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It's BUFF


Subdeacon Joe

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Into the next century and beyond! ;)

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Amazing aircraft, even after all these years.

I think the Air Force got it's money's worth with that airframe.

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 Video was shot at Barksdale AFB, LA. Got a tour several years ago.  Eighth AF Hdqtrs is there. Can't recall the wing number. Second Heavy Bombardment Wing is at Minot.  Be nice when they get the new engines. More power, more efficient, improved electronics. AF says they intend to keep them running through 2050. If they retire them then, I want to be there to see it. I'll be 108 and I intend to be around! (My parents made it to 98, and that was a while back.) Wonder what all those safing pins were for. Possibly ejection seats?

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Knew about Cartridge Starting from my early days in the Navy. Found it interesting that they started 4 engines simultaneously.  I expect them to be started in rapid succession not all at once.

 

 

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USAF modified the B-52D to the  "big belly" configuration which allowed a single B-52D to carry 108 500-lb. bombs, or a mixed load of 64 500-lb. bombs in the bomb bay and 24 750-lb. bombs on underwing pylons.

 

I seem to recall reading somewhere that a 3 place cell of B-52D's doing an Arclight would  destroy everything a 1/3 of a mile wide and a mile long and even collapsed tunnels.  I also recall reading that the two things the North Vietnamese feared the most were the B-52D Arclights and the Spooky & Spectre gunships.  The B-52D's because they couldn't see or hear them release the bombs and gunships because even though they could hear them, they couldn't hit them with small arms and they feared the mini-guns.  Combat reports state that no village or hamlet under Spooky protection was ever lost.*

 

*I find it both very funny and very impressive that the C-47 was given the AC= Attack/Cargo designation.   It borders on the absurd that a largely obsolescent 30+ year old plane design with a machine gun, basically designed almost 100 years before the Vietnam War, was so effective and so feared by the North Vietnamese.

 

For those of you unfamiliar with "Puff, the Magic Dragon": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_AC-47_Spooky

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I was an Architect for work at March AFB California. It was a SAC base. When one of these started up and took off the whole base knew it.

Great to watch the wings rise and level out as they gain air speed and lift.

 

As I was working there I noticed the B-52's disappeared. I asked one of the officers I was working with what happened. He smirked, sort of laughed and said, 'some genius figured out we were 60 miles to the coast, a prime target for sub based missiles'!This was in 87.

!

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I got to fly 3 Arc Light escort missions. I don't know exactly where we went; we followed the bombers. We went way north and were out of all of our TACAN ranges. We were told the standard load was 108 750 pounders. A V of 3 dropping everything at once simultaneously was quite impressive. As Forty alluded, it was necessary to be above the bombers at release. BUT in addition to being above we had to be to the side because as they released all that weight they gained altitude at a hefty rate. Our goal was to be 5000 ft higher with 2 F-4s 2 miles left of the bombers and the other 2 2 miles right of the bombers. Then we followed the bombers south until we came back into TACAN range then we were released and went home. We refueled 3 times as we were at high power settings once we rendezvoused with the bombers. We had to have the plane captains help us out of the seats as our butts and legs were numb.  

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I love the personal history that comes out in threads like this.

 

Now ...

 

We all lament the stories we didn't pay attention to from the Doughboys of WWI and all the untold histories of WWII veterans.  Or the stories from them that we don't quite remember.

 

PLEASE write down your memories.  Or dictate them into a machine.  Find someone who is gathering the personal histories of the men and women who fought in Korea and Viet Nam and get your records into their hands.  Heck, self publish a book and send a copy to the LoC.  Don't let your history fade away.

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When they retire the last B-52,  after it's last flight they should fly the crew home in a DC-3  

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5 hours ago, Forty Rod SASS 3935 said:

You know, if you were on the bottom of that video when they dropped all of those bombs it might just ruin your garden party.  

After Iraq invasion into Kuwait,  many of the common Iraqi infantry soldiers had their 'garden party' ruined by B-52's bombing their defensive positions.

Reports are that many of those Iraqi soldiers that survived had severe mental issues.  I can only imagine what they went through.

 

Buff-carpet-bombing.jpg

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One of my high school buddies flew BUFFs during Nam. I wonder if he’d recognize the cockpit now or after the current wave of updates.

 

one of the things they did for the SALT treaty was permanently disable some older planes by cutting the wings off. I read where they hauled one of those wingless carcasses to a testing center to use as a platform for testing the new avionics.

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7 hours ago, Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 said:

I read where they hauled one of those wingless carcasses to a testing center to use as a platform for testing the new avionics.

 

 

After nearly 1,500 miles and a month on the road, the B-52H Stratofortress nicknamed “Damage Inc. II” has arrived in Oklahoma and is ready to start its new mission.

 

B-52H bomber makes its way slowly to Oklahoma City, ready to fulfill mission

 

 

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