Image credit: U.S. Air Force
Posted on 12/26/2013 8:48:58 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
As we reported few weeks ago, on Nov. 10, two B-52s, launched from Minot and Barksdale AFB for a training mission, flew hundreds of miles off course to give assistance to a Cessna plane that had lost radio contact with Anchorage Air Traffic Control Center in bad weather, over Alaska.
While all the details about the successful rescue mission were released by the U.S. Air Force and can be found here, little was known about the mission the two Buffs were flying when they received the distress call.
But, since then, we gathered some more information.
The two B52s that helped the Cessna were taking part in Exercise Global Thunder 14, the largest Air Force Global Strike Command/STRATCOM drills of 2013. They were just two of 18 B-52 Stratofortress aircraft and several B-2 Spirit stealth bombers airborne at that time. More than 22 KC-135s along with 24hr E-6B TACAMO and LOOKING GLASS were supporting the exercise that had started with a MITO (Minimum Interval Take Off).
Global Thunder is a yearly 10-day exercise which incorporates a nuclear war scenario of which most major CONUS air bases are simulated destroyed by ICBMs (InterContinental Ballistic Missiles). AFGSC launches its B-52s and B-2s under MITO procedures and simulate a nuclear attack on Russia. Ground forces are also deployed and simulate detonation reports.
Barksdale and Minot based B-52s conduct various routes which take some up through Alaska and over Canada hence they were over the area that Sunday when the Cessna was requesting assistance.
Noteworthy, the detour did not compromise the B-52 simulated nuclear retaliation on Russia.
Image credit: U.S. Air Force
O'rly?
Imagine those two guys showing up off your port and starboard wings...if you’re in a Cessna.
Got my pilots license in the early 80’s. Was flying one day one of my first solo flights heading east. Saw some smoke to the north; off to my left; and BELOW me. A few more seconds as I looked closer; saw a B 52 flying south! I decided NOT to intercept!!
They were doing low level training flights at the time. Pretty cool!
We still managed to nuke Russia and save a Cessna... lol
Witnessed a similar event during the early 1980s while driving north of Ashville, NC, along the French Broad River valley. A Buff was following the river while staying just below the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains. Made a big impression on me.
All in a days work!
The Cessna participated in nuking Minsk.
Sort of like this? Merry Christmas from Chuck Norris
Had similiar experiences in Maine in the same time frame looking down from hills at the top of BUFFS out of Loring.
Also saw a tanker in my rear view mirror while driving one day. His undercarriahge was about where one would anticipate seeing the top of a semi. It was a disrorienting feeling for a moment.
My Dad related an incident way back during the Vietnam war, where he was out working in the garden at our old farmhouse, and was suddenly overcome by an intensely creepy sensation. He looked up just in time to see a B52 ghosting overhead at maybe no more than 200-300 ft on a low glidepath into an airfield a ways away. The engines had been throttled all the way down, so the aircraft made virtually no noise, and he never heard it coming. He said it looked black, though my guess is it was dark green and poorly-lit.
That had to be great! Got mine around mid ‘80s. Was towing banners over Long Beach Island in NJ a few years later when a C141 overtook a little further off the coast, same altitude (about 600)! They followed the beach for another few minutes then climbed and turned inland, assuming to McGuire AFB.
Should add that this event happened in Central Mass *during* Vietnam, not *in* Vietnam. :p
I think they might have been heading for Westover AFB, which was maybe 15-20 miles away.
>My Dad related an incident way back during the Vietnam war,
the thunder of distant impacts.. haunting.
Nah, he wasn’t in the war. He had gotten out back in the early 60s, and this happened afterwards. It was probably ‘70 or ‘71, and he was outside on our farm in Central Massachusetts.
Phenomenal aircraft.
"I love to watch when those babies come flying in lowwwww !"
BUMP
I lived under one of the approaches to Westover as a kid. Those things were noisy!
A few years ago one was flying into a local base for an air show. It was like hearing a song you haven’t heard in twenty years.
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