On 11 Mar 2016, at 9:17 PM, Derek Ruddock <[email protected]> wrote: > > After doing some research after the recent Tom Hanks film re Gary Powers, I > found an amazing amount of declassified information on the U2 program, > including all the actual flight paths. Google is your friend.
I visited Duxford in July. They’re building a new exhibit hall for the American stuff: effectively a hangar big enough for the Duxford B-52, but with a glass front facing the runway. Massive quantities of concrete and structural steelwork. Won’t need radio navaids to find Duxford, you’ll be able to see the gravitational deflection of a plumb-bob. Anyway: Due to the (con | de)struction, all the American stuff is salted away into other parts of the museum, intermingled with other exhibits. The hangar next to the one that contains the Concorde prototype currently, on a temporary basis, hosts the museum’s U-2. But there isn’t enough space in that hangar for the U-2, everything is crammed in with no sensitivity at all to the exhibits’ historical significance. So the U-2 wings are sitting on the floor underneath and parallel to the fuselage of their SR-71, next to the U-2’s fuselage sitting on something that looks for all the world like a trailer dolly. Yes, that’s right: They’ve derigged it. SR-71 with U-2 wing panels on the floor: U-2 fuselage sitting in a fuse cradle. Sadly, you can’t get any closer to it than this. Must be one hell of a trailer parked outside. Imagine how scarce everyone will be on the day they call for a rigging crew. - mark
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