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Scoop!

April 12, 2012 By John Joss

The world was stunned when Francis Gary Powers was downed over the Former Soviet Union flying the Lockheed U-2 in 1960. In context, the U.S. has conducted more than 50,000 such ‘surveillance’ flights since WWII, using aircraft carrying national colors and designations (U.S. Air Force, Navy, etc.), flying ‘mostly’ in international airspace. The U-2 was an unmarked spy plane. Dangerous stuff. I can’t say more: this arena remains highly classified.

The CIA, who commissioned the U-2 in 1955, and its brilliant designer Kelly Johnson at Lockheed’s ‘Skunk Works’ in Burbank, California, thought its ability to fly high would keep it safe. True, for a while.

The Soviets knew it was there, from their radar. They bagged it with SAMs—surface-to-air missiles. While learning, they downed some of their own fighters attempting interception via dive/pull-up/Keplerian zoom. They didn’t care. In the FSU, as in today’s Russia, people are expendable, objects of the State. Similar U.S. tests showed the F-106 as the best interceptor. One tumbled past the U-2’s nose at high (classified) altitude, taking tens of thousands of feet to recover. Fresh underwear, please.

Secrets don’t keep. As details leaked, the U-2 intrigued the world. Its height capability (still classified) and endurance (~12 hours) stunned insiders. Everyone wondered about its design, performance and flight characteristics. As a pilot with thousands of hours in sailplanes (gliders much like the U-2—high-aspect-ratio wings, but no noisy fire hazard), I was curious. I act on my curiosities.

“U-2: Geopolitical/military past and technological/aerospace present mix in the imagination. What is it? Complex, high-altitude observation system that happens to be an airplane? Demonstration of Lockheed’s skills? Powered sailplane? All the above. Pilots worldwide wonder about this mystical beast . . . ”

That’s how my report started, words to accompany my photos taken at Beale AFB, near Sacramento, California, and in the cockpit, very (classified) high. I had that elixir, an ‘exclusive:’ first photojournalist to fly, photograph and write about one of the world’s most famous yet mysterious aircraft. I was in aviation and journalism heaven . . . very high.

One of freelancing’s rare joys is unearthing and controlling a scoop—if you’re lucky, properly connected, with a cooperative editor. How did I get into that cockpit, assigned by a major world publication?

I called the U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command (SAC) in Omaha, Nebraska. Connected to Public Affairs—they treat polite journalists kindly—I asked to fly, write about and photograph their U-2. They said they’d consider it; they didn’t say ‘no’ and they extended hope. A definite ‘maybe.’

I called the managing editor: “SAC is considering my request.” He said he’d review my story and pix. I conveyed that conditional acceptance to SAC. I had the matched set. I reported to Beale AFB, checked into the BOQ and talked to U-2 and SR-71 pilots of the 9th Strategic Air Wing that evening at the bar. Great stories. They love to fly. But . . . intimidating.

Next morning, after the traditional high-protein/low-bulk breakfast, flight physiology conducted a medical. Approved, my instructor, astronaut-in-embryo CAPT Denny Gagen, USAF, indoctrinated me in this difficult, fascinating airplane. I noted the central, bicycle landing gear with tiny wheels, much like a sailplane, the untwisted wing that stalls from root to tip, right now, without warning, though tiny leading-edge ‘bumps’ give a warning burble at critical airspeed. An unforgiving piece.

The proposed flight was briefed. Laced into a pressure suit, I pre-breathed O2 for an hour to avoid the ‘bends’—a risk after sudden decompression, when nitrogen in the blood creates bubbles at the joints that deliver excruciating pain. We rode in a van, carrying portable O2 units, and strapped into the two-seat CT-2. Final checklist. Engine startup, taxi in waddling gait on the bicycle gear, wings supported by ‘pogo’ outriggers.

Takeoff: rotate at 85 knots and pull up to 60° for climbout, the Pratt & Whitney J-75 producing a reliable 17,000 pounds thrust without afterburner. As we rotate, the ‘pogo’ wheels fall from their sockets for ground-crew recovery.

Three hours over the Sierra. It flies like a sailplane: smooth, easy, needs rudder to coordinate, non-assisted controls. The airframe is fragile. Don’t ‘pull’ more than ~2G, though higher-G gusts can be tolerated in updrafts. At maximum altitude, the ‘window’ between departure (stall) and tuck is two knots. So: a gentle hand on the yoke, meticulous airspeed control.

Landing is a challenge: energy management is crucial. Fly a flat approach: this bird floats in ground effect. We approach at stall speed +10%, not stall +25% fighters use. Another U-2 pilot, alongside in a pickup, calls altitude and attitude, ensuring touchdown at correct, two-point attitude: “Two feet, nose high; one foot, on attitude; touchdown.” Though back from near space, I will never come down from this flight.

The late Ernest Gann, a renowned flying writer, got into that cockpit years later. I scooped him. Hold the applause. I was lucky. SAC accepted me because it was no longer TOP SECRET. They processed my film and kept some photos; they knew that a huge pilot audience would read the piece as potential recruits; the magazine took my exclusive.

Why not name the publication where my original article appeared? Because, when I asked permission to excerpt my own text, they demanded a fee larger than the pittance they paid me to write it. Such sweet people. So this article uses none of my original material. Imagine violating a copyright by plagiarizing oneself!

Filed Under: Air, Blog

The Space Shuttle: Going, going . . .

April 12, 2012 By John Joss

Let us now mourn the end of an era: the Space Shuttle. With the 2011 Atlantis launch, it’s over. It was the E-ticket ride of a lifetime, atop millions of Newtons of main-engine thrust, including rocket energy from the two solid-state boosters that launched it. The experience was memorable and engaged hundreds of millions of earthbound mortals and a few lucky astronauts. This pilot was fortunate to see one small step in its history.

“. . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . we have liftoff”—familiar words in my headset. I am about to fly the world’s biggest and costliest glider, the billion-dollar Space Shuttle—well, actually, the Shuttle Mission Simulator, or SMS—at NASA-Houston’s Manned Spacecraft Center. The SMS, a core element in astronaut training, simulated most Shuttle evolutions. For me: the RTLS (Return To Launch Site), flown only as a simulation, never in life. With the Shuttle’s retirement, it will never be undertaken. Just as well. It’s a full-fledged emergency.

The bird is poised on the ‘launch pad.’ Atop the ‘stack’—orbiter plus main-engine tank and boosters—I lie on my back in the cockpit, right hand on the stick, feet on the rudder pedals, the gantry visible in the left window.

Except for the ADI (Attitude/Direction Indicator) and compass, the cockpit instruments are unfamiliar, especially the vertical ‘ribbon’ indicators (I’m still a ‘round gauge’ or ‘clock shop’ pilot, though MFDs—Multi-Function Displays—are handy). Like the early astronauts, I’m the metaphorical ‘spam in a can,’ nothing to do until later. My instructor pilot is in the left seat. If he is anxious about how I will fly, he hides his emotions carefully.

Launch and initial flight are managed by quadruple-redundant computers (cynics say those computers had less processing power than a modern cell phone but they took man to the Moon and back successfully). We are just passengers, like it or not.

At an initial 350,000 FPM climb rate, it makes the U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornet I flew at the Naval Strike Warfare Center, Fallon, Nevada, with a ‘mere’ 50,000 FPM, seem anemic in retrospect. But this is a test. I’m on trial, willingly. I am . . . crazy.

The test: a hand-flown Shuttle final approach. Here we go again. Repeat after me: “This is only a simulator. Relax. Only a simulator.” Yeah, right. The SMS duplicates well the rolling, rumbling sensation of raw launch thrust, tangible through the seat, visible in the shaking of the entire cockpit. Sensations of an altered reality invade my mind and body.

As we ‘ascend’ from launch, a booster rocket fails, as programmed, within the first three and a half minutes. Lacking sufficient thrust, we cannot attain orbit nor reach an alternate landing site such as the Azores or Africa. RTLS is our only salvation. First we must burn off fuel, flying more nearly vertical to stay within range of the Cape. Shuttle orientation is now reversed with thrusters, pointing us back to the Cape, timed so that MECO (Main-engine Cutoff) has left enough energy for a safe return. Tank and booster separation will occur over the Atlantic. I will hand fly the landing.

Now, the cockpit instruments indicate, we’re traveling in near space at Mach 10, but backwards to about 400,000 feet altitude, with ‘reverse’ thrust slowing us down. We stop, literally, and head home. Newton (Isaac: flowing locks, quizzical gaze), at 1G, waiting patiently 24/7, strikes again—we need him now. Reynolds (Osborne: bearded, serious mien) and Mach (Ernst: glasses, frown) are waiting to contribute their famous numbers, once enough virtual ‘air molecules’ flow over our virtual wings. Enough with this historical nonsense. Focus, concentrate.

The flight computer will position us for landing. Ahead: black space speckled with stars there is no time to identify, earth curvature, the Florida coast below. What a view! This is what Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic will give civilians soon, at $200,000 per. We decelerate to subsonic, arriving at 10,000 feet, at 235 knots—landing-gear limiting speed—eight miles from touchdown. I select ‘down’ on the gear actuator and see a satisfying ‘three green’ indication, take the air-brake handle in my left hand to adjust airspeed and touch-down point. In the bag? Maybe.

What hath that computer wrought? It has placed us in the energy window that should put us ‘on the numbers’ at a cleverly simulated, virtual Cape Canaveral, with 16,000-foot main runway. Can I fly the approach competently, without prior stick time? Do I have delusions of adequacy? I yearn briefly for Edwards AFB’s 15,000 feet of concrete, plus 9,000 more of Rogers Dry Lake for undershoot. I glance at my instructor. He remains impassive, mercifully silent.

The distance/altitude equation yields a 4:1 glide angle, but it’s just another glider, right? Through the HUD (head-up display) I note a broken undercast at ~5,000 feet. We punch through and the runway lies ahead, in the clear. I want to float it on—like the delicate arrival of sailplanes I fly in the Sierra Nevada. It’s . . . just another glider. Not!

Minimal kinesthetic feedback through the stick, negligible ‘pull’ G forces and absent vestibular sensations makes control motions unnatural, somewhat like a video game. One must use visual cues, but the three-axis controls—pitch, roll and yaw—respond conventionally. I fly the HUD velocity vector at 185 knots, as required, flare over the threshold, alight on the centerline. The virtual drag chute deploys on touchdown, then departs as we decelerate smoothly to a stop.

Long pause. Resume breathing. Phew! I look over at my instructor. He is smiling.

In real life, the SMS let Shuttle crews experienced complete simulations of entire flights, liftoff to landing, the outside world represented faithfully—the launch pad, the sky field with stars in place, the earth-sky interface and every part of Earth the Shuttle overflew. Crews spent up to 480 SMS hours to train for each flight, starting at launch minus 480 days—16 months earlier. Serious stuff.

We are down on Cape Canaveral’s ‘runway’ after 22 nail-biting minutes. But one never really comes down from a space flight, even if only simulated.

The Space Shuttle: gone, but not forgotten. Former astronaut, astronomer Dr. George W. ‘Pinky’ Nelson said it: “This must be the best job in the world.” Or out of it.

Filed Under: Air, Blog

Second bite of a delicious apple

April 12, 2012 By John Joss

Nostalgia attacks at the Laguna Seca race track as I fling my leg over this lovely, iconic Norton ‘Featherbed,’ known the world over as one of the finest race motorcycles ever conceived: all the old familiar sights and sounds, the identical saddle, throttle, footpegs and lever ergonomics. I’m home again. It’s as if I never left. Great motorcycles—like great . . . anything—live forever.

The sensations are immensely pleasing. I am transported back to my youth as if by magic, watching Geoff Duke and John Surtees win on the Island, on Featherbeds, then having the chance to ride one as a motojournalist, wishing I could have raced it but waaaay too slow.

Take a deep breath. Force down the upwelling of memories and concentrate. Make every instant count. The owner’s wife won’t let him ride this priceless beauty, ever. I am honored today.

Last time I rode a Featherbed was on the Isle of Man, eons ago. We start the 500-cc motor on this beautiful machine by ‘motorized roller’ applied to the rear wheel, so today no run-and-bump calisthenics are needed. Just as well: I haven’t applied this technique in anger in, ahem, several years. I lack the agility now. Aging is hell, better only than the alternative.

The open pipe barks melodiously but without an idle circuit in the carburetor I must blip it continuously to keep the fire lit. The only instrument is the tachometer. In the nearby pits I see that the throaty bellow sits poorly with visitors taking their lunch break, who flinch and put their fingers in their ears. This is one noisy maternal parent.

Time to launch. Let joy be unconfined. Remember the old British routine, distracted by more than one million miles on modern machines: rear foot brake on the left, gearshift on the right, also up for first, down for the rest of the gears in genuine race-bike format—a neuromuscular error could be costly. This bike has four speeds and that engine doesn’t demand more.

Mechanical brake and clutch controls embody friction and feel unknown to modern riders who use hydraulics, but these Norton levers and cables have a decisive, honest quality, a strong physical connection, an immediacy.

Compared with a modern machine managed by ECU, the sensation is like the difference between touch-sensitive, mechanical, or even assisted-mechanical aircraft controls and ‘fly-by-wire.’ Compare fly-by-wire systems managed by a modern DFCS (Digital Flight Control System), in the Navy F/A-18 Hornet I flew as a visiting journalist, that lack a genuine, direct feel—these days you’re flying a computer, not an airplane. Perhaps, in our digital age, it’s like trying to express emotion through a keyboard, phone or screen, rather than in person, or convey tactile sexual intimacy through the rods, levers and television screen of a nuclear-radiation environment. Not all change is progress. Here and now I’m back to basics, and enjoying every second.

I roll out of the pits, accompanied only by the camera car, and proceed to savor five laps of the track in splendid isolation, virtually owning the facility. Softly, softly: those narrow tires are new, cold and unscuffed. I must not toss this costly jewel down the road. The big TT Amal carburetor wants to breathe freely and won’t deliver clean response at low revs, so I must crank it up a tad, above about 1,500 RPM. There! It pulls cleanly now, but only to a conservative 6,000 RPM to respect a costly engine, not yet fully broken in.

I estimate that the engine is delivering about 50 smooth, linear horses, with excellent torque from mid rev range, quite unlike a modern racing two-stroke machine, which too often delivers ‘light-switch’ throttle response—‘on’ or ‘off’—and minuscule rev range, or a current race 600 of the world’s most popular classes, with ‘Everest’ power/torque curves. Both kinds of machine must be rowed along with the gear lever and kept on the boil. This magnificent Featherbed weighs, I estimate, 325 pounds at most, has mid-range grunt and lets you love it, while delivering its marvelous music.

Out on track, starting to get into the throttle, I traverse the diabolical, downhill Turn 2 buttonhook and all the sensations of control and feel, conveyed historically by the iconic Featherbed, come back strongly. Power through flat turns 3 and 4, grazing the pipe on the track, dive for the deep apexes of Turns 5 and 6, fly up the hill to the infamous Corkscrew with its 300-foot drop. This is living.

Compared with a modern race bike, the handling of this half-century-old design holds up well: honest and forgiving, great turn-in and side-to-side agility, follows the slightest pressures on the clip-ons to maintain line, ‘finishes’ the corners without drama. The ghost of self-taught engineer Rex McCandless, who created the original Featherbed frame back in the early 1950s, haunts me. He knew what he was doing, without the help of computers and CAD/CAM systems. All he had was a basic education in mechanical engineering, a slide rule and a brilliant ‘eye.’

Going is good. What about stopping? Consider those drum brakes. They’re beautiful but not modern disks. Don’t ask too much of them. By the time I reach the first-gear Turn 11 and tuck in tightly, up (‘down’) through the gears, past the start-finish line, floating over the crest of Turn 1, I know that I want this experience to continue forever. But Race Control has placed strict limits on my joyride: five laps or fifteen minutes, maximum.

Five laps in just over eleven minutes. Not quick. It passes like the sudden caress of a butterfly’s wing, a snatch of marvelous music or the momentary embrace of a woman whose scent lingers after a casual kiss. One longs for more.

Perhaps 99.99% of the human race will never know. But, oh, what they are missing.

Filed Under: Blog, Earth, Memoir

Racing dinghies, and a woman

April 12, 2012 By John Joss

The scene: sailing the 5-0-5 racing dinghy at the St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco. The ‘Five-Oh,’ as it is called, designed by John Westell in 1953 but still a thrill to sail and race, is five meters and five centimeters of brutal physical test, a beast in boat’s clothing. Beautiful but deadly. The Ferrari of racing dinghies, never rivaled in half a century, sailed worldwide by the thousand, capable of 15 knots and faster ‘on the plane.’

In this demonic device, the skipper steers, controls the mainsheet and centerboard, and manages the show. He or she is in sole charge. The crew handles the jib and spinnaker, rides the trapeze and obeys orders promptly. Managing the jib and spinnaker sheets requires an athletic combination of dexterity and strength, as well as instant-by-instant judgment. It also demands indifference to pain, as the wires and ropes cut and burn—leather gloves, fingertips cut off, are standard equipment.

The trapeze? A pair of wires, one hanging from the mast on each side, with a large steel ring five inches in diameter, a foot above the deck, retained by a bungee cord, which must be clipped to a hook on the crew’s torso harness. It enables the crew get his or her weight outboard, feet on the gunwale, to keep the boat upright for maximum speed. The gunwale incorporates non-slip material to provide a sound footing.

Weight shifting by the crew is done by bending the knees, to get the body mass outboard in gusts and inboard when the wind lessens. Lose footing on that narrow gunwale, and the crew risks sliding forward and inboard, out of control, perhaps falling into the jib upside down and initiating an inevitable capsize—this is unpopular because capsizing, though rapidly recoverable, loses races.

Too often a crew is hanging over the water, horizontal, butting the body into the waves, taking most of them in the face, occasionally ducking and letting the skipper collect a big one, for grins. The boat behaves like a demented hydroplane, hurtling from wave top to wave top in a lather of foam, with violent impacts, on the edge of control. Few boats on the planet match its thrills.

On San Francisco Bay, a wet suit is essential both for skipper and crew, to stave off the bone-numbing, 50-degree Pacific chill. The wind howls in from the Golden Gate Bridge in summer, ensuring a wild ride every time. Several layers of wet sweaters bring the combatants up to fighting weight, but it helps to start over 200 pounds. We never finish a race in the Bay’s typical heavy weather without being falling-down cold, wet and exhausted. It’s all part of the Five-Oh’s ineffable charm. Solution: once the races are over, head for the bar.

I walk up to the bar in sailing gear. After four hours on the water and two stressful races, I’m a soggy mess, dribbling water onto the tile floor through the cut-open toes of my sneakers, but here is this breathtaking creature, with exotic makeup and a mane of back-combed auburn hair streaked blonde, demure in gauzy chiffon and spike-heeled sandals, fingernails and eyelashes out to there, smelling magnificent. A player, obviously.

She is escorted by the upper-class twit of the year—blazer, club tie. Drinking at the St. Francis is apparently his idea of a high-intensity sport. She could definitely provide . . . sport—a bit like the Five-Oh, perhaps, beautiful but probably deadly. She seems too slight to crew on San Francisco Bay, where those north-westerlies power through the Golden Gate at 20-25 knots most of the summer, calling for continual use of the trapeze, but I decide to test her. “Interesting outfit for sailing,” I suggest to her. My grin is calculated to disarm her. I am mistaken.

“Hmmm. Interesting outfit for standing at a bar with actual humans.” Her repartee induces in me a mixture of anger and attraction. Testing time, indeed . . . but for whom?

“We’re at a yacht club, okay.” Score: about even. “Want to try the Five-Oh?”

She laughs: “Why not?”

I look directly into her eyes: “Now? Mine’s at the dock, rigged and ready.”

She gazes back, unblinking: “Sure.” Thrust, parry, riposte.

“I’ll borrow gear for you from one of the women crew,” I offer. “Wet suit. Sweaters. Trapeze harness.”

An hour later we are back at the bar, wet and cold to the bone. The upper-class twit? Vanished. I have inducted her into the Five-Oh Hall of Pain, out on the trapeze despite her inexperience. She has taken it all in stride and accepted my commands dutifully, as required of a good crew, no complaints despite a capsize and recovery under the eye of the ever-vigilant Coastguard hovering nearby in its rescue chopper. Now her nails are chipped and broken, her hair plastered down like a drowned rat’s, her eyelashes vanished, her makeup streaked. She is simply . . . gorgeous, wearing the biggest grin I have ever seen.

What a sport. What a woman. I am stunned, amazed.

I never saw her again.

Filed Under: Blog, Memoir, Water

Ducati 1098/1198: The Superbike Redefined

April 11, 2012 By John Joss

This is a sequel to the author’s earlier work (with Alan Cathcart), “Ducati 999: Birth of a Legend,” which covered the evolution of the predecessor to the recent 1098/1198 sportbike leaders in the Ducati lineup, now superseded by the Panigale. The 1098/1198 was a radical step forward for Ducati in power, torque and weight, thus ‘redefining’ the sport motorcycle and creating the book’s theme. It was as radical a departure for Ducati as the beautiful 916, and replaced the 999, a machine that many considered an exercise in ugly that was completely atypical of the Bologna manufacturer.

Filed Under: Blog, Book Review, Featured

Name to a Face

April 11, 2012 By John Joss

Friends whose reading judgment I respect urged me to read Goddard and one of them lent me this book. I wish I had not wasted my time on it. None of us–I include myself–would like to be judged on the basis of one book, but if this is the best Mr. Goddard can do (and some of the more critical Amazon reviewers say that it isn’t), then he is greatly overrated.
The problem, to put it succintly, is that he is a careless writer who puts howlers on the page and drenches the reader in baffling illogic.
Howlers? One example, of many, will do (page 34), involving the book title itself:
“He . . . could not put a name to a face he felt disablingly certain he knew very well.”

Filed Under: Blog, Book Review, Featured

Ducati 1098/1198: The Superbike Redefined

This is a sequel to the author’s earlier work (with Alan Cathcart), “Ducati 999: Birth of a Legend,” which covered the evolution of the predecessor to the recent 1098/1198 sportbike leaders in the Ducati lineup, now superseded by the Panigale. The 1098/1198 was a radical step forward for Ducati in power, torque and weight, thus ‘redefining’ the sport motorcycle and creating the book’s theme. It was as radical a departure for Ducati as the beautiful 916, and replaced the 999, a machine that many considered an exercise in ugly that was completely atypical of the Bologna manufacturer.

Name to a Face

Friends whose reading judgment I respect urged me to read Goddard and one of them lent me this book. I wish I had not wasted my time on it. None of us–I include myself–would like to be judged on the basis of one book, but if this is the best Mr. Goddard can do (and some of the more critical Amazon reviewers say that it isn’t), then he is greatly overrated.
The problem, to put it succintly, is that he is a careless writer who puts howlers on the page and drenches the reader in baffling illogic.
Howlers? One example, of many, will do (page 34), involving the book title itself:
“He . . . could not put a name to a face he felt disablingly certain he knew very well.”

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