#42 Wonderful stories guys.
An extraordinary aircraft.
Mike Hale's bouncing of a U2 at FL88 is still amazing...
Wonderful & enjoyable stories they are. Great fun to reminisce.
I flew the Lightning Mk3 ...(the hotrod version of the Lightning with the greatest power to weight ratio).
I also flew the Lockheed U-2C ...(the hotrod version of the U-2 with the greatest power to weight ratio).
Sadly on this excellent aviation forum,
the claim by Hale to have bounced a U-2 at 88,000’ must be labelled as a figment of his imagination.
No U-2 could, or can today, reach 88,000’.
At lighter weights, level flight at 70 - 75,000’ is possible: but the margin between Mach buffet IAS at around 102kts IAS and a conventional level flight stall at around 94 knots is small. Smaller still when turning.
Add in survivability – the U-2 pilot wears a pressure suit and the F3 pilot wears leg restrainers & a g-suit.
#43 Another driver in an F6 had a close encounter with the North Sea and ended up pulling an estimated 13½G pull up ..... He told us that he had lace marks from his g-suit on his legs for days afterwards.
A great survival story. But surely even this very tough F6 was bent beyond flyability having exceeded twice the normal “g” limit?
Which airframe serial was it?