NASA U-2 High Altitude Flight

On August 28, 2024, NASA's U-2 N806NA conduct an approximately one hour flight over Southern California.

The climb to altitude is very similar to that of the Scaled Composites Proteus, covered in an earlier post. We don't know the exact maximum altitude for this flight due to data clipping, but the maximum reported altitude was 63,267 ft MSL. Based on the rate of climb information, I believe the maximum altitude was probably between 65,000 and 70,000 ft. Like the Proteus, the initial climb out is steep, coming in at 23 degrees.