Originally, the B-52 had a very tall tail, as shown here:
Later versions had the tail shortened, as shown here:
Posted on 03/01/2023 11:31:51 AM PST by Alas Babylon!
Something was off with a key component used to literally hold many U.S. Air Force aircraft together—and it resulted in the service grounding 207 vital aircraft according to a Time Compliance Technical Order issues in February.
No—it’s wasn’t the Air Force’s numerous F-16 tactical fighters. Nor its new F-35 stealth jets, or venerable B-52 bombers and A-10 ground attack jets.
Foremost, it was the workhorse keeping all of those planes refueled in the sky: the service’s airliner-based KC-135 Stratotanker. It also affected RC-135 and WC-135 surveillance aircraft extensively deployed to monitor the activity and technologies of foreign militaries (particularly China, North Korea, and Russia).
The offending items, first publicly revealed on February 9 in a memo posted onto an unofficial Facebook page associated with Air Force non-commissioned officers, are apparently “non-conforming” vertical pins. Two of these 5-inch pins are used to bear 90 percent of the load fixing the vertical stabilizer (ie. tail fin) on the C-135 family of aircraft. The failure of just one pin therefore would suffice to compromise its load-bearing capacity, causing the entire vertical stabilizer to... “depart the aircraft,” as the memo dryly puts it.
According to the memo, a metallurgical analysis of two “non-conformal pins” supplied by BlueDog Industries found flaws including “incorrect material, undersized dimensions, insufficient plating and lack of shot peening.” All 280 pins were recalled by the Air Force, but unfortunately, some had already been installed.
“I don’t know what the problem is...here’s a picture of a B-52 that lost its tail:”
Maybe flying too close to a low lying bridge?
The Jimmy Stewart movie was No Highway in the Sky. Very good movie.
Ping.
"Elvis has left the building."
That reminds me of this:
Clarke and Dawe-”The Front Fell Off”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
you beat me to it.
My gf works at Fairchild AFB — 92nd Air Refueling Wing.
Yes, that’s it. Thanks.
Interesting, usually it’s the US Navy that has this problem
Originally, the B-52 had a very tall tail, as shown here:
Later versions had the tail shortened, as shown here:
I work at a tanker squadron, and yes, this report is real. Many of our planes are being grounded except for a one way trip to Oklahoma to get the pins replaced.
Nope, they will be replaced with the KC-46.
By the end of talyObidens regime our military will be down to rocks and carrier pigeons with diahreah.
....also have a number of hours as a passenger in various KC-135s....the last one I flew in just a few years ago had a 1957 federal fiscal year tail number....now, that’s gettin’ on in years...!!!
The C-17 replaced the C-141B. They are cargo only aircraft while the KC-135R and the KC-46 are aerial refueling tankers.
I saw that movie. Good one. The geek wins and gets the girl too.
Did the tail problems start when females were admitted to the AF Academy?
Man, those heater/blowers up top were red hot. And the deck felt below zero.
If there’s cardboard boxes of pallets, especially about chest-high, that’s the place to be.
Not hot above, not freezing below, but at about chest high both extremes neutralize each other.
I would often see crew put a sleeping bag on a pallet load and stretch out on it. Toasty, not too hot.
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