Bruce:
Originally posted by BMatthews
Speaking of U-2's. One of my favourite story lines about these remarkable planes is the condition that determines the plane's max altitude.
One of the books I read described how the plane could climb until the rising stall speed related to the altitude density boxed the plane's speed up against the Mach 1 barrier. They would climb until the stall to supersonic range was somewhere around 10 knots or so
Just so. In the B-57F we had a combination instrument commonly called the "Barber poles." TAS was the center, the left Barber Pole was stall speed, the right Pole was Mach. The job was to keep the left one to the left, and the right one to the right. And the result of not doing so was airframe destruction more often than a many thousand foot spin recovery. Or so we were told. I never had a departure, and I don't know of anyone else who tested the theory. Can't comment on the U-2 or TR-1, never got in either one.
Make sure there's two props,
. Then pull out the stops.
Bill.