Was it this guy?
The Crash of 'Czar 52' 24 June 1994 At Fairchild AFB, Washington
Posted on 05/20/2010 6:59:33 AM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
... and there’s a lotta carpet in a 747!
Poem from my childhood:
Roses are red
Violets are blue
You’ve got a nose
Like a B52
Boeing (IIRC) has a plan to do just that. Replace the eight obsolescent engines with four CFM high-bypass ones. Year after year, it falls below the cutoff line in USAF budgeting.
We need to build these with all new airframes.
Was it this guy?
The Crash of 'Czar 52' 24 June 1994 At Fairchild AFB, Washington
Wow, didn’t know that. Imagine what a newly manufactured 52 could do, with lighter weight, fly by wire, new metallurgy, carbon fiber/kevlar, etc. Bet that would add some speed, too.
Thanks.
***Went TDY to Kadena AFB Okinawa to work on KC-135s during the Vietnam war.**
When Walker AFB closed (1967)I was sent to Little Rock AFB and worked on KC-135Q. Spent some time in 1968 TDY Okinawa, Guam and 1969 UTapao, Thailand. Lots of other little two week stints in Goose Bay Labrador, Fairbanks, and Beale AFB.
We may have crossed paths!
***The first production model B-52A Stratofortress rolls out of the Boeing plant in Seattle in March 1954.***
I think it is interesting that my Great Grandfather lived from the end of the Civil War to the time the B-52 went into service.
When he was born the Santa Fe Trail was closed due to Indian raids. Buffalo covered the plains.
8 years old when Custer got killed at Little Big Horn,
Worked on the ranches of Oklahoma and Colordo in at the turn of the 1890s -1900 when he homesteaded land in Oklahoma.
Then died when the B-52 went into service. 10 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
What a time to be alive and see so many changes in one lifetime! He is buried in a cemetery on the Cimmaron Cuttoff of the Santa Fe trail, where one lifetime before he would have been scalped!
What a GREAT story!!!!
Yes. He hit a field next to the transformer station (bottom right). That brown building was the motorpool area. I was standing outside a building near the ammo dump (bottom left) and the tower.
My group just finished our survival exam. We watched the BUFF practicing for the airshow outside. After a couple of circuits around the airfield, he banked hard left around the TDY lodging building and lawn darted after stalling the plane. One of the F-16 drivers yelled, “He’s going down!” and we ran back in the building to the door on the other side and kept going. A buddy and I ran to the fire station across the street. The base commander and wing commander were relieved of duty if I remember correctly for allowing this to happen. Our group watched him fly like this the day before and thought it was really dangerous.
I still remember the sound of the engines running at 100% just before the crash and the sound of the explosion. I had minor heat rashes on my face from the fireball.
This was Friday. That previous Monday, a former Airman who was kicked out of the military for psych issues came back on base with an AK and killed his psychologist and another person at the hospital. An SP on a bike, using a 9mm pistol, took him out at long range (for a pistol) and saved a bunch of people.
I only ever sat in a D model and somebody was pointing the “new” location....40 years ago, so there’s room for error on my part.
I wasn't trying to correct you, sir! I was only commenting on where it was on the BUFFs I worked. The configuration was probably different on every series.
The worst part is that leadership let this guy pull the same kind of crap for years and never did anything to stop him.
Now, we use it as a case study in several levels of PME.
Sadly, when I retired last summer (after 28 years) I still saw the same mentality that allowed this accident to happen.
They are contantly being updated with new software and hardware by Boeing.
But the airframe is not being rebuilt. It is being repaired, constantly. While impressive, there needs to be another aircraft to perform the mission function, and it should not be judged on emotions and memories. Check out comments elsewhere about “drilled/filled cracks” and rivet plates to support. A 52 made of carbon fiber would not need these things and have a whole lot less weight. I say take the design, and rebuild it all for another 25 years of use.
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