I was recently reading an article on the Boeing B-52 that said it was projected to still be an operational part of the U.S. nuclear deterrent force through the year 2044. That concept provoked some thought and the following hypothetical situation.
1908-A male child is born and given the name John
1930-John graduates from college, is commssioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Army Air Corps and assigned to operate the new fangled machine called an aeroplane.
1933-John Jr is born
1933-1955 John Sr survives World War II and the Korean War and rises to the rank of full Colonel
1955-John Sr is chosen for command of a new B-52 Bomb Wing.
--------John Jr graduates from college, is commissioned as a 2nd Lt in the US Air Force, completes Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) and is assigned to a B-52 training squadron.
--------John Sr and John Jr make their first flight in a B-52. During an informal ceremony on the flight line, Wing Commander John Sr comments, “This is a great day. I am 47 years old and my son and I will both make our first flight in a B-52 today.”
--------John III is born that year
1977-John III graduates from college, is commissioned as a 2nd Lt in the US Air Force, completes UPT and is assigned to a B-52 training squadron.
--------During an informal ceremony on the flight line, now retired John Sr comments, “This is a great day. I am 69 years old and my granson will make his first flight in a B-52 today, 22 years after his father and I made our first flight in a B-52.”
--------John IV is born that year.
1999-John IV graduates from college, is commissioned as a 2nd Lt in the US Air Force, completes UPT and is assigned to a B-52 training squadron.
--------During an informal ceremony on the flight line, John Sr comments, “This is a great day. I am 91 years old and my great grandson will make his first flight in a B-52 today, 44 years after his grandfather and I made our first flight in a B-52.”
Assuming that the plane so many of us affectionately call “BUFF” does make it to the year 2044, the last installment of this saga could read:
2043-John VI graduates from college, is commissioned as a 2nd Lt in the US Air Force, completes UPT and is assigned to a B-52 training squadron.
--------During an informal ceremony on the flight line, John VI comments, "This is a great day. I am 22 years old and today I will make my first flight in a B-52, 89 years after my GREAT, GREAT, GREAT GRANDFATHER made his first flight in a B-52! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
All too true. Used to have a cartoon that showed a B-52 flying over a boneyard with the B-1s and B-2s. The KC-135 is also scheduled to last to 2050, I guess those guys in the fifties new their sliderule stuff!
And that’s how traditions are started, but not to rain on their parade but great grandad and gramps flew in the “A” model BUFF and the grandbaby flew in a “H” model buff, but I would think it’ll be more ironic if the whole family was able to fly in the same BUFF each time for their check out flight on the same day but years apart, but as for the first set of parents their plane is now long since gone and now a couple of F-35’s
Was it Macarther that said an old soldier never dies? Consider the C130. It is from the same time frame and still soldiering on as well. They just don’t build them like they used to. Yardbird do you remember the “fail-safe” missions?
well you can’t forget the StratoTankers too, they been around longer then the BUFF’s the planes that have seen the B-47’s are still flying today, I’m working on KC-135’s that where built back in 1955
By today’s standards, the B-52, C-130, etc. were “over-engineered”…they design them for a certain life expectancy, and by God, that’s how long they’ll last.
Look at some of the old wood railroad bridges out west, still as strong as they were 100 years ago. I’ll bet no engineer would last if he tried to build stuff like that nowadays.
chasblake99 Yes, the 1950s Aeronautical Engineers accomplished a lot with a sliderule and brain power. Kelly Johnson and the Skunk Works gang designed the Blackbirds with sliderules and nothing can touch them even today. 72cuda The B model BUFF, first built in '52-'53, was the first to go into operational service in 1955 at Castle AFB, but the H model was only 6 years behind it. rangerj You bet I remember Fail-Safe, Chrome Dome, 24/7 alert duty both ground and airborne, etc. Take several B-52s loaded with live Nukes and fly them towards bad guy country and turn around at the last possible point, (fail safe point). Chrome Dome, take off from the US, fly across Canada, the north pole, Europe, North Africa, the Atlantic and back home. 25 to 30 hour missions, usually with live Nukes. What a dangerous game we played in those days. Then things like Palomares, Spain, happen. What a fiasco that was.
If I remember right a nuke was lost off the coast of Spain. Did they ever find that bomb? If they located it, was it ever recovered? One more time, if the memory serves me right, we (USA) have only lost ONE nuke, that is one was not recovered. Was that the one, i.e. off the coast of Spain?
No, we lost(code name Broken Arrow) more than that, but they did find the one off of Spain. They still haven’t found the one off the coast of Georgia(somewhere near Savannah). I don’t remember how many were lost and off those that were not found other than that one. And how about Albuquqe(spelling I know), the only city to ever have a thermo-nuclear device dropped on it.(luckily it wasn’t armed)
We should also add the good old Huey(UH-1) 49 and going on 50 and still going strong.
The incident in Spain, I think it was 1966, a Chrome Dome BUFF was refueling from a KC-135 out of Moron AB, when they midaired, destroying both planes. The breakup of the BUFF dumped 4 H Bombs out. 3 landed on the ground, 1 of which just got banged up, the casing is on display at the Atomic Museum in Albuquerque, NM. The impact shock detonated the high explosive around the nuclear material in two of them and scattered radio active material over quite a wide area. The 4th landed in the Med. We finally found it in fairly shallow water, the Russians were looking for it too, got it just about to the surface and lost it again in VERY deep water. It took several months to find and recover it.
Another incident, a B-52 was making an emergency landing approach to Thule AB, Greenland and couldn’t make the runway. The pilot belly landed it on a lake that is frozen over all year round. The ensuing fire melted through the ice and the plane with 4 nukes went to the bottom and is still there.
Either a B-47 or B-52 accidently dropped a nuke over Georgia. It is still out in the swamp somewhere. A B-36 was returning from Eilson AFB, Alaska to Carswell AFB with several nukes when it crashed in Canada. The USAF claims to have recovered all of those, but the wreckage of the plane is still there. There have been several other similar incidents where nukes “got away”, but most of them have been retrieved. Playing with nukes is a very dangerous game.
I’ll sleep better tonight knowing about all those loose nukes. As for the one in Georgia, what could it hurt? It might kill a few snakes. My uncle flew B-52s with SAC for 8 years and to this day that is all he will say about it. Do you remember hearing about an armed B-52 that landed at Chicago O’hare airport, and shut it down until the aircraft could be repaired and take off?
Grandad,
The huey is a personal favorite. Correction, the men who flew them are my heros, especially the “Dust-off” pilots (medivac pilots). The sound of a huey is distinct. I can pick out the sound of a huey off in the distance before anyone else around even hears it. Anyone out there know why we called them “slicks”? In my lifetime I’ve had the opportunity to meet Gen. Chuck Yeager, Col. Paul Tibbets, Col. John Glenn, Cpt. John McCain, and a few other legands of aviation. There are two aviators I hope to meet some day, Amelia Earhart and Maj. Charles L. Kelly, the driving force behind the modern medivac. To Maj. Kelly, some day sir, some day.
I just wish I could have got some better pics of the BUFF’s that were at Anderson AFB when I was on det there. The crews were pretty cool but they couldn’t really get me too close to take photos and I didn’t hound 'em (this was not long after OEF started). I’m sure I can get some good ones over the Net now, too. - Calvin
rangerj, I’ll take a punt and say what I’ve heard: that the dust-off Hueys were called ‘slicks’ because of the lack of guns or weapons attached to the side, thus giving them a smooth, ‘slick’ appearance. Is that about right?
Cheers,
John