elijah’s adventure

Maj. Dean Neeley is in the forward, lower cockpit of the Lockheed U-2ST, a two-place version of the U-2S, a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft that the Air Force calls “Dragon Lady.” His voice on the intercom breaks the silence. “Do you know that you’re the highest person in the world?” He explains that I am in the higher of the two cockpits and that there are no other U-2s airborne right now. “Astronauts don’t count,” he says, “They’re out of this world.”

Barry flying highWe are above 70,000 feet and still climbing slowly as the aircraft becomes lighter. The throttle has been at its mechanical limit since takeoff, and the single General Electric F118-GE-101 turbofan engine sips fuel so slowly at this altitude that consumption is less than when idling on the ground. Although true airspeed is that of a typical jetliner, indicated airspeed registers only in double digits.

I cannot detect the curvature of the Earth, although some U-2 pilots claim that they can. The sky at the horizon is hazy white but transitions to midnight blue at our zenith. It seems that if we were much higher, the sky would become black enough to see stars at noon. The Sierra Nevada, the mountainous spine of California, has lost its glory, a mere corrugation on the Earth. Lake Tahoe looks like a fishing hole, and rivers have become rivulets. Far below, “high flying” jetliners etch contrails over Reno, Nevada, but we are so high above these aircraft that they cannot be seen.

The rest of this tale is at Barry Schiff’s website.