Message posted by Casper (Member since 01/24/2011) on August 10, 2023 at 12:48:47 PST:
It's interesting how the U2 continues to be upgraded and integrated even though the brass are fully aware that her days are numbered. If you guys don't follow the 10 Percent True podcast, I recommend it. I was listening to an archive from 2021 with Huggy Huggins, who is one of the high-time U2 pilots in history. He was talking about how they had just (in 2020/2021) brought the U2 Weapons School online. So they're investing millions in training U2 pilots to a never-before-trained level... and tens of millions in establishing a curriculum and allocating space at Nellis, etc. Seems weird for a program that's going away in a few years. Unless this decision to retire her was a surprise. And the articles I've read on the Dragon Lady's retirement mention that there are still hundreds of millions of dollars allocated to updating her sensors in the next fiscal year. So... is she just a testbed at this point? We know the one flying out of Palmdale has been doing some awesome comms uplink/downlink stuff and reprogramming the mission computer remotely. Is it all just prepping tech for the next generation aircraft (the white bat/NGAD/etc?)? But, if so, why invest so much in the pilots since the ISR platforms will be remotely flown -- if crewed at all. Just things that make me go hmm...
In Reply to: Re: U-2 retirement posted by Smythers on August 10, 2023 at 12:15:56 PST:
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