Who knows what series of U-2 this is. I got the pictures while on a bus that was taking us to our freedom bird. The driver had to make a sudden stop and I was lucky enough to be standing in the aisle at the front because of seating. Normally nobody was allowed to take pictures of them but this was an oppurtunity to good to miss. The top one was taken at Korat just outside the C-130 reventment area on my second tour a little over a year later.
Good pics Ikar
My uneducated guess is that they are probably early U-2C, without the dorsal fairing. Others will know more.
[dto:]
Hello!
Great photos! The last one with that long nose looks like the newer U-2S.
And, did you see that “Ram Horn” variant? I tried to research it, but it looks like it’s still secret even today:
Have a nice day
Paweł
Looking at my limited resources regarding the U-2, the long nose, no top fuselage fairing, and timeframe, IDs it as a U-2R.
The first shot with the reventment was taken in 1974. For some reason it landed at our base we had no U2s based there.
The other two shots were taken in 1972. We had three U2s stationed there and they would send one up in the morning and then in the afternoon. One time I saw one take off when a flight of four local O1s in a box formation was flying by and it passed by them as it climbed out. The O1s scattered so it must have been close.