Sky Spy, Memoirs of a U-2 Pilot by Jim Carter

Author:Jim Carter
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2015-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

My first ride with a real student was a formation ride. I was paired up with Greg and two of his students. These students were both good but with only three formation rides each, were not that comfortable in formation. I started out as lead. We followed a standard profile for this phase including: takeoff, departure, normal maneuvering in fingertip, pitchouts and rejoins, area departure, traffic pattern entry, followed by single ship landings. Since I hadn’t flown with this student before, I would demonstrate the first maneuver, and then let him try it. We flew half the ride as lead, then swapped positions with Greg and took the wing. Some of those “what if” scenarios in PIT came true on my first ride with an actual student. This student was a former navigator with the rank of Captain. I think he may have been nervous because he hadn’t flown with me before. Flying with a fellow Captain may have spooked him since his regular instructor was a First Lieutenant. Whatever the reason, his flying suffered because of it.

He made several of the classic errors I had been warned about. Once we got into our flying area, I gave him control of the airplane and told him to set up for a straight-ahead rejoin. By the time he set up the maneuver we were heading out of our area into the adjacent one. I took the airplane back, got us back into our area, and set up for the pitchout and rejoin. When this was done, I gave him back the airplane and the go-ahead to do the maneuver. Our wingman was on our right. My student looked at the wingman, gave the signal, and then cleared right. I knew what was coming. He attempted to turn the wrong way right into our wingman. I was ready for him, however. As soon as I felt the first input on the stick I took over and rolled left. I asked him why he was trying to kill us but he couldn’t answer.

We did a couple of pitchout/rejoins each then we practiced some G loaded wing work. We instructors constantly pushed the students to improve. A simple way to do this in formation was through G loading. Normal straight and level flying resulted in 1 G (force of gravity). A 60-degree bank level turn produced 2 Gs. A 500-knot loop started out at 5 or 6 Gs. These high G maneuvers pushed your blood supply from your head into your core and legs. To counter this, we wore G-suits, which were inflatable chaps-like devices worn around the mid section and legs which responded to G forces by filling with air. The G-suit would squeeze the legs and stomach and keep the blood supply from moving downward. Without restricting the blood flow, a high G maneuver could cause a blackout; not a good result in a high-speed airplane.

Greg and I let the students fly and they were staying in position but they weren’t pushing their limits.

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