Remembering the Dragon Lady: The U-2 Spy Plane: Memoirs of the Men Who Made the Legend by Gerald McIlmoyle & Linda Rios Bromley

Author:Gerald McIlmoyle & Linda Rios Bromley [McIlmoyle, Gerald]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Published: 2012-01-19T08:00:00+00:00

In mid-September 1960 when the Del Rio area received a storm warning, five U-2s were airborne. They were directed to Laredo AFB and I was instructed to get a team together to go to Laredo to prep them for the return flight the next day. We drove through the night to reach Laredo with several flight line mechanics and a couple of medical personnel. Because Laredo did not have pogos to support the U-2 wings, Operations there dispatched a bunch of Second Lieutenants in flight training to support the wings and push the aircraft all the way to the parking ramp. At the parking area, they used 55 gallon drums under each wing tip skid, then used 50 pound sacks of fertilizer to hold the wings down in the event of high winds. They were unaware, though, the damage the sacks of fertilizer could do to the aluminum surface of the wings.

We brought pogos with us from Laughlin and they were installed as soon as we arrived. It turned out that the base had planned an Open House the next day for local folks in the Laredo area. Having the U-2s come in unexpectedly made their day. They got the word out to local residents by radio and flyers. Saturday morning was a beautiful sunny day and visitors thronged the flight lines. The pilots and I decided to give them a good show. The Personal Equipment crew did everything with a flourish. I borrowed a flight line van for our “acting” Line Chief to go through all the motions of preflight with each Crew Chief who then saluted the pilot. I went from plane to plane, trying to look important. Each takeoff was a max effort event for benefit of the visitors. We were rewarded with a lot of “ohs” and “aahs.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.