Great movie with Jimmy Stewart entitled "Strategic Air Command" where is AC of a B-47. Little bit corny but still got across the story of the early days of the Cold War. Thanks to all of our Service Members for keeping the peace during those difficult years of tension with the USSR.
the B-47 would throw a bomb. It'd pull up hard into an Immelmann and release the bomb in a nose vertical attitude under a few Gs. The plane would complete the turn inverted, then roll upright and get the hell outa there cuz nukes are unhealthy to be near...
The most secret aircraft were Rivet Amber and Rivet Ball, two RC135 spy planes that documented Soviet nuclear missile tech development. At one point these individual planes were two of the top five top secret military projects.
It's main contribution to science was providing the British aircraft industries experience in design, testing , and manufacture of higher-Mach flight vehicles. All of which was rendered redundant by a bungling effort by various Ministries to take advantage of any of these advancements. I've always thought this was a cool aircraft, but that it probably had the wave-drag of a supersonic Zeppelin.
How is it even possible that Boeing designed such an advanced airplane with only captured German engineering data, middle aged men and absolutely no DEI hires whatsoever?
(sigh) back when Boeing was ahead of everyone and had scientist and technicians that knew their business with a slide rule... not like today, hope the new CEO turns it around.
10:19 That's "sack", NOT "S. A. C". No one I knew when I was a service dependent living on base said the letters individually. "SAC", okay? I can tell by the cadence and the way pauses that should happen didn't that this is a bot. I only subscribe to channels with human voices.
My grade school was used by B-47's to practice low level bombing. They flew right over the school in a small town in Iowa. We all would run to the window to watch when we heard them. Not so secret.
My dad was a B-17 pilot during WW II and was shot down over Germany in 1943, spending the rest of the war as a POW. After the war, he remained in the Air Force and flew the B-47 for part of the cold war but transitioned to the B-52. I don't know if this is true or not because I've never seen it mentioned in any of the histories of the B-47. My dad never talked about the missions of the B-47 alert crews as they were obviously classified. But there was one time my dad mentioned that some of the crews were on "dry tanks alert", and unofficial term that meant certain B-47 targets were so far inside Russia that after their final aerial refueling, certain B-47's would only have enough fuel to get to a deep target but not enough to make it back to an aerial refueler. In other words, it was a one way mission. If true, I wondered were we found such crews that knew they were likely never to make it home. I found the answer years later when I was a Marine platoon commander in Vietnam 1968-69 in combat. Every day you never knew if you would see the Sunset and every night you never knew if you would see the Sunrise. Yet everyday we did our daytime missions and every night we did our nighttime patrols. Every one of us knew that each day may be our last as either killed or wounded, but we saddled up and did the job regardless of the threats. I then felt I had a glimpse of what the mindset might have been for those B-47 crews on dry tanks alert--if such an alert were actually true. Even flying the polar routes from the last likely aerial refueling just to the center of Russia and back was at the max range of the B-47 and any deeper than that was beyond getting back to a refueler. It's possible that there were options to fly to some allied base, but if you look at the map, that would be unlikely in many cases and if it were a nuclear war, most if not all of those bases would be destroyed. In 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis, we were stationed at Homestead AFB, Florida which is south of Miami. We lived on base and I clearly remember my dad getting a phone call at night. He listened on the phone but didn't say anything. He put the phone down, put on his flight suit, grabbed his flight gear and left without saying anything. A short time later, we could here the B-52's starting engines and taking off. The next night I was with several friends and one of their parents was driving us to the high school football game. En route, we were stopped at a train crossing and waited for the train to pass. To our surprise, it was a very long train with Army equipment such as tanks, trucks, supplies, ammunition, etc. And then there was another train, and another, and another until it was too late to go to the game and once the traffic jam cleared, we went home. The next morning, Homestead AFB was little more than a massive Army camp with thousands of soldiers, vehicles, tanks, etc. and all of the B-52's had been replaced with seemingly countless fighter jets. We didn't hear from our dad until will after the crisis was over when he returned home as unexpectedly as he left. He never said where he went, but it was obvious that the nuclear bombers were dispersed outside of the range of the Cuban nuclear missiles. One thing that was obvious to my mom, me, and my brother during the Cold War was that in the event of a nuclear war, the aircrews on alert would be able to takeoff before the Russian missiles hit their targets of which all of the bomber and US ICBM bases were primary. That meant that in the event of a nuclear war, all of the families of the air crews that managed to takeoff would be vaporized. We knew it and all the air crews knew it. In a way, it was kind of surreal experience. No one ever talked about it, but it was always in the back of our minds. It was an interesting life. My dad was my role model and I had the best mom any kid could have hoped for. I'm 78 now and I still miss them.
Imagine that the first successful aircraft engine could have been a turbine, as ICE engines took half a century to develop to the point their power-to-weight ratio allowed flight. Liquid fuel powered turbines to replace the steam engine's boilers and oil/coal/wood fuel made this possible.
I had the privilege of listening to a lecture by the test pilot who conducted the initial flight of the. B-47. They flew the VFR only bird to Mose Lake on top of a solid undercast. At the lake there was a five mile wide,”Sucker hole,”(Break in the undercast.) They landed and were towed into a hangar where they exited the aircraft only to find the field had totally fogged in. Much of Boeing’s financial future rode on that flight that almost ended in catastrophe. The early jet engines spooled up so inconsistently that in flight drag chutes had to be implemented to maintain lateral control doing pattern work (takeoffs and landings.) The drag allowed the engines to be operated above idle rpms to allow symmetric acceleration and control. The use of the chutes did lead to panicked phone calls from residents in proximity to SAC bases until it became generally known. What the video failed to cover was the tremendous losses of the aircraft due to,”Toss bombing,” over stressing the center sections. The video alluded to the strengthening of the wing in late models but failed to mention the loss of over three hundred aircraft due to this self induced failure mode. Yes, the Air Force kept that loss rate quiet.
You do know that the 'Cuban Missile Crisis' was caused by US missiles in Turkey don't you? It ended when JFK ordered those missiles removed. The USSR could then recover the missiles from Cuba that they'd left lying around in plain sight.
The Soviets made great planes, but this plane is on another level As well as the F2 2 , it just goes to show. You can make two great planes and picking either one is like splitting hairs, but this plane is an absolute legend…
...I know this aircraft from a Revell model kit I built ca 1957 or 58. I really wanted a Renwal HAWK missile battery kit, but which was gone when I walked into that stationery store in Fort Lee, NJ...it was the typbix art of the era that caught my eye...
FYI for you Young'uns that weren't Hatched yet, this was when Boeing was about as Bad-Ass as it gets, looking at the company today I almost can't believe it's the same one, well, it isn't the same one obviously, the Old, Better Boeing would never accept the way they operate now, you see then it was run by Engineers, Now it's run by a bunch selfish, self centered, 80's Cocaine (*) brained & vulgar greedy Ass-hat Bean Counters. I was in and about many colleges in the 80's (my job), many if not all those engineer & Business students were doing Blow like no-body's business.
That's the one that wound up at Castle Museum. It was refurbed enough to make the ferry flight to the Central Valley. It was the absolute last flight of a B-47 ever.
They're absolutely failing with the F-16 too it is a Time and Time proven again airframe they didn't even bother looking at the F-16 XL which in my opinion would destroy the f-35
The Montana ANG had them and called them the Lead Sled. The recurring pilot error was too light of a landing where the tires would skid and rip apart if you didn't slam the plane down hard to get the wheels to spin as the plane was so heavy the breaks were made very stiff.
I thought that was hilarious. Also those of us in the Strategic Air Command never called it S-A-C. We always said SAC (pronounced sack). Why is it so hard to get a human to narrate these things?
The YF-23 lost fair and square. The only reason people still love it is because of its good looks. Given Northrop's challenges with the maintainability of stealth features on the B-2, it would have been a very difficult plane to maintain. Given the Air Force's recent position on not going forward with current NGAD proposals and relying on multiple, more affordable Collaborative Combat Aircraft, it's not likely stealth nor speed of a fighter is at the top of their priority list.
Given the current geo-political tensions in the Middle East and Asia, the USA should be prioritizing the YF23 and the Virginia Class submarines. Any delay could be defeat.
Narrator voices about YF-23 its muscular structure as the moment one thinks the YF-23 airframe resembles surfaces reflecting the thickness of paper. Oh, the irony!
The Air Force makes nothing but bad decisions. They're short on pilots, to begin with, and as far as decisions on aircraft, between the Joint Chiefs and politics, it's an absolute joke at this point.
