I'm no expert on grenades, but I would say don't ever throw a grenade into a crowded bar and then NOT walk away! :ok:

Driving north out of Highworth towards Lechlade at 13.02 GMT this afternoon I definitely did not see one of those weather balloons in the descent before turning left towards Fairford, dirty up, dangle the dunlops before disappearing out of view.

On a more serious note Sqn Ldr Birney Limb was mentioned earlier on in the thread. Does anyone have any information on him? He was a very good friend of my fathers and was very inspirational in me joining the mob. I would love to get in touch with him if he is still around.

A2QFI wrote

Some U-2s did have an AAR capability. At least one of the carrier capable U-2s was AAR capable.

Thanks TEEJ - I grovel corrected! Probably not used much at 75K ft over Moscow me-thinks!

Dragon Girl's wish and chase car due to budgetary cuts
 

Dragon Lady wish comes true

http://www.501csw.usafe.af.mil/share...-LH253-044.jpg

Weather Balloon from a few days ago and have to admit, theres no substitution for the good ol'd blue Mustang :) Though Obama's budgetary constraints on the USAF doesn't look too bad if ground crew are driving in the latest VW :) :cool:

That's a nice story about the girl. Someone obviously is good at PR.

Wot 'e zd :ok::D:D

Top PR which was VERY impressive. Was that the same aircraft that chalked a cheeky message to a well know aircraft spotter at that UK airfield?

I did a quick search on "Ellie Carter U2" to see what type of publicity this visit received, it seems this went quite a bit further than the air force newspaper article.

Ellie Carter: How a spyplane-obsessed schoolgirl melted an air crew's heart | Mail Online




I see in the article that she got to go in the chase car when the U2 landed,
I bet that is something SAMXXV hasn't even done !!! LOL:O

If you played table footy in the American bar at Akrotiri, and drank copious amounts of brandy sours, you would soon be invited for a spin in the chase car, and a sit in the cockpit. Don't eat the spaceman food, mind, gopping!

Same type of aircraft, different airframe and crew - They must just be all round top guys! ;)

Good news - apparently the Dragon Lady is being extended in service, due to problems with UAV data gathering.....

Surprise surprise, even Global Hawk can only carry a small amount of payload compared to the U2.

Ah Memories...just behind Lady Lamps if I recall...

:}

Three year old learning to swim at at Button Bay, Akrotiri: "Bloody U2 again" she said as her instructor was distracted once again.....

Early days of the weather ballon
 

The last post brought back memories of sitting at the Limmassol Services Sailing Club on Ladies Mile watching these big black aeroplanes which weren't here coming in to land. Not as bad as being woken up in the morning early by the same non-existent aeroplanes taking off! I did a tour on 103 M.U. between Dec 68 and Aug 71 which was over the period when they WEREN'T there and when they weren't there, if you follow me. We lost the use of the small hangar next to our Vulcan maintenance hanger to the same non-existent bunch of people, it was all so laughably obvious who they were and what they were there for, that nobody could really get excited about it, apart from not being able to take a shortcut through the hangar and having to walk the long way round to get past it.The pompous pronouncements of various politicians that these non-existent aeroplanes were not operating from any British military bases only made it more of a farce than it was.

Flt Lt Bernie Limb
 

I have just been reading the posts on here and remember serving with a Flt Lt Bernie Limb (Navigator) at RAF Oakington c1965/7 could this be the same man? A really nice man, married to Judy.

If it is the same chap and anyone knows where he lives I would love to get in touch with him.

In the early 70's whilst enjoying a drink one evening with my dear wife at the Akrotiri Ski Club the Americans turned up, (no idea why they were there?). One immediately started to chat up my wife who was stood next to me telling her that he was a U2 pilot, likely story. He was really trying it on and I was just about to intervene when my dear wife said to him, "If you don't go away, (she was always polite) you will not be able to fly tomorrow because your testicles will be too swollen after suffering from sudden and violent contact with my knee!" :)

The rest of the crew were great and I enjoyed many hours socialising and drinking 'Blab', (mixed in the bathtub and decanted into 5 gallon plastic containers).

I know this is an old thread, done to death, but I was browsing Goggle Maps for an upcoming trip to Cyprus and was surprised to spot this:

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps94822adc.jpg

Strange, I cannot see it now as just got Google maps opened just now and Google Earth ?

Cheers

...that's the Bing Maps image not Google maps/earth. It's no secret anymore tho' is it.

Must have taken off.


Posted from Pprune.org App for Android

More interesting is the shagfest going on out the back of the barrack block second-in from the left, third one down. :ooh:

Thanks for that have opened Bing map and see same image! Though if you click on Bird Eye view lol, the image disappears!

Btw has anyone else seen this dodgy google earth / map view of one part of the AMARC flying around on the web lol :cool::p to the bottom left ,

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...ps5aa8e3f7.jpg

Could not resist the post Halloween humour :)

Cheers

Done before:

My best mate was there earlier this year working and he got a ride in one of the Subaru's down the runway to bring one of the U-2's in. He got to try space food as well.

Apparently the Yanks have got an awesome badge on their flying suits - a picture of Snoopy with "Still not here after 40 years" written under it. LOL

I certainly wasn't there last week and certainly don't have the snoopy t-shirt��

Cows,

That's too close too comfort to what we believed at the time to be the stn cdr's personal vineyard (Bob Hoskins?). I, and a spectacularly delightful squipper, ended up in there one July night after the federale has raided a party in the APC WRAF block. We eventually fell asleep and she disappeared in the early hours leaving me to later explain to the RAF Copper (who woke me up) what I thought I was doing with my Ron Hill UJs on my head. SWO not too happy either. I had a sore throat for a week too, god knows what they were sprayed with.

From a few years earlier:


:ooh:

BEagle, Could your mates at JARIC not supply you with a higher resolution shot showing the awesome badges on their flying suits!

Confusing the Russians
 

The sneaky radio operators of a non-existent Signal Troop had a receiver site at Akrotiri.
They maintained that the Soviet satellite was using the U2 as an excuse - they were being watched.
Occassionaly there site log would read - "Confused the Russians today".
This indicated that they climbed on top of their Land Rover in the bondhu and performed a very intimate act .
Confused indeed.

U2/TR1
 

Interesting thing about the U2, when they showed us around the aircraft cockpit it's got a reticle (sort of gunsight) in front of the seat looking straight down so that the pilot can see which country he's overhead rather than the country he's next door to. (Terrible grammar)

Nah.
It would just have shown that it was a painting on the pan to confuse the punters.


(And JARIC is also no more than a memory now.)

chopper

That looks like a bad day at the Airfix factory (or someone trying a bit of model-making while pished)...:E

Mister B

Beagle,

That's a nice photograph. Directly behind the aircraft is the hangar they operated from in the early 70s, when I was based there. They had one half and we (The Lightning Minor Servicing Team) had the other. The Hangar to the immediate left of the U2 is the TASF Hangar, with the annexes being used as Station Hydraulic Bay, and at the top end the Staion Tyre Bay. The Hansard across the pan to the right was the Vulcan Aircraft Servicing Flight hangar, one of two used for second line servicing of 9 and 35's bombers. I'm not sure what year this was taken, the car park to the left of the TASF Hangar was not there in 1975, when I left. Thanks for posting it, it brings back some happy memories.

Smudge:ok:

Beirut Air Bridge
 

Slightly digressing, a good mate of mine - one of the Mother Rucker graduates, had the absolute pleasure of being there in the 80s with his 60s doing the embassy runs.

Heard the stories of deck landings, the drop in at the compound - and the old let -not-thy-right-hand-know-what-thy-left-hand-does/knows _stick your hand out and take the package / envelope/postcard but don't look at it in the dead of night. In a loT of cases, don't even look at he passengers entering or exiting.

Though when the Reds did their practice, him and his mates always welcomed the view....


Though did anyone watch The Unit Season 3 - Play 16? Would think his case it was supposedly a U.S. FOB in Cyprus ...in TPMH as the hospital and press room upstairs has the Union Jack but on a. There is one floor of Us Army / USAF and the morgue downstairs with Armed Forces ME and guarded by Sky cops. The ungrateful injured former hostage reporter is persuaded by the surviving members to change his story whilst their injured colleague is treated next door and their deceased colleague and comrade is carried y his crew into the mortuary (which we can assume is TPMHs one though looked more Hollywood single freezer as opposed to UK one fridge fits all) and the army / USAF med captain has the task of extracting bullet, cleaning up any traces of Beirut and then in silver transport case back to states. So in the case of the tragic accident, that the USAF medics came along to take care of the pilots remains TPMH due to the sensitive nature of the the circumstances.

Wonder if with the black balloons , there was a cadre of their aerospace med lot taking over TPMH during the deployments as well as supporting my mates detachment ?

Cheers

What are your references for the UK acquiring U2s? There were exchange pilots for sure but "on strength U2s"?

The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: U-2 & OXCART Programs
 

CIA Gen on Brit U-2s :} (not the band silly): https://www.docdroid.com/xbtfrRa/the...-1954-1974-pdf (66Mb) 6 page extract below tells the UK story.

Thanks for posting, I didn't know that.

Thanks SpazSinbad for those links. I didn't know that there was a "sleight of hand" title transfer for each mission, which was a different concept to the vague discussions in 1965 of the UK buying U2s.

Not the only occasions aircraft were “transferred” for spy flights.

https://www.rafsculthorpeheritagecen...jiu-jitsu.html