Last night, ABC World News Tonight with Charles Gibson did a report on the U-2. This is the plane my brother, Lt. Col. Jon “Huggy” Huggins, flies.

The three-minute video is hosted on the ABC site. I’d include it here for you, but ABC doesn’t like that. So all I can do is link to it. You have to pretend to watch a 30-second commercial before the video starts.

For the video, news reporter Jonathan Karl is allowed to fly in one of the four 2-seat U-2 trainers.

(In the information below, I’ll note the “time stamps” of the video.)

The first section (0:10) shows the U-2 taking off. If you look closely you’ll see little “training wheels” under each wing. These keep the wings level because the U-2 only has the one main landing gear right in the center. Watch and you will see these fall off (about 0:16) as the plane begins to get lift and take off.

Also, as the plane takes off (about 0:18) you get a good side view to see the modifications made for the 2-seat trainer. That second “bubble” behind the main cockpit allows the training instructor to sit, while the student sits in the main cockpit up front. For these “courtesy rides”, they put the visitor in the back.

In addition, in this same sequence, you get a nice look at the landing gear … one set of two wheels smack dab in the middle of the plane, not under the wings like most planes. When the plane lands, the pilot has to keep “flying it” on the ground, using the wings to keep it level and to keep it from tipping over and having one wing drag. But, the wings have titanium skids on the end for those times the pilot doesn’t quite do that. The little tiny wheel in the tail, keeps the tail from dragging.

The video shows them putting one of the space suits on Jonathan Karl. For the pilots, these suits are custom fitted, down to measuring the lengths of each finger joint in each hand so that the gloves fit exactly. The helmets are also custom fitted by, in effect, making a mold of your head. (For Jonathan, they put him in one that fit “close”.)

The suit also has “air conditioning”. Without it, you overheat in seconds. The “air conditioning” is adjustable, even allowing you to adjust the air blowing over your face and over the palms of your hands.

In the video when Jonathan is in the plane and climbing (about 1:30) you can see the “new” cockpit of the U-2. You see that the old mechanical altimeter has been replaced by an electronic “glass” altimeter. The “glass cockpit” is relatively new in the U-2. On my personal/hobby site I have photos of the 2001 early version of the cockpit, and the first delivered version, from April 2002.

Note also the pictures of the Earth you begin to see at about 1:45.  How high is the plane? High enough to clearly see the Earth’s curvature!

At about 1:57 Jonathan talks about the ability to fly outside of a country’s boundaries, but still look inside the country. One way to think of this is to think about your neighbor’s back yard. If you want to look into his back yard, you don’t actually have to go into his back yard. Instead, you can stay in your back yard and get high enough to look over his fence.

If you are interested, I have lots more information on the U-2 on my personal/hobby website in the U-2 section.

Also, check out this other post about my brother getting his promotion to Lt. Colonel … four years late.