Did you guys know that a U2 landed at Cortez? It was the Cold War, before satellites and all that neat stuff. We needed to know what our potential enemies were up to. So Lockheed and the CIA came up with the U2. It was basically a powered glider that would cruise at 75,000 feet.
We flew the U2 over the USSR, most famously Gary Powers got shot down. But we needed to also overfly Red China. The Taiwanese Chinese had overflown there for years, so it was their mission.
By this time the U2 program had moved from Area 51, Groom Lake down to Del Rio, TX. The first U2 I ever saw was down there. So six Nationalist Chinese pilots were selected to train in the U2 in Del Rio.
So on Aug 3, 1959 Mike Hua was flying a night training mission. His flight plan was to go up to Ogden, UT and then back to Del Rio. Everything went well until he made a turn at Delta, UT. Heading SSE out of Delta his engine flamed out. He lost cockpit pressurization and his high altitude pressure suit inflated. He was at 70,000 and needed to be below 35,000 for a restart. He descended into clouds at 40,000. He attempted unsuccessful restarts below 35,000. He was just about ready to bail out when he saw something he did not expect. Runway lights.
The two guys who were still at the Cortez Airport were about ready to then off the lights and go home. Mike Hua managed to make a successful approach and gear up landing, with only minor aircraft damage.
When he walked into the terminal in his funny looking suit and explained in his limited English that he was a Chinese pilot flying a secret US airplane-
They finally believed him.
The U2 was flown out in a cargo plane, and repaired to new condition.
Mike Hua became a general in the Taiwanese Air Force, got a PHD from Purdue, later lived in Maryland.

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I'm surprised he made a gear-up landing. All aircraft have emergency gear deployment capability even with no power. Something else must have gone wrong.

His landing gear was frozen up and would not lower.

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I knew of the incident. I was a lockheed guard from 1965 to 2000. I knew Gary Powers. Lockheed hired him as a test pilot after he got out of prison in russia. He credited his dad as putting on pressure on the government to get him out. We did a trade for him. The poor guy flew a news chopper for a TV station after he left us and got killed in it.
Once he came to my gate and visited with me for about a half hour waiting for his wife to pick him up. I had my harley sitting by the gate and he asked to sit on it. At the time I was a student pilot and said Gary, I will trade you that harley for a ride in the U2. He said, you wouldn't like it. It`s like sitting with your head in a gold fish bowl for 12 or 16 hours!
Gary took a lot of flak from people thinking he should have taken a poison pill that he didnt and not being able to blow up the U2 when he ejected. I could well understand his explanation of trying to get out and not being able to reach the distruct switch as he was fighting for his life in the wind. How many know it all`s would have taken the pill? Gary was a low profile type, not much like many "hot shot" type pilots the job attracted. Another test pilot landed one night, came to my post and was describing his flight and told me it was so clear he had just seen the lights of Phoenix and San Francisco at the same time!
We all are always saying the "U-2". Really, most of them are "TR-2`s. The "U-2`s" were the early first ones and the later ones are "TR-2`s". They had a nice trainer version with two cockpits, the rear one sitting up and behind the front one. They always were a interesting plane to be around and watch taking off and landing. Definitely different than most.

On that Cortez event, usually/ always when a U-2 lands it has a crew in a car and truck racing behind it because its wheels is just a set under the center bottom. It has props that hang under the wing tips and fall out at takeoff. When it lands the car driver or assistant calls out his altitude feet from the ground to the pilot as it lands in a flat attitude as slow as possible, than the pilot trys to balance both wing tips as long and slow as possible.
Sometimes the crew is able to keep a wing tip from touching the ground and get those pogo sticks back in under the wing tips but usually not.
I am not aware about what the pilot did in Cortez although I did see the interview he gave. Might be since there was no crew to help him someone reported he landed gear up as seeing it tilted on a wing tip, but maybe they didn't know that's how they almost always land!

The Cortez bird was of course a U2. The TR2 came along much later. Bigger bird with different engine.
The question I would have asked Gary Powers is ' did the Air Force refuse to let you back in, or was it your choice not to rejoin?'
The really hot shot pilots never really liked the U2. They like forward firing ordnance.

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I've only seen one up close and personal, and had the opportunity to talk to the pilot. He said it wasn't much of a plane until you got to FL350 and higher, then it became maneuverable. Otherwise it just sort of wallows.....he said he did enjoy the view!

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Even older, even crankier....

Here is a cool chase video,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R05GceCuqo

Feralmerril, here is as close as I can give ya for a ride.... its pretty cool looking though....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PmYItnlY5M

For many years there were a pair of U-2's parked at the Lockheed facility, located next to Moffett Field N.A.S. They were painted with the NASA logos and paint scheme. Very impressive sight.

Yep. I love to hear the old, early, U-2 stories. There are quite a few of them.

The Taiwanese flew many mission over mainland China in the U-2 and in RF-101's. Many of those pilots did not make the return trip. You never heard anything on the news about them....they just sent away.

Brave men - I think

Yep. Those were converted U-2 aircraft and were then called ER-2's (Earth Resources One). They did lots of interested stuff like checking crops in the valley for fungus, blight, etc. One of the ER-1's had what looked like a drop tank on the top of the aircraft for a direct up-link to satellites. Fun stuff.

Its been a long time since I read or heard Powers version, but recall the CIA recruited Gary and he wasn't AF but a CIA when shot down. He struck me as having a lot of bad luck. His first wife didn't stick by him as I understand but divorced him while he was in prison in Russia. Gary drove a neat old Mercedes Benz coupe. Must have been a early 50`s or so. I dont think Gary got the praise I thought he deserved. I seen him as a hero, yet many held his getting shot down, not blowing the plane up or killing himself against him!

"Many people" weren't there when the SHTF at 70K +

My understanding is the Air Force had formal separation papers on file while these guys flew for the CIA. I know U2 pilots who flew their tour and went directly to a regular Air Force assignment. I suspect that the Air Force didn't want Gary back. I don't put him in a hero status, he wound up in an extremely difficult situation and did better than most of us probably would have.

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Any man that had the brass to fly over Soviet Russia back in the day is a hero in my book.

The book "Skunk Works" is a great history of the Lockheed / Kelly Johnson / Black Projects period, written by Ben Rich.

Greatly enjoyed that book. Real engineering feats of daring!

Anyone American who flew a U2 was at some point a top AF pilot

I forgot this test pilots name, he flew mostly our U-2, the guys wife was also in the AF. They had 4 babys born at the same time! Is that quadtuplets? His trademark was a Indiana Jones style hat. Never seen him without it. Sure wish I could remember his name. General Weir was our main man that seemed to run the program back in the 80`s and 90`s. Another pilot I almost forgot about was "Pete" Peterson. He stayed with us on graveyard long after he couldnt fly anymore just because he liked the "comradre" he once told me. If I recall way back, pete also flew our SR -71`s. Once on a sunday I was off duty and called my best friend who did my job. He got a call I could hear on the field radio patched from the tower to open the fly-way gate for a SR-71 that lost a engine over salt lake and the back seat radioman-engineer calmly was requesting to have my pard open the fly way gate. Said we will land in 14 minuets, we are over salt lake! Thats 550 miles! I thought I have to see this. I lived near the field, went outside, and sure enough here they came right on time!

There was a show on a few years ago for about 1 season that featured some relatively well known news personality doing things and being filmed. One of the first, if not the first, show(s) was flying in a U2/TR-?. There were a couple of funny bits.

One was them explaining exactly why she had to be able to reach the ejection seat handle and couldn't fly until she could demonstrate it: "We lose about one of these planes a year and you don't want to still be in it."

The other was video footage of her face when the pilot declared an inflight emergency (AC generator failure). She did display a good sense of humor afterward, telling the folks who got her through it that the two words you don't want to hear from your pilot at 90,000 feet are: "Oh ****!"

Gents, the newer version is the TR-1. Not TR-2.

I worked on them for 9 years.

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Feril: WHEN are you going to write your book??! I've almost got to the point where I want to print out all your posts and put them in a loose leaf notebook for posterity.