, Captain! I coordinated the photo shoot that ended up on the cover of Flying Magazine in 2009, and after months of work to make it happen, it didn't get approved until the 11th hour... and it took COMACC approval. Yes... as crazy at it is, a 4-star had to bless it. Not a 1-star... not a 2-star... not even a 3-star. No, it took the full-four-star power of Gen Corley (who is actually a great leader) to decide that this was something us lesser mortals could pull off. Seriously? Somehow, Kuma and I executed the photo shoot leaving Oshkosh in 2008, and managed to not kill anyone or break any gov't equipment in the process. A year later... getting a dissimilar U-2/T-38 photo chase would have never happened except that AF Magazine asked for it, and it got approved in 2010. Oddly enough, this got quietly delegated to me and a few others, and we just did it quietly. As you can see from the video, we got some great shots. Literally, the Group and Wing leadership... although having been notified it was approved by HQ... were completely unaware of what we were doing. No wonder it went so smoothly. A still photo from the shoot ended up on the cover of Air & Space Magazine: But getting approval to fly TWO U-2's... in formation... over the Golden Gate... at 1800' MSL... in the current climate of sequestration and risk aversion... are you shitting me? Or just taking crazy pills? Well... I'm no longer on the A-Team. Instead, I quietly cruise the aisles of the commissary in my velcro-strap tennis shoes, sans-a-belt jumpsuit, and "USAF Retiree" ball cap... but I'll bet my last dollar this is a photo shop. I cannot imagine "my Air Force" allowing a couple of professional aviators to do something as "CRAZY" as what this photo appears to show. P.S. on the subject of "risk aversion", let me get on my soapbox... <rant on> Back around early 2012, Maj Gen Lyon came to visit Beale AFB when he was ACC Director of Ops. He decided that Beale's T-38 program shouldn't do extended trail, close trail in excess of 60 degrees of bank, and 'four-ship formation', along with a few other things that His Eminence figured was beyond the capabilities of the unwashed pilots of the Recce community. This didn't apply to other ACC T-38 bases, only Beale. Never mind the fact that UPT students do this shit solo, and that there has never been a Class A at Beale involving U-2 pilot buffoonery. He promulgated this edict verbally... and it became law via FCIF. Not Vol 3... just a local FCIF. Lyon retired about 2-3 years ago. However, since then, has anyone at the O-6 level rescinded Lyon's off-the-cuff restriction to Beale T-38 flying? A purely verbal policy that is not in print anywhere except the local FCIF? An unwritten, undocumented utterance from someone who is no longer on active duty?? Nope. Four years later... still in effect. I suppose this thread derailment belongs in one of the "What's Wrong with the Air Force" threads... so I'll shut up now. Please... carry on. Wow... I feel much better having gotten that off my chest. P.P.S. Fvck off Ram... and go get me an Ensure.

Just some article observations.. "Operational in 1983, it was not publically revealed until April 1990" The 117 was shown at the Nellis airshow in 1990, but was technically publically revealed in 1988 in a pentagon press conference. "It was not a fighter, but a light bomber without a scintilla of air-to-air capability" Not operationally, no. But not exactly true either. Each bomb bay did have AIM-9 umbilical connections, marked as such, for a reason. Regarding Spoon Rest/Fan Song/Tall King, about the only thing I'll say on that is since we planned specifically against fixed threats/radars, we had methodology to make detection by these systems nearly impossible. We carried LGBs, but also had GPS weapons too, so we weren't completely dependant on the former. And in terms of defenses onboard, there were items, just nothing standard. "No F-117s were so much as scratched by Iraqi defenses" One was very nearly shot down by medium/heavy caliber AAA that was tracking it visually. Luckily no hits were made. "No accident this; Col. Dani’s battery also shot down an F-16C, making him the only successful air defense commander of the entire conflict" Not entirely specialization on the part of the Serb SAM operators either. We ourselves helped them out alot with not remembering a damn thing from the first days Linebacker II, 27 years earlier. Nothing like helping the IADS narrow down its search area. In terms of maintenance, the 117 was up there in man hours. As mentioned, the Martians had the most difficult job in just maintaining the RAM coating. One of the things you'll notice in looking at day-to-day 117s, is how the jet looks somewhat ratty looking, and with strips/pieces missing underneath the tail number of the vertical stab, as well as white chalk looking stuff around the cockpit. This was not the fault of any kind of maintenance, but merely a limitation of the jet itself. F-117s at home station were not kept in a full CMR status. Their weapons attack systems were fully ready, but the jets themselves had to be prepared for combat if the call came, in terms of the stealth items and specifically the RAM coating. With these first generation stealth jets, the outer coating on the jet....the RAM, or Radar Absorbent Material.....came in "sheets" and had to be placed onto the metal fuselage of the jet by trimming to fit, then gluing into place, with a fairly long curing time. Because of this, bits and pieces of of RAM would come off inflight often, and it was alot of work to maintain it. To do so would have far too many jets down for service, so RAM was only replaced in larger sheets if need be. Smaller areas of missing RAM were either left missng temporarily until maintenance could get to it, or were filled in with the RAM putty, resulting in the worn look that some of the jets had, even though that was only a look. When off to combat or to an exercise like Red Flag (or an airshow), the jets were fully prepped and looked pristine, with their RAM coating perfect and Radar Cross Section for that particular tail number well within specs. Other things that would cause severe loss of RAM were actions like dropping the tailhook, if needed.

Huggy, your ego is writing checks your body can't cash. Photo's legit.

Hearing some rumors Columbus dropped an F-35 tonight? If so, very cool.

You guys want to get good strats and pushes in the USAF....learn outlook/excel/memo writing skills at a young age. Those $7.50 an hour secretary skills will get you further than your $3 million pilot training education. Don't crash a jet and be a good exec, you'll go places. No kidding. I wish this were sarcasm but it's not.

AZ Wildcat: was Huggy's guess of 1800' MSL correct or were you guys lower?

You get paid for your technician weekly hours and holidays as you would normally - whatever your normal work schedule is. You're title 10 for points only, no pay during the week. Then, on holidays and weekends you get paid normal military and orders. So, if your tech normal week is 4x10s, you get that civilian pay plus 3 days of military pay. You also get TriCare the whole time. You can only do that for 44-days in a CY, but that's at the rate of 8-hour work days so you have to "prorate" for 4x10s. It it can be a good deal if you work it right. You can still double dip like normal too. Its a paperwork nightmare as your coming on and off (pay and non pay orders) a lot. Thanks dude! (Or dudette) This is really designed for people who make more money as a Federal Civilian Employee than they do on military orders. For example, say you are an E-5 in the military, but are a GS-13 in the civilian world. You make more as a GS-13 than as an E-5 on Active Duty. You can use the 44-Day Leave rule to match your Civ pay. For example, if you make $4,000 per pay period as a GS-13, but only make $2,500 per pay period as an E-4 on orders, you can get the extra $1,500 to make up for what you're losing being on orders for 44 days. It's not double dipping. You can use your mil leave like normal and then after that runs out, you can use the 44-day leave rule. It's definitely complicated and better be worth the hassle to do it. For most of us officer types, O-3 and above, we all make more money on Active Duty orders, so you'll never really need to do this. Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

You get paid for your technician weekly hours and holidays as you would normally - whatever your normal work schedule is. You're title 10 for points only, no pay during the week. Then, on holidays and weekends you get paid normal military and orders. So, if your tech normal week is 4x10s, you get that civilian pay plus 3 days of military pay. You also get TriCare the whole time. You can only do that for 44-days in a CY, but that's at the rate of 8-hour work days so you have to "prorate" for 4x10s. It it can be a good deal if you work it right. You can still double dip like normal too. Its a paperwork nightmare as your coming on and off (pay and non pay orders) a lot.

"Pretty darn good."

What's the penalty if you don't make it? Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

The real key is developing the ability to effectively communicate, which I believe is what you are saying but in a more sarcastic fashion. In the flying community (at least in my corner of it) we do an exceptional job of building verbal communication skills through our brief/airborne comm/debrief but don't get exposed to any written communication skill sets unless we go to the staff. I once had a commander spend over an hour with some of us discussing email writing. On the surface it sounds ridiculous, especially when the commander has more tactical credibility then a handful of some of my past commanders combined but he made an effective point in saying that the world's greatest idea may never be heard if you are unable to communicate it appropriately.

B-E-A-Utiful analysis. People should read, then re-read, then re-re-read this post. Spot on.