Sky Spy, Memoirs of a U-2 Pilot

by Jim Carter

  Chapter 9

  After completing the five “C” missions, I graduated to the “R.” The U-2R was a very different flying machine from the “C.” The “R” was heavier, had a longer fuselage and 23 more feet of wing. This was the airplane in operational use around the world. I was scheduled for five training flights out of Beale before I would be eligible for an overseas TDY. Since there were no “R” trainers, a thorough briefing from an instructor before the mission would have to suffice. The cockpits of the “C” and “R” were similar but not identical. We didn’t have a simulator or mock up for the “R” so I spent several hours sitting in the actual airplane familiarizing myself with the switch locations. The “R” is an ominous looking beast. The airplane is painted with a special radar-reflective black paint. The only thing clearly visible on the airplane is the five-digit registration number painted in red on the tail.

  My first flight in the “R” was a traffic pattern only ride. As soon as I began to taxi I could feel the “R” was different. It felt more sluggish and harder to maneuver on the ramp. Every turn required a bigger lead point. The “C” was difficult enough to taxi; the “R” was more so. With only a steerable tailwheel the longer wings and fuselage demanded your complete attention while on the ground. I managed to get myself out to the runway without running off the taxiway. I was cleared for takeoff and lined the airplane up with the centerline of the runway. I ran the engine up, checked the gauges and released the brakes. The airplane shot forward like it was launched from a catapult. The pogos dropped off immediately and I was airborne.

  Since I was staying in the traffic pattern, I leveled at 1500 feet and set up for the first landing. I soon discovered that the “R” was more sluggish in the air as well as on the ground. It took more effort to muscle it around the pattern. This airplane was made to fly above 70,000 feet. To its designers, flying it around the traffic pattern was an afterthought. The airplane did trim up nicely and soon I felt more comfortable flying it. The first landing proved to be a non-event. The heavier, wider airplane worked to my advantage. The “C” model was very unstable in the longitudinal axis (front to back), and would easily porpoise on landing. The “R” was a rock and didn’t jump around like the “C.”

  I was much happier with my “R” landings. All the caveats of the “C” landing still applied but the heavier airplane produced consistently better landings. I cleared the runway after my last landing and stopped on the taxiway. The airplane settled on the left wingtip. Each wingtip has a replaceable titanium skid for this reason. As my proficiency increased, I would eventually be able to clear the runway and wait for my mobile to install the pogos without either wingtip touching the ground.

  My next mission would be a get acquainted high flight. The airplane flew differently at high altitude and I had to become as comfortable flying high as I was at traffic pattern altitude.

  The airplane was made to fly high. A quick way to verify this fact is to look at the operation of the autopilot. The autopilot worked well for both navigation and basic aircraft control such as turns, climbs, and descents. But it was only effective above 50,000 feet. From ground level up to 50,000 feet, it was worthless. If you engaged the autopilot below 50,000 feet, it simply didn’t follow the pilot’s inputs.

  The most critical factor on a U-2 high flight was speed control. If not strictly controlled it could kill you. The mission profile is a constant climb that shallows out the higher you go. After nine or ten hours, you’re at 75,000 feet and it’s time to go home.

  Above 50,000 feet, the autopilot was engaged and set for the ideal climb speed. This speed was somewhere between 100 and 110 knots indicated airspeed (IAS). The true airspeed at high altitude was 406 knots. At sea level with no wind, the indicated and true airspeeds are virtually identical. True airspeed corrected for instrument and position error, then adjusted for dynamic pressure differences, yields the indicated airspeed. The airspeed in the climb was critical for two reasons. If the speed was too slow, just five knots below target speed, the airplane would stall. The entire tail assembly of the airplane (rudder and elevator) was held in place by three bolts. A high altitude stall would violently drop the airplane and the tail would separate. The low altitude stalls we did to balance the fuel load prior to landing were not risky, the high altitude ones were. If the aircraft exceeded the climb speed by only five knots, it would experience Mach buffet, which would violently shake the airplane and lead to the same result as a stall, loss of the tail.

  The autopilot did a pretty good job of speed control but it had to be closely monitored because your life depended on it.

  During the extended climb, engine exhaust gas temperature (EGT) had to be kept as high as possible without over temping the engine. This was done to get maximum performance from the airplane. If engine EGT was exceeded, a small red light on the gauge would illuminate. The U-2 had no auto throttle. It was manual control only. If the EGT was set to the limit, it would stay there for a few minutes, then creep higher, eventually tripping the warning light on. For the entire mission prior to descent the pilot had to continuously crack the throttle back to remain within EGT limits. Combine the critical speed control with the equally critical EGT control and you can see how a U-2 pilot could become “task saturated” very easily.

  The first U-2R high flight ended without drama, but I did discover an interesting detail about the urine collection system. Since I was now very comfortable urinating through my suit, I drank a lot in flight. This particular mission was about five hours long and I had five bottles of Gatorade. I also had some water before I suited up. About three hours into the mission, while recycling this fluid from myself to the airplane, I noticed a yellow fluid shooting out of a thin tube on the back of the control column. I followed this tube down and it led into the urine collection box. What no one had bothered to tell me was that when the box filled up, the excess urine shot out through the overflow tube up onto the canopy just above my head. Since the canopy was cold from being at altitude, the pee froze. Now I had a sheet of yellow ice hanging over my head. On descent, as the outside air temperature warmed, the pee liquefied and started raining down on me. I was going to say this really pissed me off, but…

  The next high flight added a new wrinkle to my training. This flight would be for photo reconnaissance. The nose of the U-2R is very long and built to hold a variety of cameras. The one loaded on my airplane that day was the most advanced model available. It was huge. The tech guys said it was the size of a Volkswagen. A special nose cone was fitted on the plane to accommodate this monster. The lower part of the nose cone had clear Plexiglas panels along the axis of the lens. When the camera was on, the entire nose cone rotated from left to right and back again. While rotating continuously, the camera took pictures from horizon to horizon all along the flight path.

  My route that day took me west to Delta, Utah, just southwest of Provo. From there I turned south to Tucson. This track would take me about 50 miles east of Phoenix. I turned the camera on as I passed abeam Phoenix and I watched in amazement as the entire nose of the airplane rotated left, right and back again. When I hit the southern limits of the city I turned off the camera and wondered what kind of pictures I had taken.

  Later that week I met with the Photo Intel people so I could view my work. The most striking pictures I remember were taken of a parking lot at the University of Phoenix at Tempe. From 50 miles east and above 70,000 feet, the license plates on the cars in the lot were easily readable.

  During my non-flying days, my wife and I spent the time acclimating to northern California. The location was great for more than just the beautiful weather. We were within easy driving distance to the Lake Tahoe/Reno area to the east, and San Francisco to the southwest. We also got to spend some time getting to know the neighbors.

  One neighbor, who lived behind us, had been overseas when we arrived and he had just returned from a remote temporary duty at Osan Air Base, Korea. “Muff” Johansen was a short but powerful hulk of a ma
n. He had been in the squadron about two years before I arrived. He was a wealth of information on both the airplane and life in Korea.

  I made it a point to get to know every squadron pilot. Not only would I eventually work with them, I believed they each could add to my knowledge of the U-2 operation. They all had unique experiences in the airplane and I wanted to know about them. If, for example, I had talked to enough pilots I may have found out about the “pee” shower before experiencing it. The seasoned veterans in the squadron, however, believed that all new guys should experience these non-critical “eye openers” for themselves.

  Muff had several nuggets of information to share. The U-2, in addition to its Photo Recon and Electronic INTelligence (ELINT) missions, was often tasked to fly special missions for the Department of Agriculture. Muff had flown one of these missions. He surveyed a large swath of western Kansas that was to be evaluated for a proposed water distribution system for large farm operations. Muff had flown out to Kansas, done the survey, and was on his way back to Beale when things went awry. He was about 100 miles out at 72,000 feet when he pulled the power back to descend and the engine quit. Muff was not in a hurry, he knew the glide ratio of the airplane so he wasn’t concerned about making it back to Beale.

  The glide ratio compares how many feet forward the aircraft will fly for every foot it descends while gliding. For example, an aircraft with a glide ratio of 2:1 will fly two feet forward for every foot it descends; alternatively, a rock has a glide ratio of 0:1. The U2 has a glide ratio of 23:1, which gives it a range of a little over 300 miles. Muff continued toward the airport, ran through his checklists and considered his options. Since the airplane had no hydraulic flight controls it flew exactly the same with the engine running or shut down, so he had that going for him. The weather was good and he could comfortably reach Beale, so there was no reason for him to try to go anywhere else. As he descended, he kept trying to restart the engine. He tried five starts, all failed. As he came through 10,000 feet he tried one more, and this time it worked. He landed uneventfully and handed the airplane over to maintenance.

  The next story he told me didn’t come out as neatly as the first one. This one occurred while he was overseas at Osan Air Base, Korea. Muff’s mission was to monitor a North Korean munitions test. This was a high priority mission that our Intel people had to have. Muff had an early morning departure and he was expected to be airborne for about eight hours. The previous night he had a generous helping of the Korean specialty, Kimchi, which is made by sealing cabbage, daikon radishes, and several potent spices in clay vessels. These jars are then buried in the ground for months to cure. Kimchi can be very spicy.

  Muff felt fine the next morning as he prepared for his flight. He ate his normal pre-flight breakfast and did his one-hour of pre-breathing. He continued to feel good until about two hours into the mission. The spicy Korean cabbage was definitely causing some distress south of the border — Muff’s, not the Korean’s.

  He knew he was in trouble but the mission was too important to abort. He felt the irresistible urge and fought it as long as he could. He finally surrendered and dumped in his suit. This was not good. At that point he still had over five hours to go, so he sat in it and flew the mission as planned. By the time he returned, he was in agony. He spent the next four days at the base hospital being treated for a severe case of adult diaper rash. And they had to throw away his pressure suit.

  Another fellow U-2 pilot was Rich Boyle. Rich was the first person I met when I came to Beale to start my medical evaluation. Rich had been in the squadron about 15 months. He acted as my squadron liaison and introduced me to the squadron staff. When I arrived at Beale in July 1977, Rich had just returned from a two month TDY in Cyprus. The primary Cyprus mission was monitoring the Middle East peace. Egypt, Israel, Lebanon and Syria had all agreed to allow U-2 overflights. A thorough photo recon of the entire area ensured that no one was cheating on the peace accords. Since none of the signees knew when a mission would be launched it kept all the players honest.

  While in Cyprus, Rich was scheduled for a high priority mission. This was a photo recon mission scheduled to fly up through Turkey, then northeast along the Bulgarian and Romanian border. He wasn’t told what he was looking for, only that his route of flight was strictly controlled with no deviations permitted. This type of high security mission through multiple borders and international waterways required diplomatic clearances from all countries involved, and was not easily obtainable. The State Department was able to get these clearances but it took over six months to do so. Once the clearances were obtained, the flight was arranged and Rich would fly it. The eight-hour flight was scheduled to depart in the early morning. The photo target of this flight was in Eastern Romania.

  The squadron navigators would prepare 8 ½” x 11” green waypoint boards for the pilots. These boards listed the overfly waypoints from top to bottom. Special instructions for each waypoint were marked along the right-hand column of the card. When the pilot reached the last waypoint on a card, he selected the next card and worked his way down it. The highest number of cards I’ve seen was eight.

  One of the important remarks along the side of the card was “camera on.” Rich reached the point in the mission and saw the “camera on” prompt. He reached over and engaged the switch. The switch had three positions: OFF, NEUTRAL, and ON. When the camera switch was ON, a small green light next to it illuminated. Rich continued following the waypoint boards until he saw the “camera off” prompt. He reached for the switch and was shocked at the absence of the green light. Unfortunately for Rich, he had placed the switch in the NEUTRAL position. The camera was never turned on.

  That’s when the awful truth washed over him. All this mission planning, international clearances, and State Department negotiations were wasted. All the hard work by the support staff, the navigators, the maintenance people who prepared the airplane, and the back-up pilot had all been for naught. There was no do-over. He couldn’t turn around and try it again. This was a one-time clearance and he had FUBARed it (Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition). He had the whole way back to Cyprus to think about it. He couldn’t feel any worse than he did. It took Rich a long time to forgive himself for that one.

  My neighbor across the street was also in my squadron. Major Dave “Doc” Hall was the official old guy in the squadron. He actually had grey hair. He had been around a while and had seen some interesting things. Doc had two experiences he was willing to share with me. The first one concerned a flight he had taken two years earlier.

  This flight departed from Diego Garcia. This footprint-shaped atoll is located south of the equator in the central Indian Ocean. It is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory. The U.S. Navy operates the Naval Support Facility that includes an air base. Diego Garcia is about as remote a location as one can imagine. It sits in the middle of the ocean with nothing else around it for hundreds of miles. Doc had flown down there earlier in the week from Cyprus. He was positioned there to fly a photo recon mission over Somalia, East Africa. Diego Garcia was the closest launch point for a Somalia mission. Flight planning was crucial because of the fuel supply. One of the factors Doc had to consider on this flight was his navigation planning. His Omega navigation system, the primary system he would use on this flight, had been written up on a previous flight as being inoperative. Maintenance had fixed it and signed off on it.

  The long flight to and from Somalia would take about 9 hours and 30 minutes. This left only about one hour for photo recon once he reached the target. The flight over to Somalia took 4 hours and 45 minutes. Doc spent about 45 minutes photographing the target. He finished his photo run and turned back out to sea; Diego Garcia was 4 hours and 45 minutes away. This was the beginning of a stressful series of events that would make for a long night.

  A very thick cloud layer had rolled into Diego Garcia. Everything within 200 miles of the airfield was covered from 500 feet above the ground up to around 5,000 feet. As he headed east from the coa
st of Africa, his Omega failed. He would normally now be relying on his backup system, the Tactical Air Navigation (TACAN). The U-2 used TACAN in the weather. Military aircraft used TACAN and it was more accurate than VOR/DME systems used by civilian aircraft. TACAN provided bearing and range information to the aircraft. Diego Garcia had a TACAN station but it was off the air for maintenance repair. So his two primary navigation aids were inoperative.

  Doc would be arriving at night and would have to rely on the station’s radar to guide him through the clouds and down to the runway. Prior to his arrival, Diego Garcia’s radar failed. Doc now had nothing to guide him down but he also had no place else to go. When Doc had first arrived in Diego Garcia, he had been briefed about the treacherous Indian Ocean surrounding the base. Foremost among his concerns were the sharks and he didn’t want to ditch into shark-infested waters.

  Doc had received the news about the radar outage through his secure High Frequency radio when he was still 150 miles out. Navigating above 50,000 feet was pretty straightforward. Since there was no wind up there Doc simply held the heading he thought would lead him to the airport. Below 50,000 feet, he had to factor the wind into his navigation. This would be a combination of guesswork and good luck. He knew he had to come up with a plan to get down and see the airport. He planned on an early descent. He wanted the airport ahead of him when he broke out of the cloud deck. This strategy would cost him valuable fuel but if he broke out with the airport behind him, he may never find it, fuel or no fuel. He planned to break out of the clouds at 500 feet and hoped that the airport would be just a few miles ahead of him.