HuggyU2

Care to elaborate?

Personal opinion: they should have made a big movie about his flight and given him the millions of $$$. Not Sully.

Coming up on 30, actually. My old U-2 squadron has had guys deployed continually for over 29 years to the Middle East, starting with Taif in 1990. It's not like there is another squadron that they can trade off with.

Semantics. It's a function of whether they want to allocate the $$ or not. But the money is there. For a number of years, the AF paid for the RQ-4 pilots (which included some Nav/CSO's) to fly the Aero Club Cessna 172s. Great deal for them... dirt cheap for the AF... benefits were readily quantifiable. But it was cut. I remember one of the many attacks on the Beale T-38's. Around 2005 time frame at Nellis, and F-22 crew chief allowed a gear pin to get sucked into the engine. The resulting damage to that F-22 engine was more than it cost to fund 3800+ flying hours in the Beale T-38A companion trainer. Yes... 3800+ hours in the T-38 were cheaper than the F-22 FOD'd motor.

Apparently, Paul Allen's sister isn't the big fan of airplanes that Paul was, and it unloading a lot of the collection. I know a guy that few Paul's MiG. He seemed to enjoy the experience. I'm curious to see who ends up with it.

Side note: For y'all not familiar with Cal Worthington, just youtube search his commercials from the 70's. I was a young kid in SoCal from '74'-''77 and remember them vividly. "It's Cal Worthington and his dog Spot!" And... oh, by the way... the guy was a Great American. Read this blurb from his wikipedia page: "At the beginning of World War II, Worthington enlisted in the Army Air Corps. Commissioned a Second Lieutenant, he was the aerobatics champion at Goodfellow Field in San Angelo, Texas. He saw combat as a B-17 Flying Fortress pilot with the 390th Bomb Group, flying 29 missions over Germany. He was discharged after the war as a captain. Worthington was awarded the Air Medal five times, and received the Distinguished Flying Cross, which was presented to him by General Jimmy Doolittle. Worthington's military service was frequently revisited in the 21st century in aviation magazines, since he had trained pilots who would become some of America's first astronauts." In 2016, I was offered a job to fly Cal Worthington's Learjet 24 in Sacramento. Cal died a few years earlier and a local guy bought it. You have never seen such a pristine Learjet. It was fucking gorgeous. I ended up not taking the job (and still have emotional issues as a result). Long, uninteresting, and boring story so I'll leave it at that. But,... if that jet is still in the local area in a few years...

I miss formation in the military, and grab any chance to go do it when I can. This is definitely a different side of "GA Flying". I shot the pic during the prep for Pylon Racing School a few weeks ago. Who's going to Reno this year? Reno.HEIC

Push-ups, pull-ups, 1.5 run, waist. And they really believe this test accurately tells them anything about what physical condition someone is in? As a business practice, is the investment in dollars and resources worth the data we get from the "fitness program"? A month before I turned 50, I did my mandatory PT test with one of my best friends, who was 47. Of the other 7 in your PT group, one was early 30's, and the other 6 were early 20's. Me and my artificial hip came across the finish line at 10:16 with Brad about 20" behind me. We stood there and heckled the other 7 with shouts of "old guys rule!" Most of them were sucking wind. I lapped one of them twice. While this is only one indicator, it was obvious that these kids in their early 20's were lethargic. But was anything productive done with this data now that they were identified? Or was the time away from work, and the money spent on the salary for the full-time civilian monitor with the expensive AED heart-attack-restart box worth it? I appears to be such a monumental circle-jerk that we simply couldn't improve during my 28 years in.

Yes, it ends abruptly.

No argument, Brabus. Sad to hear, but your comments continue validate the scuttlebutt I've heard through my aviation circles.

The past UPT instructors I've known were good, and their instruction was far from inept. They worked very hard to produce the best product they could within the constraints of the syllabus... despite poor "management" from the leadership... and operating in a system where their hands may not be tied, but are often restricted. I'm no fighter pilot by any stretch of the imagination, and simply do not know what basic "stuff" you are referring to. However, in all facets of flying I've done... as well as a myriad of other non-aviation hobbies... "the basics" need to be revisited. The fundamental skills will atrophy and it affects the more advanced skills. I would imagine that a graduating IFF pilot needs to apply "those basics" to their initial training (and even continuation training) in the F-16/F-22/F-15/etc, and adapt them from what they did in the short T-38 IFF course.

Quick story: U-2 bud does his T-38 check ride shortly after arriving at Beale, and flies it with the DO. My bud doesn't wear his nomex gloves. Examiner/DO debriefs him, and at the end says "you violated such-and-such regulation by not wearing the gloves, and therefore I will Q-3 you. It's a safety of flight issue." Bud says: "how could you tell?" Examiner/DO: "I saw it when you took the runway as you lowered your canopy." Bud: "so you intentionally allowed me to do the takeoff and the entire flight without correcting me on the spot for what you perceived was a serious safety violation? I'll take the Q-3... fair enough. However, you and I are going to go talk to the Squadron commander, and then the OG commander and I'm going to ask THEM if YOU should also be Q-3.". My bud ended up with a Q-1.

L-39 runs about $1600-$2500/hr to operate, depending on who you believe, and how well the aircraft is known. Parts are plentiful and the jet is bulletproof. I'd be curious to know the OV-10 operating costs.

SocialD, No, it was a former President of that group. I believe the plane was originally based in Chino, and if I remember correctly, he got it around 9-10 years ago. I'll get a picture if he doesn't mind me posting it online. He also restored a Clark Tructractor that was delivered to the Navy in 1943 for towing aircraft on the carrier deck. Just stunning. Again, I'll post pics if he says it's ok. Another cool thing is that there's a different U-2 guy on the field that has a PT-21. Yeah, PT-21. It's a PT-22 now (interesting history), but it was the 2nd PT-21 ever built by Ryan. Hoping to get one or both of these Ryan's to the Beale Airshow in May.

Never have flown a Super Cub... yet. I'll get some more pics of the Cub and post them. The restoration was done by a place at PVF (Placerville, CA), and is supposedly a well-known place. The guy that bought it is a former U-2 guy who is meticulous about his aircraft, and keeps them in top shape. He's got a Ryan PT-22. And his Stearman was previously owned by the head of the Stearman Restoration Society (or whatever it is called). As you might expect, it looks better than the day it rolled out of Wichita. I'm lucky that 1). he is allowing me to fly his beautiful plane, and 2) that he is allowing me to fly it after seeing how I flew it with him on my checkout. It wasn't particularly stellar. I haven't flown the U-2 in 58 months. I'd be way more confident in my abilities in it tomorrow than I am in the Cub. But the learning curve is a great thing. Loving it!

I solo'd a 65 hp 1940 Piper Cub the weekend before last. Finally... flying a Cub. And it is spectacular. Restoration was done 20 years ago... and when my friend bought it, only 180 hours had been put on it since the restoration. Planning to fly it a fair amount. IMG_3152.HEIC

Wow, you're right. I was the deployed U-2 squadron commander there in 2003 when the war kicked off. We had a large hangar on the NE corner of of the ramp for 17R, and there is nothing left. Not even the roads. I remember the Kadena Eagles flying over us on the ramp one day when they had to land on the parallel taxiway when the runway got shutdown and they were out of gas. A sight to behold. There sure were a shitload of airplanes on the ramp in March 2003. That was pretty cool. That article brings back a lot of memories I had ram dumped.

Prior to late 2014, if you heard a flight of two with the callsign HUGGY in the Western US, you can be assured that flight lead did all of the paperwork, coordination and such to make it happen. Absolutely!. No way he would just file that every time he went cross country without having run it through the AFI wickets.

What happened at Le Bourget?

I have only one data point, Chuck, but there are quite a few of us retirees near Beale that would consider it as a contract pilot, or even as a Guardsman or Reservist. But Beale/ACC/USAF/someone still... after 20 years of "looking at it"... can't manage to set up a Reserve/Guard program for U-2 and T-38 pilots. The amount of "willing talent" within an hour of Beale is staggering. I ran with the idea back in the 2008 time frame and no one "up the chain" at Beale, ACC, or AFRC really cared. We've got Reservists/Guardsmen flying the F-22, B-2, UPT, and everything else under the sun. Why Beale can't do it is beyond me. Part-time contract pilots would work also. I know plenty of them flying for Draken and ATAC. BTW, the enlisted pilot program has been successful and I know a bunch of them... and they all got commissioned after being top-notch enlisted folks. I hope they leave it that way.

"Hard to tell"? You're damn right it is hard to tell. And you need to think twice before you throw out something like that and cast aspersions, especially when it is a guess and you don't know it for a FACT.

How about if we change our paradigm, and dual qualify the pilots at whatever base they are located at to fly them? I know it's crazy, but somehow I was able to fly both the U-2 AND the T-38 within a 6 hour period, and managed to do it relatively safely. And I'm sure there are pilots getting 50-75 sorties a year that might like some additional flying. We are the United States AIR Force. It should not be that hard to... you know... fly more. Especially during a pilot shortage.

I believe this explains everything when it comes to the Navy and this unfortunate situation: