Downed U-2 Spy plane.

Originally posted by Daedalus3

Originally posted by ghost

Hold on! The Cuban Missile Crisis was a different set of circumstanses than the U-2 Incident. The U-2 Incident happend because the US was invainding Soviet Air Space on reconnassance flights. The Cuban Missile Crisis started because the CIA heard that the USSR was trying to stash Nuclear Weapons in Cuba. The Pentagon was worried that the Russians were trying to plan a surprise Nuclear Attack against the US. The First photo of the missiles in Cuba came from a KH-4 Corona Spy Satellite. Using this grainy photo as the bases for their suspicision, the CIA sent a U-2 to locate an identify the missiles. Once the missles had been positivly Identified, the Military began trying to move to counter the threat. The U-2 that got shot down was on one of the later flights that was there to track the progress in the preperation of the missiles for launch.

Tim
ATS Director of Counter-Ignorance

Oh.. I thought the missiles were infact DISCOVRED BECAUSE OF earlier U2 flights..

[edit on 2-5-2005 by Daedalus3]

That was the origional "Official Story"! At the time, the Existance of Corona was in itself "TOP SECRET"! The National Photo Interpratation Center (NPIC), which analyses spy sattelite photographc for the CIA, was hidden in the basement of an abandoned car Dealership, where it Ran under the Code Name AUTOMAT. I found this out in an old episode of Sworn to Secrecy.

The KGB would keep a lookout for US Reconnassance flights. Any time one was spotted, the Soviets would camoflage the missile sites. However, back then, the Russians couldn't accuratly identify and track spy satellites in space. The KGB missed one of the Corona flights, and they never camoflaged the missile sites. The CIA discovered the missiles in a photo taken by the Corona. To confirm to discovery, a U-2 was sent to get a "Closer Look" at what Carona had found. The photos that were shown to the world did come from a U-2. The U-2 provided the OFFICIAL PROOF, but it was images from Carona that guided the mission. This fact was kept a secret and the Offical Story of the U-2's big discovery is what went into the history books. The Cold War is full of double stories there is "The OFFICIAL STORY" and then there is "WHAT REALLY HAPPENED"

Why do you think all the people with the answers wear Security Badges to work?

Tim
ATS Director of Counter-Ignorance

Originally posted by WestPoint23
I’m sorry to detour of the topic but have you people ever heard of MAD?




West Point, Out.

In invasions, which you claimed possible in an earlier post on this thread...MAD is irrelevant..
You can't talk about MAD and invasions in the same discussion..
THey're contrdictory..

Back to the topic people lol.
I think the USSR was aware of the US flights 90-100 percent of the time but didn't want the unecessary attention of shooting them down. I think they shot down Powers U-2 in order to gather intelligence and determine if it was even possible to bring the U-2s down.

MAD - The magazine or the Magnetic Anamoly Detector?

From what I understand the U2 was out of SAM range most of the time it was used. It was too high. I always thought the SAM type that hit the U2 was the first use of it, and it's altitude caught the US off-guard.

I'm probably wrong, this is how I understood the situation.

[edit on 3-5-2005 by PeanutButterJellyTime]

Correct, PBJ - The US estimated the Russian SAMs to have a ceiling of around 65,000ft. The Soviets claimed 80,000ft (the U2 probably flew around 75,000ft).

The Soviets obviously were correct

80,000 ft!!..
Space starts at 100000 ft aye??

Originally posted by Daedalus3
80,000 ft!!..

Space starts at 100000 ft aye??

Not even close. To gain astronauts wings, you need to break 100km or around 328,000feet.

But I've heard low of earth orbits at 40 km and above!!..
hmm.. maybe its 100km onwards where we have stable non-degrading orbits..
everything below may complete a successful orbit but will re-enter eventually..

Originally posted by Daedalus3
But I've heard low of earth orbits at 40 km and above!!..

hmm.. maybe its 100km onwards where we have stable non-degrading orbits..
everything below may complete a successful orbit but will re-enter eventually..

You can 'orbit' the earth at any height - you just need the correct horozontal velocity component to maintain the orbit. For example, to orbit the earth at 1 meter altitude, you would need a horozontal speed of something like 200km/second to maintain the orbit, and because of the atmosphere, you would have to have a fuel source to maintain that speed.

328,000 feet is the official border of space, everything below that isnt space, anything above that is in space. Its an arbitrary figure, theres no actual border, its just a place where the atmosphere starts to get so thin that theres little difference between there and another 10km further up.

The lowest accepted stable orbit is at 200km, but this still requires a boost every now and then to maintain orbital speed. The International Space Station orbits at a height of 355km average.

Originally posted by RichardPrice

Originally posted by Daedalus3
But I've heard low of earth orbits at 40 km and above!!..

hmm.. maybe its 100km onwards where we have stable non-degrading orbits..
everything below may complete a successful orbit but will re-enter eventually..

You can 'orbit' the earth at any height - you just need the correct horozontal velocity component to maintain the orbit. For example, to orbit the earth at 1 meter altitude, you would need a horozontal speed of something like 200km/second to maintain the orbit, and because of the atmosphere, you would have to have a fuel source to maintain that speed.

How right you are! Orbit is achieved ANY TIME that you reach a balance between Gravity and Centrifical Force. The main reason that noone attempt orbit in the atmosphere, is because of drag. Drag will degrade the orbit rapidly. An orbit in the atmosphere would require a impossible amout of fule to maintain.

Now for my Question: How did we get from a downed U-2 Spy Plane, to the physics of earth orbit in one thread?

Tim
ATS Director of Counter-Ignorance

[edit on 4-5-2005 by ghost]

Originally posted by ghost

Now for my Question: How did we get from a downed U-2 Spy Plane, to the physics of earth orbit in one thread?

Easy:

1. Altitude of U2
2. Max altitude of Soviet missiles
3. Claim that 100,000ft is 'space'
4. Disputation of point 3
5. Claim of 40km orbit
6. Agreement of point 5 and explaination of orbits

Ghost - and you still havent fixed the blatant spelling mistake in your member info image!


[edit on 4/5/2005 by RichardPrice]

The U2 and the SR71 both cruised at 80,000 feet. According to the story by Powers and some others, he had some sort of autopilot problem, that SHOULD have caused the mission to be aborted, but he kept going anyway. He was too busy trying to fly the plane and watch where he was to notice that his altitude had come down some. The U2 is incredibly difficult to fly. The difference between stalling and breaking up is something like 30-40 knots. At some point during the mission, the Russians fired several SA-2 SAMs at him, one hit a MiG, and one damaged the U2 to the point where he had to eject and was captured

Originally posted by Zaphod58
The U2 and the SR71 both cruised at 80,000 feet.

No, the U-2 cruises at 70'000 to 75'000 feet. One of the SR-71's requirements is that it could fly HIGHER then the U-2. The Blackbird could (according to several unofficial sources) reach 100'000 feet.

1 was downed in Russia, and a few was downed in China I believe. I am not sure about China, but I seem to have read it somewhere. Altitude alone just isn't enough to prevent getting shot down, the U-2 incident proves that, and the MiG-25s over Israel proves it again. The SR-71 seems to be in the right direction, but then again, satellites are a better and safer way of spying.

1 over Russia, not sure about China, but 1 over Cuba for sure. The thinking with the U-2 at the time was that there was no SAM that could reach it's altitude so they were invulnverable.

The original U-2s that the CIA flew, and the early USAF models were able to cruise at 70-75,000, the later model U-2R/TR-1 and the NASA ER-2 models had a more powerful engine that was capable of flying higher which pushed the altitude up to 80,000. The SR-71 OFFICIAL figure is 80,000 however it usually was closer to 85,000 and was capable of 100,000 although it got a little cranky when they went that high.

The ER-2 was based on an early U-2 airframe, which was beefed up structurally and had the new engine added to it. That was the first US plane to overfly Russia since not long after Powers was shot down.

Mentioned before but:

It was a ripple fired SA-2 that knocked the tail off the plane. The U2's 'Stealth" was its high altitude. The tried a series of experiments on the U-2 following its intro to reduce its RCS but all they did was slow the plane down and cause it to have a lower altitude because of the drag. The tail of the plane was held on by 3 bolts. Funny had Powers died in the crash he would have been a national hero, but since he lived he was vilified by many. Kelly Johnson gave him a job as a test pilot flying u-2 for Lockheed and powers died in 1977 I think in a chopter crash.

Some of the items tried:

1) Special paint: Iron ferrites etc, but did not seem to help and also acted as insulation retaining heat causing the engine to flame out. The pilot, Bob Sieker, was killed when a 50 cent clip on his oxygen mask failed. These planes were given the nickname "Dirty Birds'

2) Piano Wire: Various lengths of piano wire were strung along the fuselage in an attempt to deflect incoming radar. Also draggy and did not work

3) Salisbury Screen: A metallic grid was places on the fuselage to try to do the same thing as the piano wire. Same result too.

4) Visual stealth: Chromatic paint was tried that would change color at different temperature. All it did was add weight. Polka dots were tried as well to break up its visual signature.

The first plane with stealthy features was teh A-12/SR-71. The foreward chine and the use of plastics and the inward canted tailfins were all part of the design and intended to do this. The D-21 dron was also stealthy due to its shape and structure. But both could still, much like the B-1B be detected by radar.

The U-2 is an interesting design. The difference between stalling, and falling out of the sky, and breaking up and falling out of the sky is something like 15 knots. It's a very tempermental airplane to fly.

It's also fun to watch them land. The pilot has almost zero downward visibility due to the shape of the canopy, and his space suit helmet, so wherever they go they take a radio equipped Z-28 Camaro with them, that is driven by another U-2 pilot. His job is to drive along the runway next to the landing U-2 and tell him how high he is above the runway. After landing, a ground crew races down the runway, levels the wings, which have heavily reinforced tips, and add pogo wheels to them so they will stay level and the plane can taxi back to parking.

On takeoff, the plane rolls about 50 feet and the wings start to fly, dropping off the pogos. The difference between a stall and a safe takeoff is 2-4 degrees nose up attitude. Believe it or not, the U-2 is one of the top 5 in the list of fastest climbing aircraft. We would have them take off, and by the time they would make a 180 degree turn to head to Japan, and pass back over us, they were a tiny little speck way up in the sky. Watching an unrestricted climb to FL60 is something esle.

[edit on 18-6-2005 by Zaphod58]

The SR-71 still got picked up in radar I don't thin it had that many stealth systems to reduce its RCS. However because it flew so high and fast despite over 1000 enemy missiles being shot at it I don't think a single one went down, this is according the USAF.

Westpoint, it was NOT designed to be completely stealthy, just stealthier. It was a testbed for later stealth designs to see what worked and what didn't work. They didn't have the technology to make a true stealth at the time, and certainly not one capable of Mach 5 like the Blackbird. It did have a large RCS, just not as large as it MIGHT have been. There were 1000+ missiles shot at it, but no SR-71s were shot down. Some were lost, but not due to hostile fire.

The most common manuver with fighters to try to shoot it down was for them to go as high as they could, and at the last second trade airspeed for altitude, climb as high as they could until they were about to stall, fire off as many missiles as they could, then fall back down to lower altitude. The Russians and other countries knew where it was but they didn't have anything, and still don't, that could get high enough to go head to head with it or get a better shot than with the pop-up manuver.

[edit on 18-6-2005 by Zaphod58]

[edit on 18-6-2005 by Zaphod58]