Air Force U-2 Reconnaissance Aircraft Crouching Airmen, Hidden Dragon
Maj. Denis Steele flew his U-2 “Dragon Lady” aircraft 70,000 feet over Iraq.Done with his reconnaissance mission, he started his decent and flew into a hot desert storm.

He dropped down through the cloud of fine sand. Below was Prince Sultan Air Base, a sandblasted haven in Saudi Arabia. A recovery team waited for his arrival.

Capt. Spencer Thomas was part of that team. He sat in a chase car, waiting to help Steele land the skittish black jet. As the jet came in for touchdown, Thomas gunned his Camaro chase car and raced down the runway behind the U-2.

Rose-colored dust clouds billowed beneath the plane.

Thomas’ job was to tell Steele how far he was off the runway and guide him down to a safe landing. Like the space shuttle, the U-2 is difficult to land, and the pilot can’t gauge his height above the runway. So the ground team acts as a “mission control” on wheels during launch and recovery. The team of space-suited pilots and support troops works well.

“I don’t think anyone kids themselves about the importance of these sorties,” Thomas said. “If it’s possible, we’re going to get them in the air.”

Teamwork is a must. Because gathering intelligence and doing surveillance and reconnaissance for Operation Southern Watch depends on getting U-2s into the sky over one of the most fiercely contested areas on Earth, Thomas said.

It’s just what deployed U-2s and the airmen who fly and maintain them have done for the past 11 years. The airmen, known as the “Desert Dragons,” have given the Air Force information mastery over Iraq.

High on the job
“The U-2’s the best high-altitude intelligence platform the Air Force has,” said Maj. Jon Guertin, the U-2 detachment commander. The jets and airmen rotate into Southwest Asia from the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base, Calif.

The Beale airmen have been on the job in Saudi Arabia since August 1990 when they started flying missions over Iraq. They were permitted, but not desired by the Iraqi regime, Guertin said.

Then, Iraq started behaving like a startled and heavily armed moonshiner, cornered at his still and mad at the world. In 2001, the Iraqis launched surface-to-air-missiles in an attempt to bushwhack the U-2s.

The source was Iraq’s integrated air defenses.

“Does that make me uncomfortable? Sure it does,” Thomas said of Iraq’s missile launches. “I keep my eyes open up there. I ‘see’ into other countries, but I don’t have time to enjoy the view.”

There are always going to be threats to the aircraft, Guertin said.

“The U-2 allows us to look into the affairs and activities of our adversaries at will,” he said.

So the last thing airmen want is to have the U-2’s health threatened.Conscientious ground crews keep the U-2’s safety factor at a high mark, Thomas said. Its home is a cool hangar, deep inside rural Prince Sultan. Ground crews run the show.

Going mobile
Thomas is not only a chase car driver. He performs the U-2 preflight checks, positions ground crews for launch and monitors the flight. Later, he arranges the recovery team. It’s the same kind of service he gets when he’s in the cockpit.

“I make considerations for the pilot that I would want if I were flying the plane,” he said. “I make the calls for the pilots, as they go up for or come down from missions over Iraq.”
 

 Life support technician Staff Sgt. Garrett Miller helps Maj. Denis Steele get seated before a flight over Iraq. Since the plane flies at altitudes of more than 70,000 feet, its pilots must wear full-pressure suits during flight. Suits are custom-fitted for each pilot. Official Air Force Photo by Master Sgt. John E. Lasky
 

Chase cars have been part of the U-2 team since the jet joined the force. The first cars were Chevy El Caminos. Then the Air Force switched to Ford Mustangs.“We wore out both models,” said Coy Cross, the reconnaissance wing historian.“Pilots were delighted to get the new Camaros.”

The coupe isn’t flashy like the Z28 police pursuit model, but the low-slung Chevy can move. The wingman at the wheel has as much responsibility for landing the U-2 as the pilot.“The driver is always a U-2 pilot. That ensures identical mindsets,” said Thomas, a prior enlisted U-2 crew chief. “When I’m not flying a mission, I’m ‘mobiling.’ ”

There’s a backup Camaro in the garage, er, hangar, along with another U-2.Unlike a police car with its shotgun rack, the Desert Dragon’s Camaros have radios to talk to the U-2 pilot. The fourth-generation Camaros are afterburner blue, not desert scorpion brown. They don’t have moon or sun roofs; instead a high-pursuit beacon spans the roof.

Launch data enters a Camaro’s radio lines from a control tower, maintenance truck and an on-field airfield observation position. Precise flight details pass over another radio line, strictly “pilot to pilot.”

C-rations fit for astronauts
Airmen run the aerospace physiology shop at Prince Sultan. They get the pilots ready for flight and attend to their every need.

In the shop, a few instrument panels glow with vital signs as oxygen rushes from a tall canister to several life support tubes. The clear plastic lines stretch a few inches from a crisp yellow space suit to the enlisted U-2 medical crew.

From inside his suit, a pilot told his helper he wanted a beef and gravy meal for this flight.

“It’s tube food. We have sloppy joes and chicken a la king too,” said Staff Sgt.Vicente Obillo, the “old man” of the physiology airmen deployed with the Desert Dragons. The food comes in what look like toothpaste tubes. They’re the meals, ready to eat, for the near-space pilots. The food is made by Gerber, the baby food maker.
Pilots can’t remove their helmets during the extremely high altitude flights. To eat, they prick a plastic straw-like tube into the food cap and insert the other end into a helmet port. Then they squeeze the food into their mouths through a sealed line.“The tubes are better than MREs,” Obillo said.

Tube food is fresher, but it’s the same technology as was used in the Gemini manned spaceflight program days of the 1960s, Staff Sgt. Garrett Miller said.

Suiting up
Miller is the “suit person.” That means he’s largely responsible for space suit inspections and repairs. His job combines the work of three sections at the U-2 hub at Beale, but on a smaller scale. His special workshop is one of the busiest space suit fitting rooms in the world of flight.

Miller’s room has all the necessary combat-ready clothing items. The Air Force buys space suits in 13 generic sizes. Then the support troops custom fit the suits to the pilots.

Space flight glove designers measure each pilot’s hand circumference and finger length. Flight boots are “standard black” with a zippered front. They also are sized two sizes larger. That way, they fit a pilot’s foot correctly with bulky pressure-sealed space stockings.

“This is, more or less, the same suit NASA launches an astronaut into space with,” Miller said. “Ours is an ugly yellow color with minor hardware differences from NASA’s [orange suit]. But it all serves the same function.”

The high-flight suit comes with substantial stirrups, Miller added. A pilot’s ejection seat is his saddle. The stirrups connect to cables in the U-2’s one-seat cockpit.

“Those will keep his legs from getting ripped off in an ejection,” he said.
While Miller watched, physiology airmen Staff Sgts. Jun Gu Shin and Phillip Gomez ran leak, air pressure and electrical checks inside a space helmet. Their “suit-up” procedure ran about five minutes.

Enter the Dragon Lady
Steele’s trip started that way. On the way to the aircraft, the launch team maneuvered through a blowing wind storm that layered the runway with red sand. A Camaro and a step van full of crew chiefs went for a road trip. The launch team guided the wide-turning U-2 along.

Obillo, several crew chiefs and Thomas triple-checked the pilot, space suit and aircraft on the runway. Thomas closed the “door” for Steele.

“When the mobile closes the canopy, it’s time to go,” Miller said.

A brown blur of uniformed and contract troops flashed between the step van and the jet. Lead technician crew chief Senior Airman Michael Choyce called the shots on the runway with Miller and others.

“I track tow times, put on power and set data links,” he said. “I’m small — I can fit into panels, crawl in and change components. It saves time. Otherwise, we must take the plane apart.”

Choyce went into the fuselage to change a part once, Lockheed technical representative Bill Bonnichsen said. It saved an engine removal.

“A few years ago, I squeezed in there and did a lot of that stuff,” Bonnichsen said. “I’ve been with the U-2 for 30 years — followed it everywhere — starting with the old CIA pilots. I’ve been here 10 times since Desert Storm. People know that, and I think they respect it.”

The U-2 got closer to liftoff as crew chiefs attached the Dragon Lady’s ground power lines and took readings. They removed the cables when their final checks were done.

Running of the Dragons
The Camaro’s windows were rolled up tight to shield against a sandstorm that rolled through. Sand ran down them and the taxiing U-2 like suds in a car wash.Miller and Choyce’s step van steered clear of the U-2. But the chase car rolled just behind one of the U-2’s two reusable landing gears — called pogos — as it taxied to the runway.

Since the U-2 has a bicycle-like landing gear, it needs the pogos to keep its long wings off the ground. The wheels drop off when the aircraft takes off, and the ground crew retrieves them.

Thomas scanned the roaring jet for good performance. He saw, heard and felt the blast of rippling, hot engine gasses through his windshield. A tanker and an RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft taxied up well behind them.

Then the U-2 took off. Thomas and the rest of the launch team saw their Dragon Lady spit off its pogos and bank away with authority.

Destination — Iraq!
Crouching airmen
The team still had to recover the U-2. Not an easy task in a sandstorm. With its long wings, the plane is tough to land on a calm day. Plus it must land on two centerline wheels and coast to a stop. Then it gently drops onto one of its two wing skids.

Hours later, Thomas’ coupe flexed with the pressure of cross winds at the approach end of the runway. The recovery team’s bird descended and rocked earthward as it cut through the surly, pushy weather. The war bird was seconds from touchdown.

Thomas tapped his gas pedal. He matched Steele’s approach speed and then raced behind the U-2. The hidden dragon overflew his wingman’s windshield.Thomas firmly cued Steele down to Earth.

“U-2 pilots landing in Southwest Asia work their tails off to keep that airplane in position,” Thomas said. “If their mobile tells them, ‘You’re at three feet and you need to bring it down,’ they bring it down.”

Egress technician Airman 1st Class Kenneth Jones replaces the U-2’s egress seat after cockpit maintenance. The seat connects to stirrups on the pilot’s space suit to keep his legs from ripping off during an ejection. Official Air Force Photo by Master Sgt. John E. Lasky
 

When U-2s come down from 13 miles up over Iraq, their wings are cool to the touch. As the chase car and recovery van wait on the sand-cloaked U-2, airmen reinstalled the pogos.

Before Steele steered the U-2 to its hangar, four airmen climbed on the wings for balance. They gripped the wing’s front edge, “hung 10” and surfed on sandy waves.
“Yeah, they’re cool,” U-2 crew chief Tech. Sgt. Steven Devivo said about the frosty feel of the gritty wings after a flight. “That’s what it’s all about. Another successful flight over Iraq.”