my grandfather flew one over southeast asia in the 50s, and later was in charge of a team that flew u-2's and a-12's (cia version of sr-71) over china. i transcribed a letter he wrote about it, mostly regarding the mechanical experience of piloting:
he actually mentions a bit about the difficulty of landing:
> The most difficult part of flying the U-2 was to make a good landing. It was a tail-dragger and in order to make a decent landing, you had to come across the threshold at three to five feet and ten knots above the stall speed. And the threshold speed was based on the amount of fuel on board. The aircraft attitude at the threshold had the tail higher than when parked. The residual (idle) RPM was 65% and during the check-outs, only 15% of flaps were used. The trick was to fly down the runway, holding the main wheel one-to-three feet off the runway, while the airspeed dissipated and the attitude of the aircraft rotated from that slightly-tail-high to the parked attitude, without letting the main gear touch the runway. For if the main gear touched too early, you got a bounce and that was a go-around. The same thing is true in a J-3 (40 HP) cub. In other words, you do not make “wheels” landings – placing the main gear on the ground first. It is said, that you can never recover from a bounce. For you will always be 180 degrees out of synchronization. Years later, as a reconnaissance staff officer at the 15th AF Headquarters, March AFB, Calif., I worked for a lieutenant colonel who had been in the RB-47 program at Farber AFB, Kansas for many years and the RB-47 was also a “tail-dragger” and the same was true about it and the bounce. (But it didn’t have a high-aspect wing, such as used on gliders, and the -47 had six engines, so when all six were in idle it settled down very smoothly.)
https://hyperstition.al/u2-james-black/
he actually mentions a bit about the difficulty of landing:
> The most difficult part of flying the U-2 was to make a good landing. It was a tail-dragger and in order to make a decent landing, you had to come across the threshold at three to five feet and ten knots above the stall speed. And the threshold speed was based on the amount of fuel on board. The aircraft attitude at the threshold had the tail higher than when parked. The residual (idle) RPM was 65% and during the check-outs, only 15% of flaps were used. The trick was to fly down the runway, holding the main wheel one-to-three feet off the runway, while the airspeed dissipated and the attitude of the aircraft rotated from that slightly-tail-high to the parked attitude, without letting the main gear touch the runway. For if the main gear touched too early, you got a bounce and that was a go-around. The same thing is true in a J-3 (40 HP) cub. In other words, you do not make “wheels” landings – placing the main gear on the ground first. It is said, that you can never recover from a bounce. For you will always be 180 degrees out of synchronization. Years later, as a reconnaissance staff officer at the 15th AF Headquarters, March AFB, Calif., I worked for a lieutenant colonel who had been in the RB-47 program at Farber AFB, Kansas for many years and the RB-47 was also a “tail-dragger” and the same was true about it and the bounce. (But it didn’t have a high-aspect wing, such as used on gliders, and the -47 had six engines, so when all six were in idle it settled down very smoothly.)