U-2 Dragonlady info

[McDonut]

So where do you send a bunch of U-2 pilots when they someday actually do cancel the program?

The same place AFPC sends all the other 11Rs without a home.

But Huggy is right, U-2 will still be around for years to come. Probably.

[AZwildcat]

SpaceX? Virgin Galactic?

"Galactic Space Virgins X" Pretty sure it's a trilogy

Edited December 2, 2014 by AZwildcat

[Spoo]

Cool.

Action! Spielberg filming U-2 movie at Beale

By David Bitton/dbitton@appealdemocrat.com | Posted: Thursday, December 18, 2014 12:16 am

There's a fair amount of local surveillance around Beale Air Force Base these days, as locals keep a lookout for movie crews and stars.

Steven Spielberg is currently directing a film at the base.

The film is said to be starring Tom Hanks as James Donovan, an American attorney who negotiated the release of CIA U-2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers after he was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960.

The Beale Air Force Base public affairs office confirmed Wednesday that Spielberg and a cast and crew numbering in the hundreds have been filming on base for nearly a week and that they are scheduled to wrap up by the end of the week.

Beale spokeswoman Lt. Siobhan Bennett also said news media would not have access to the set.

Spielberg's publicist Larry Kaplan gave no hints about what is being filmed at Beale and suggested contacting Disney or DreamWorks once the film is released in October 2015.

"Yesterday, they were flying those planes like crazy," Beale Military Liaison Committee member John Nicoletti said on Wednesday. "The planes are flying in very unusual patterns."

Nicoletti, who is also a Yuba County supervisor, said he is confident a movie being filmed at Beale will have a positive economic impact throughout the region.

Spielberg was spotted having dinner at Sutter Buttes Brewing Tuesday evening with five others.

He ordered the shepherd's pie and drank wine from Cordi Winery.

Owner Joe Federico said a few customers briefly stopped by to take photos and talk with Spielberg.

The customers who spoke with him said he was really nice, Federico said.

Spielberg flew into the Yuba County Airport before sunrise Tuesday on a 737.

Airport manager Mary Hansen said it is the largest aircraft she has seen land on the 6,006-foot runway in the 36 years she has been there.

Runways at nearby Sacramento International Airport are about 8,600 feet.

Daniel Honeycutt of Yuba City, who has owned and operated Honeycutt Aviation at the airport for 13 years, said it is "definitely cool" to see such a large aircraft in front of his business.

The Boeing Business Jet came and went twice on Tuesday and once on Wednesday.

Longtime Yuba City resident and retired Lt. Col. Tony Bevacqua, who flew the U-2 and SR-71 while stationed at Beale, was roommates with Powers back in 1956 when they were training in the F-84 Thunderjet fighter/bomber at Turner Air Force Base in Georgia.

Bevacqua remembers the day that Powers was simply gone. He later learned the CIA had recruited Powers to fly the then top-secret U-2.

Bevacqua is hopeful the movie about his old friend and his old aircraft comes across factually.

Beale officials fill the same way.

"We are excited to see Beale featured in such an incredible movie," Bennett said. "We are looking forward to seeing the film."

https://www.appeal-democrat.com/news/action-spielberg-filming-u--movie-at-beale/article_99bb88d4-8686-11e4-b0bb-131e843da970.html

[Spoo]

Merry Christmas ladies.

[Breckey]

Wrong characters are on the nose.

In all seriousness that is amazing chalk-art.

[scoobs]

Even though you have to live in Palmdale.

https://www.jsfirm.com/Job/Pilot-Fixed+Wing/ER-2+/+U-2+Pilot+(NASA+/+Armstrong+Aircraft+Operations+Support+(AOS))+(342-571)/Palmdale-California/jobID_215152

[Milchstrasse]

Even though you have to live in Palmdale.

https://www.jsfirm.com/Job/Pilot-Fixed+Wing/ER-2+/+U-2+Pilot+(NASA+/+Armstrong+Aircraft+Operations+Support+(AOS))+(342-571)/Palmdale-California/jobID_215152

I'd take that in a heartbeat.

[Spoo]

2016 Budget To Bring U-2 Stay Of Execution

Jan 14, 2015Amy Butler | Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

The Pentagon is, once again, reversing its own position on which platform to use for its high-altitude reconnaissance mission – the venerable U-2 or Global Hawk unmanned aircraft.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) has directed the U.S. Air Force to restart modest funding not only for operations of the high-flying U-2, but also to invest some funding in research and development and procurement, according to industry sources. The funding is coming from a topline increase for the service, meaning OSD has provided the cash to pay for it, and is slated for inclusion in the fiscal 2016 budget request going to Congress next month.

The roughly $150 million in investment spending over three years is a signal that last year’s proposal to retire the U-2 fleet and quickly transfer the high-altitude collection mission to the unmanned Northrop Grumman RQ-4B Global Hawk was a bridge too far. It shows that the service will not only operate the fleet it has, but pay for upgrades to keep the U-2 relevant. In addition, funding for U-2 operations will be restored for three more years – fiscal 2016-18, the sources say. Though operations at the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars ran about $400 million annually, the service is now targeting about $350 million a year to operate the U-2 globally.

A congressional staffer says keeping the U-2 and Global Hawk will "please everyone" on Capitol Hill. So this move is, perhaps, a concession to lawmakers on one of the less contentious proposals being reviewed now in the fiscal 2015 budget request. Among the other unpopular pitches by the Air Force last year was a plan to retire the A-10, for example.

The Air Force declined to provide a rationale for the move. "All this is pre-decisional until the president’s budget is signed," a service spokeswoman says.

This is the latest twist in 15 years of tit-for-tat funding raids between the Lockheed Martin U-2 and the Global Hawk. Less than three years ago, the Air Force offered up Global Hawk for termination; the plan was to kill the Block 30 version of the aircraft. This is the variant capable of collecting imagery as well as conducting radar and signals intelligence. The Block 40 aircraft, outfitted with a large radar to monitor ground traffic, was expected to be next up for the ax once the Block 30 termination was approved.

Northrop Grumman lobbied hard for the aircraft; the Air Force Global Hawk is the foundation for the U.S. Navy’s Triton program as well as for international pursuits. And, Pentagon officials said last year that the company substantially improved its Global Hawk operating cost, convincing them that the system should be retained over the U-2.

The decision to keep the U-2 appears to be a last-minute shift in the budget. Only last November, Pentagon procurement chief Frank Kendall said the debate between the two was settled. "It was settled by Northrop Grumman getting the sustainment costs of the Global Hawk below what some people thought they were going to be. And that made Global Hawk a better business case than the U-2," he told Aviation Week in an interview. The Air Force is facing a bill of $1-3 billion, however, for Global Hawk improvements designed to reach U-2 parity. These include adding an all-weather capability and improvements to the ground station and addressing obsolescence issues.

When the Pentagon decided last year to mothball the U-2 in favor of transferring the high-altitude mission to the Global Hawk, combatant commanders raised a stink. The Global Hawk is the only UAV specifically assigned to take over the role of a manned aircraft, and this waffling at such senior levels of the Pentagon shows that while leaders want to embrace the persistence of a UAV, it comes at a cost of unpopular operational drawbacks.

Though a capable platform, the Global Hawk carries 3,000 lb. of sensor payload compared to the U-2’s 5,000 lb. The Global Hawk typically flies at 55,000 ft.; the U-2, by contrast, flies well above 70,000 ft., offering a substantially better look angle. And despite substantial improvement in processing the imagery from the Raytheon Enhanced Integrated Sensor Suite on the Global Hawk, some intelligence officials say commanders still prefer U-2 products.

The infusion of research and development and procurement products – even with a modest amount – will likely be earmarked largely for sensor work. U-2 advocates hope to improve the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar System (Asars), made by Raytheon. Though updated, program supporters hope to add an improved ground moving target indication capability.

Additionally, the program is using two new Senior Year Electro-Optical Reconnaissance Systems (Syers) among the fleet; these offer improved spectral diversity by collecting imagery in 10 bands rather than six. Syers is produced by United Technologies Aerospace Systems, formerly known as Goodrich, and the additional collection bands are optimized for use in the maritime environment. The hope is to buy six more upgraded Syers, the industry source says.

The U-2 has also been used to carry the "Dragon Fly" communication gateway to relay full-motion video out of Syria and Northern Iraq. A more advanced version of this system has been developed by L3 Communications and could be added to the platform, the source says. The U-2 can combine this communication gateway mission using Dragon Fly and imagery collection with the same platform. These missions are done on separate Global Hawk aircraft – the Block 20 carrying its communications gateway and the Block 30 collecting imagery.

Work could also restart on upgrades for the U-2’s defensive suite, which is developed by BAE. The Global Hawk lacks its own defensive system.

This waffling between the two platforms is happening in public, while privately the Air Force is planning to field the RQ-180, a stealthy, penetrating intelligence collection platform. Developed under a secret contract with Northrop Grumman, the RQ-180 could be operational as soon as this year. It is possible that once the RQ-180 is fielded, the service might have a better argument to mothball the U-2 or Global Hawk.

[Spoo]

Pulled from Air Force Magazine's Daily Report:

The ISR Commitment

—Amy McCullough

​The Air Force's Fiscal 2016 budget request delays the planned retirement of the U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance fleet to 2019, three years later than the service had proposed in its Fiscal 2015 request. The decision comes in "response to current operational requirements" and in an effort "to reduce risk by aligning U-2 divestitures with anticipated fielding of enhanced RQ-4 Block 30 sensors," according to a budget document released on Monday. The Air Force's proposed budget also looks to keep both the Global Hawk Block 30 and Block 40 fleets, unlike the Fiscal 2015 request, which met staunch opposition from Congress over the service's plan to divest the Block 40 fleet. The budget calls for upgrades to the Block 30 fleet to extend "platform viability beyond 2023, improve reliability, and enhance sensor performance," according to the document. In addition, the budget funds 60 MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper combat air patrols in Fiscal 2016. "The Fiscal 2016 budget request sustains focus on enhancing ISR capabilities against high-end threats while increasing investment in medium-altitude, permissive ISR to increase capacity for ongoing combatant command operations," according to the document, the service's budget overview.

[AZwildcat]

Though a capable platform, the Global Hawk carries 3,000 lb. of sensor payload compared to the U-2’s 5,000 lb. The Global Hawk typically flies at 55,000 ft.; the U-2, by contrast, flies well above 70,000 ft., offering a substantially better look angle. And despite substantial improvement in processing the imagery from the Raytheon Enhanced Integrated Sensor Suite on the Global Hawk, some intelligence officials say commanders still prefer U-2 products.

"They hate us cuz they ain't us"

[10percenttruth]

"They hate us cuz they ain't us"

[Spoo]

AMS Mail Robot sent out a mass email, reference U-2 pilot opportunities. Just wondering how many folks saw it.

Excerpt:

The 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale AFB is accepting U-2 pilot applications. Per the 2016 Budget, the U-2 program has been retained until 2019, with continued opportunities for highly-qualified Airmen to join the selectively-manned cadre of U-2 pilots. In addition to being one of the Air Force’s most challenging aircraft to fly, the single-pilot, single-ship mission requires Airmen with the aptitude and ability to conduct long-endurance sensitive ISR operations worldwide. While program uncertainties remain, the Air Force core mission of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance continues to grow as we work to provide decision advantage for tonight’s fights and future challenges.

[Clark Griswold]

Just went to the hiring page but still says no ANG or Reserves but the page is dated 1/21/2014 - did the email open it up to the ARC?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Spoo]

*We are currently allowing inter-service transfers on a case by case basis. The Air Staff is not allowing any ANG or AFR pilots to come onto active duty. AFPC will not allow us to interview any Fighter/Bomber/RPA coded pilots for the time being (as of Mar 15).

Edited May 5, 2015 by Spoo

[GKinnear]

So it's all fat kids for the foreseeable future?

[Clark Griswold]

Thanks but damn it

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Spoo]

So it's all fat kids for the foreseeable future?

That's the thick of it.

Don't worry, I'm sure AFPC will unfuck their pilot manning problem soon enough...

[Karl Hungus]

AMS Mail Robot sent out a mass email, reference U-2 pilot opportunities. Just wondering how many folks saw it.

This is the first AMS Robot email regarding U-2 hiring I've seen in my career (about a decade). Are you guys having trouble getting applications?

[Shaft34]

Probably due to the fact they let a lot of pilots leave via TERA and VSP last year, combined with normal attrition. Not allowing for fighter/bomber applicants makes for a much smaller pool to draw from.

[TacAirCoug]

Don't worry, I'm sure AFPC will unfuck their pilot manning problem soon enough...

Ha!

Haha!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

[Danger41]

This is the first AMS Robot email regarding U-2 hiring I've seen in my career (about a decade). Are you guys having trouble getting applications?

I know I've been trying for about a year and a half and keep getting told to try next year via functional.

Currently on leave but I'm interested to see if that ams made it to my neck of the woods.

[HuggyU2]

This is the first AMS Robot email regarding U-2 hiring I've seen in my career (about a decade). Are you guys having trouble getting applications?

Not to worry, Karl.

I've black-balled you.

[Karl Hungus]

Not to worry, Karl.

I've black-balled you.

Um, okay. Not sure why the hostility- got nothing but respect for the U-2 community.

[xaarman]

Sarcasm detector inop

[Ram]

Or it was double sarcasm, and YOUR sarcasm detector is inop.

Mind. Blown.