Tanage

If that’s meant to be a U-2A it shouldn’t have a System 20 fairing on the starboard wing trailing edge (the little pod between the flaps and aileron).

First flight of the U-2C (Article 342) was May 1959, out of Edwards with Ray GOUDEY driving. The upper fuselage fairings started to come in around April 1961. The short fairing contained an SSB tuneable HF radio (one of the post POWERS shoot down recommendations) and was fitted to the A and C. The medium fairing added an Air to Air Refueling receptacle in the front, so that’s the early E and F. Not all the “AFV late model” mods came in simultaneously. The full spine fairing “canoe”, came in from roughly October 1964 (haven’t been able to reference an SB with the exact date). The 150 degree “sugar scoop” (IR exhaust suppressor) was trialed in May 1965. It replaced the 90 degree sugar scoop that came in from around October 1961 in response to a possible IR AAM threat over Cuba. that isn’t in the AFV kit. The phase in of the large “coke-bottle intakes” is a bit hazy for me, but seems to have been around April ‘66+. Initially the rear view mirror was centrally mounted, and that was probably the case with 360/ POWERS. There’s other differences between reality and AFV Club. Biggest four (apart from shape discussions) are probably: Single under nose pitot head not dual. Different UHF aerial under the cockpit. CIA aeroplanes rarely had navigation lights and/or anti-collision beacons. If they did, the circuit breakers were pulled for overflights. The white canopy sunshade is actually inside the transparency, so AFV’s obviously raised sunshade is completely wrong. Can someone release an after market canopy? For a CIA U-2C, the colours were: Matte non-spectacular sea blue from the summer of 1958. This is the matte version of the USN’s single colour blue WWII pacific war scheme, but it’s bizarre how many period eye-witnesses refer to it as “black”. Initially no walk-ways. Speedbrake inners were NMF. From about October 1960 the cover story was changed, walkways re-appeared together with white N8##X “ferry flight” tail numbers. The Black Cats had white numbers. From around October 1965 the CIA began re-painting to “Black Velvet” with no walkways and retaining white tail numbers, which subsequently shrunk. The speedbrake interiors were also black. The Black Cats went to red numbers, like the USAF. Some time after around June 1968 canopy sunshades went black. As mentioned above “City of Sale” was a bit of PR, painted on before hard nose USAF 56-6718 deployed down to Oz for the first time for “CROWFLIGHT VII” - round 7 of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project’s High Altitude Sampling Program. The U-2’s rep had already caused basing problems elsewhere and it was part of smooching up to the Aussies - who seem to have subsequently “zapped” all visiting U-2s with red kangaroos. Hope that’s of some use.