Hello pilots,
After three years of research and development, and more remakes than we would like to admit (three cockpits, two exteriors and two avionics suites), we are ready to present to you the U-2.
A little history first. The U-2 was designed in 1954 to photograph the Soviet Union from higher than any fighter or missile could reach. It first flew in 1955 at Groom Lake, a secret test site in the Nevada desert built for the program, and a year later the CIA was flying it over the Soviet Union. In May 1960, Francis Gary Powers was shot down over Sverdlovsk. Two years later, U-2 photographs found Soviet missile sites in Cuba and started the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The larger U-2R followed in 1967, and NASA took delivery of its ER-2 in 1981. In 1994 the fleet received the GE F118 engine and became the U-2S, the version the U.S. Air Force still flies today, more than seventy years after the first flight. Some call it the hardest aircraft in the world to fly. Now it is time to test your skills.
TRAILER: U-2 Trailer 1 Is Up
Open detailsThe first look at the U-2S in motion.
RELEASE: KBAB Beale Air Force Base, Retro & Modern
Open detailsBeale AFB sits in the Sacramento Valley in Northern California, and it has launched the “eyes in the sky” since the start of the Cold War. Now you can fly from this legendary base in two eras: the Cold War years and today. Both versions are developed by Blackbird Simulations, and we are proud to bring them to our store.
Blackbird Simulations KBAB Retro
- The row of SR-71A hangars, with animated doors and sound
- JP-7 fuel tanks and fuelling station
- Ford Mustang U-2 chase cars, olive-drab ground crew
- Static KC-135Q, T-38A, U-2 and SR-71A
Blackbird Simulations KBAB Modern Day
- Base-specific static U-2, T-38, RQ-4 and KC-135
- Support vehicles specific to U-2 operations
- Animated crew, beacon, birdstrike radar and flags
- Detailed PAVE PAWS radar site east of the base
UPDATE: Mission Hub V1.3.9 Experimental on PC
Open detailsMission Hub V1.3.9 is expected as an experimental build, on PC only, through Contrail. Switch to the experimental channel to try it, and send us your reports.
- Platform: PC only, for now
- Channel: Contrail, experimental
- Next: if testing goes well, V1.4.0 Stable follows on ALL platforms, consoles included
On the road to V1.4.0
V1.3.9 is the first experimental step towards Mission Hub V1.4.0. If all goes well with testing, V1.4.0 Stable will release on consoles too, with proper mission sharing between users and missions saved to the cloud. Here is what V1.4.0 is set to bring, in general. Some of it arrives in later experimental builds.
The Mission Portal
Every mission you own, in one library. Find it on the web, send it to the sim, and fly. No downloads to unzip, no folders to manage.
- FindSearch your library and filter by aircraft, difficulty and duration. Keep your favourites one click away.
- SendSelect Send to Hub. Mission Hub downloads and installs the mission for you.
- FlyOpen Mission Hub in the sim. The mission is ready, with its briefing.
- Import from MissionGen with a six-letter share code.
- Share your own missions made in Mission Hub.
- One account: sign in with your Xbox ID and link Mission Hub once.
Found something odd? Tell us on the bug tracker. Experimental builds only get better with your reports.
New Miltech Documentation Portal, U-2 Manuals & Paintkit
Open detailsThe new Miltech Documentation Portal puts every manual in one place, with one search across all of them.
- Instant search across every manual, plus a page filter in the menu
- Light and dark themes, “On this page” navigation, print and PDF downloads
- U-2 manuals: from your first start-up to the sensors, the Datalink Portal, checklists and emergency procedures
- U-2 Paintkit: make your own liveries.
New to the U-2? Start with “U2 101 – The Basics”. It explains why people call it the hardest aircraft in the world to land.
RELEASE: Miltech U-2 Spyplane for MSFS 2024
Open detailsHere it is: the U-2S, the version the U.S. Air Force still flies today from Beale, Akrotiri and Fairford.
Some claim it is the hardest airplane in the world to fly. It cruises between 70,000 and 80,000 ft, where only about 20 kt separate the stall from the speed limit. It lands on two wheels in a line, with a chase car racing down the runway behind it and calling out the height in the flare. We built ours from public data records.
Two releases, one price
U-2S
- Digital U-2S cockpit, GE F118 engine, 19 liveries
- ASARS-2 radar, SYERS-2A camera and optical bar camera
- Sceneries: RAF Akrotiri, Groom Lake (1960s era), RAF Fairford
- Chase car with voice calls, runway crew and pogo crew
- Datalink Portal, and 7 missions in the U-2 Spyplane Mission Pack
U-2R & ER-2
- U-2R with the classic round-dial cockpit and J75 engine
- ER-2, NASA’s research version
- 5 to 10 more missions planned
- Period chase cars
The sensors
The U-2 is built to carry sensors, and ours has the three of the real U-2S. Each one builds its picture live from real map data, and with the datalink on you can save your captures to the Datalink Portal.
| ASARS-2 radar | SYERS-2A camera | Optical bar camera | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What | Imaging radar | Long-range digital camera, five bands | Panoramic film camera |
| Reach / zoom | Search to 320 NM, spot down to 0.1 NM | 0.5x to 73x (90x in infrared) | Up to 15x, about 1,600 frames |
| Night & cloud | No effect | Darkens at night; street lights show | Exposure follows the sun |
Your chase car
At a real U-2 base, every takeoff and landing has a “mobile”: another U-2 pilot in a fast car who talks the pilot onto the ground. Ours drives itself. It chases you on takeoff and landing and calls your height in the flare: “ten… five… two… one”. It also brings the runway crew that pulls the pogo pins, and the pogo crew that refits them after landing.
| Included scenery | ICAO |
|---|---|
| Groom Lake (1960s era), Nevada | KXTA |
| RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus | LCRA |
| RAF Fairford, England | EGVA |
| CIA Nordic Base, Lapland | CIA1 |
| Mission | Base |
|---|---|
| U-2 Familiarization | KXTA |
| NASA Terrain Study | KXTA |
| UFO Investigation, Roswell | KXTA |
| NASA Grand Canyon Survey | KPMD |
| Operation Dark Skies | RKSO |
| Chinese Surveillance Balloon | KCOF |
| Iran Reconnaissance | LCRA |
Need-to-knows. MSFS 2024 only, there is no MSFS 2020 version. PC at launch; console may take longer. The sensor pictures need an internet connection, and the missions need Miltech Mission Hub. The U-2 is demanding to land, so read the manual before your first flight.
Add Tonopah Test Range & Area 51 for $9.99 more. The bundle offer goes live the same day.
The release offer holds until the U-2R and ER-2 arrive; after that the price is USD $39.99. The variants and sceneries are not sold separately. Where to buy at launch: MiltechSimulations.com and the iniBuilds store, with the Microsoft Marketplace soon after.
RELEASE: Tonopah Test Range & Area 51 by SundownerSim
Open detailsIn the 1980s, Tonopah was home to the F-117 Nighthawk and to the Red Eagles, the squadron that flew Soviet MiGs in secret. SundownerSim has rebuilt the base as it was in that era, and then kept going across the whole Tonopah Test Range.
- Tonopah AFB, 1980–1990: original layout, period vehicles and personnel, aircraft placed from historical photos
- Black-project prototypes at remote test sites: Have Blue, Tacit Blue, A-12 Avenger II, Sport Model, Stealth Hawk and the rumoured Aurora
- The Extraterrestrial Highway and the JANET terminal at Las Vegas
- Area 51 (Groom Lake), 1960–1970: the base of the U-2 and A-12 Oxcart years, with Have Blue and the S-4 hangars at Papoose Lake
- UFOs, crop circles and other anomalies to find
Bundle offer: buy it together with the U-2 and you pay just $9.99 more. The Area 51 part also comes with the U-2 package.
UPDATE: MH60 V1.2.0 Stable
Open detailsV1.2.0 rolls V1.1.5, V1.1.6 and the V1.1.7 and V1.1.8 experimentals into one stable release for everyone. The short version: the trim and the autopilot were rebuilt from scratch, the navigation now flies real flight plans from end to end, and the flight model was re-tuned against real MH-60 data.
Trim & force trim
- New persistent Trim Bias. Autotrim and bias are limited to 30° pitch and bank.
- TRIM off now fully disables autotrim. The trim beeps then drive the rotor trim directly.
- Trim follows the cyclic while you hold it, so letting go is smooth. Finer steps.
- Fixed: inverted pitch trim, force trim snapping back, sudden roll or pitch on the TRIM button.
Autopilot & AFCS
- Heading changes are flown as coordinated turns. Set the heading bug by hand on the PFD or from the collective.
- Hand-fly roll in ATT and DEPARTURE. Cyclic past 80% disconnects every mode.
- Heading hold now lets go only on a deliberate bank, not on a nudge.
- Fixed: altitude holds diving at large errors, hover modes engaging on the ground.
Flight model & engines
- Pedal authority and drag tuned to real MH-60 data, with pedal washout as speed increases.
- Vibration through translational lift, around 15 kt.
- Autostart (Ctrl+E) and auto-shutdown. Engines now need bleed air to start.
- Fixed: roll drift, lateral CG offset, ground-idle Nr, Np overshoot at rotor engagement.
Avionics & navigation
- MSN nav source works on the HSI. The active leg is green and flown legs clear from the maps.
- Search patterns become real flight plans. New DIR TO on the keyset LEG SEQ page.
- Traffic on the TACT page, a graphical trim indicator, a PFD timer, revised TACAN.
Cockpit, sound, multiplayer & keybinds
- The EFB holder folds clear of the windshield. FLIR is now part of the Mission Display.
- Firefighting water drops now sync in multiplayer.
- New keybinds for COM volume, engine ignition and heading bug.
COMING SOON: U-2 on the MSFS Marketplace
Open detailsThe U-2 is expected on the MSFS Marketplace at the end of November, and it keeps the same release offer: USD $36.99, with the U-2R and ER-2 free when they arrive.
Marketplace dates depend on certification, so this one is “expected”, not promised. We will update this card when we have the green light.
NEXT: U-2R & ER-2
Open detailsThe U-2R, with its round dials, drift sight and Pratt & Whitney J75, and NASA’s ER-2 high-altitude research aircraft. Both are FREE for every U-2 owner, whether you bought on our store or on the Marketplace.
When they arrive, the U-2 release offer ends and the price moves to USD $39.99.
Thanks for flying with us. See you above 70,000 ft.
// The Miltech crew