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B-52 Stratofortress — The BUFF Strategic Bomber

Lexie__M said:
Years ago I had a friend who was a ground pounder in Viet-Nam.
He was on patrol near Laos and they settled down for the night when they all felt a earthquake as everything was shaking and the sky's' towards Laos was lite up big time.
They figured out it was B-52's carpet bombing in Laos VC trails about more or less 20 miles from them. :unsure:
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😁
 
rcurtner said:
While in Vietnam my unit was about 1000 yards away from a B-52 strike. Was told they could carry 108 500 pounders. Even at that distance it shook the ground, very impressive.
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The Viet Cong who had been on the receiving end of Arc Light referred to it as "Whispering Death". The B52's were so high that the only sound they heard before the explosions was the whoosh of the bombs through the air just before they struck. We lost a number of B52's and crews from SAM's.
 
I had another friend growing up who's mother for years was living with a man named Ray. Ray was a great guy and was around for years. He was a strange guy though. He was a pilot who flew medical equipment back and forth between St. Louis and Kansas City. We knew from my friend's mother that Ray was a retired Green Beret and a Viet Nam vet. Ray acknowledged as much but never would talk about VietNam. Until one night. He told one story and that was it. He never talked about it again. (He did tell us what dog, cat and parrot tasted like). I found out later Ray was part of the 5th special forces group and something called B57 Project Gamma. Google it, it's an interesting story.
 
Mike H. said:
Hello all, here is today's article posted on TheArmoryLife.com. It is titled “B-52 Stratofortress — The BUFF Strategic Bomber ” and can be found at https://www.thearmorylife.com/b-52-stratofortress/.

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Summer 1967 while at bootcamp (ROTC) in Spokane, WA, I got to fly cross-country roundtrip in a night training mission refueling B-52s. I was in the underside glass pod when a black B-52 suddenly rose from the clouds for the hookup. The pilots were clearly visible in the moonlight. Nasty-looking bird; incredible sight! (didn't have a camera:).
 
I lived/worked in the E. WA/N. ID area when a "52" there augered in.

Was at the Fairchild air show the previous year & the pilot did some amazing "fighter-like" maneuvers in the flying display.

All that caught up with him & the 3 others that where in the ship with him when he was practicing for the next years' airshow.

en.wikipedia.org

1994 Fairchild Air Force Base B-52 crash - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org


1698987366149.png


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B-52 Crash Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington June 1994

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Talyn said:
I lived/worked in the E. WA/N. ID area when a "52" there augered in.

Was at the Fairchild air show the previous year & the pilot did some amazing "fighter-like" maneuvers in the flying display.

All that caught up with him & the 3 others that where in the ship with him when he was practicing for the next years' airshow.

en.wikipedia.org

1994 Fairchild Air Force Base B-52 crash - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org


View attachment 46453

imgflip.com

B-52 Crash Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington June 1994

An animated gif. Make your own gifs with our Animated Gif Maker.
imgflip.com imgflip.com
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That pilot was a reckless idiot with a history of flying the B52 outside its safety parameters. The investigation showed he was known to be so dangerous that other crew and pilots refused to fly with him. What makes it worse is that he was a senior pilot. The fact that he had not been grounded long before highlighted a miserable failure of leadership.
 
HayesGreener said:
That pilot was a reckless idiot with a history of flying the B52 outside its safety parameters. The investigation showed he was known to be so dangerous that other crew and pilots refused to fly with him. What makes it worse is that he was a senior pilot. The fact that he had not been grounded long before highlighted a miserable failure of leadership.
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Yep I saw what he was doing at the previous years' airshow, and as per the vid of the crash he just made that maneuver far too low. One guy punched out but didn't make it since he waited to long to do so.

They pulled the "52"s out of Fairchild later that year. It's been a KC-135 base since.
 
What always bothered me was that during its use in Vietnam, the 52 was used in tactical missions, while tactical aircraft like the F-105 were used in the strategic role. And fully half of the Thundercheif production run was lost in SEA.
And, on a side note, my late Uncle was a radio repairman on the 52 in either Mississippi or Alabama in the mid-60s.
 
The targets in large part were chosen at a weekly lunch meeting at the White House then sent to SAC headquarters at Offutt in Nebraska. Frag orders were prepared at SAC HQ then sent by aircraft to MACV in Saigon. Arc Light was micromanaged by a bunch of politicians and bureaucrats from 10,000 miles away. You could not make sense of that.
 
HayesGreener said:
The targets in large part were chosen at a weekly lunch meeting at the White House then sent to SAC headquarters at Offutt in Nebraska. Frag orders were prepared at SAC HQ then sent by aircraft to MACV in Saigon. Arc Light was micromanaged by a bunch of politicians and bureaucrats from 10,000 miles away. You could not make sense of that.
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Yep, I got the same explanation from a 52 navigator that I built two models for, one a "D" and the other a "G". He flew Arc Light and gave me copies of his log books.
Adding politics to war only made a bad situation worse.....
 
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