I had never heard of this before:




https://youtu.be/I-CUV3o4PLA



Yes, the CIA Flew U-2 Spy Planes From Aircraft Carriers

Wow. I am going to go back through my books on this aircraft. It was a #%&*$# to land on the ground, a carrier must have been a nightmare.

Nice find.


Wheels

Yeah, great find and thanks for linking it

I'm sure there was a brief mention of carrier operations in the book Dragon Lady, though it has been far too many years since I read it.

I seem to remember it was used in the far east when they could not use Japan as a operational base

Very cool, thanks for linking!

At around the 4 minute mark it says 'ejection through locked canopy'.I guess that's as bad as it sounds?

Interesting video though,never thought it was possible with such an aircraft.

http://www.ejectionsite.com/u2seat.htm

Seems the seat was designed to break the canopy. Not fun I guess...

Numerous planes had the design back in the day. Even today the Harrier has detcord in the canopy to shatter it pre-ejection.

The U-2 ops were classified for years, I forget when they declassified them. I also don't remember when the A-12 was declassified, but it was probably right around the time of the SR-71 retirement when 71s and 12s were distributed to museums and other display areas and people started noticing the 12 looked close to a 71 but clearly wasn't.



The Jedi Master

the canopy either explodes or has a hole punched through it by a "fist" above the seat so the pilot can go through clean

still a rough experience

the U2's light wing loading must have made it a pain to get the tailhook down properly.