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From: mips!mips.com!mark@decwrl.dec.com (Mark G. Johnson)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: U-2 shootdown--not a shootdown?
Message-ID: <10749@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 30 Oct 89 02:51:36 GMT
References: <10719@cbnews.ATT.COM>
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Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Sunnyvale, CA
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From: mips!mips.com!mark@decwrl.dec.com (Mark G. Johnson)

In article <10719@cbnews.ATT.COM> ckd%bu-pub.BU.EDU@bu-it.bu.edu (Christopher K Davis) writes:
>
>... that a shootdown from full U-2 altitude, at full U-2 speeds, would
>most likely turn the aircraft into Christmas tree tinsel (E = mv**2, and
>all that).  Certainly there would be no surviving radio gear (or pilot!).
>
>Can anyone speak to this?  Not knowing the speeds involved, etc, I can't do
>the calculation (and this is a late-night response with the library already
>closed).

Kelly Johnson, designer of the U-2 and manager of the Lockheed SkunkWorks
(and designer of the SR-71 and ....) has something to say about this in
his book "Kelly: More Than My Share" (1985, Smithsonian Institution Press).

p. 127:
  "During the period of U-2 overflights, the Russians had been working
diligently to improve their SA-2 missile and radar systems.  When Soviet
leader Nikita Krushchev triumphantly announced that Powers had been shot
down west of Sverdlovsk, we tried to reconstruct what had happened.  We
simulated Powers' flight mission and studied what aircraft components
might fail and cause him to lose cruising altitude.  ===> **** We found
nothing in the aircraft or its systems likely to lead us to doubt that
the aircraft had been hit at altitude as the Russians stated".

[then Johnson describes the fiasco in which the first released photos
were not of the downed U-2, but of a Russian aircract.  Then how
his outraged scoffing at this obvious lie goaded the USSR into publicly
displaying the actual pieces of Powers' U-2 at a press conference.  From
photos taken of the wreckage, Johnson and the CIA concluded:]

  "Both wings failed because of down-bending, not penetration of critical
structure by shrapnel from a missile.

  "None of the pictures showed a horizontal tail.  And the right section
of the stabilizer was missing."

  "The design of the U-2 wing is so highly cambered that without a tail
surface to balance the very high pitching moment, the aircraft goes
immediately over on its back; and in severe cases the wings have broken
off in down-bending.  This occurred once in early testing when the pilot
inadvertently extended wing flaps at high cruise speed, resulting in
horizontal tail failure.  This takes place in a few seconds, at great
acceleration and with the fuselage generally spinning inverted."

  "When Powers was exchanged in February 1962 for a Russian spy, I met
and talked with him as soon as possible.  ===> *** His statements
matched our conclusions.

  "Between what we had deduced and what Gary told us, it appeared that
===> *** an SA-2 missile had knocked off the right-hand stabilizer
WHILE HE WAS AT CRUISING ALTITUDE.  THe airplane then, predictably,
immediately sent over on its back at high speed and the wings broke off
in downbending.  Gary was left sitting in the fuselage with a part of
the tail and nothing else."
-- 
 -- Mark Johnson	
 	MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086
	(408) 991-0208    mark@mips.com  {or ...!decwrl!mips!mark}