I’ve seen them with afterburner kicked in on night take-off. The vibration and sound is amazing.
Awesome plane. The B-one
I’ve seen them with afterburner kicked in on night take-off. The vibration and sound is amazing.
Awesome plane. The B-one
I remember the original rollout of the
B-1, and the photo article in one of the weakly news mags. They said it had been nicknamed “The Savior”. Because as the awesome weapon was rolled out, several in the crowd muttered, “J_ _ _ _ C_ _ _ _ _!”
I do not encourage profanity, but it DOES speak to the impressiveness of the plane.
I was headed out to Hueco Tanks state park back in the 80’s with friends when we intersected one on an empty highway in the middle of nowhere. It was flying Nap of the Earth and we had my Trans AM pegged, with the t-tops out. I saw this spec in the distance, really low and wondered out loud at what it was. I could see we were going to meet it. A few seconds later I was all hot damn, it’s a B-1!!!
That sucker thundered right over us at “you could conceivably hit it with a rock” altitude and it was definitely a super badass moment!
My men and I were on the Hot Pad at Grand Forks AFB removing a Minuteman III airframe in its shipping container from a C-141. The operation takes quite awhile because it rolls out at about one foot per minute.
Anyway, I was at the left rear side of the receiving trailer and my two NCOs and the two spotters were all watching the container as we rolled the missile off. All of a sudden we heard a loud rumbling noise then things started to shake. My men stopped the operation and started to run toward the grass and a shallow ditch off the tarmac as they thought the missile had somehow had released itself from the internal carriage inside the container and was rolling off said carriage. I spun around and a B-1B was about 200 feet off the ground, full afterburner, wings swept back, flying the length of the runway. The B-1B then pulled up and left, went near-verticle.
The Bomb Wing on base had just got back from winning the SAC Bomb Competition and the returning winning crews were celebrating by buzzing the base. The B-1Bs were amazing.