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U-2 "Dragon Lady" Preflight & Takeoff (Video)
Airmen from the the 99th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron preparing a U-2 for launch at an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia. (youtu.be) Altro...
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Very Nice Video.. Thanks for sharing.
"Didn't see one of these take off quite frequently" in Cyprus, late 70's.
Back in 1957 there was a U-2 operating out of Cubi Point NAS and NOBODY was permitted within 100 yards of the plane. Top secret stuff in those days - It was restricted to, "need to know" personnel only -
very cool video! Thank for sharing! Is there a significance to the red, yellow and green belts?
Did that just take off with a red streamer still showing on the left side of the aircraft? You see it during taxiing and I never saw it get removed.
Don't think so.. Are you sure you were not looking at the red outrigger gear..
You see it a few places in the video but at 13:50 you can see it dangling from the left fuselage, near the trailing edge of the wing, right at the root.
you are right.. By looking at the image, it looks like the outrigger gear is pinned down for some reason. There are 3 flags showing, and I suspect a 4th on fuselage, however, note at at 14:47 the camera cuts and comes back, and then you do not see the flags any longer... Maybe they had those on just for taxi for some reason because you do not see them after the video comes back after the cut.
I could see pinning the pogos, since they're designed to fall off when it lifts, and you wouldn't want that happening while you taxi and hit a bump or catch a gust. Not sure about that one on the fuselage though. These birds have a drogue chute, don't they? Might be the safety for that.
