Performing their duty through several generations and still going strong.
Posted on 12/21/2011 9:41:25 PM PST by ConservativeStatement
On a Friday in 1948, six aeronautical designers from the Boeing Company holed up in a hotel suite in Dayton, Ohio. They stayed put until Monday morning, except for the one who left to visit a hobby shop and returned with balsa wood, glue, carving tools and silver paint.
The group emerged with a neatly bound 33-page proposal and an impressive 14-inch scale model of an airplane on a stand. Col. Pete Warden, the Air Force chief of bomber development, studied the result and pronounced, “This is the B-52.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The final B-52 pilot hasn’t been born yet.
Go figure.
A friend of mine just received his assignment as a navigator in a BUFF.
Well done, sir. You gave us one helluva machine.
An unsung hero of the Cold War.
Anyone know how many B-52’s are still on active duty?
about 40. Out of 787 built.
Thanks.
Those US Air Force “Bone yards” are a sad thing to see.
Really important guys get little public notice.
I think it is interesting that my great-grandfather, whom I still remember,was born in 1868, was 8 years old when Custer got killed, lived during the times of the buffalo, Indian wars, OK corral, and died the year the B-52 went into service.
He is buried on the Santa Fe trail where you could have been scalped when he was born.
Think of all the progress he saw in his lifetime!
Or the final B-52 pilot is comeing into the world as Mr Withington is leaving it..
Yes, but without i-pod apps, facebook, and twitter, how could he possibly have lived a fulfilling existence?
According to Wikipedia, there are 85 on active duty, and 9 in reserve.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-52
I hope I don’t live that long...the way the government is making me withdraw from my IRA I better be dead long before that..My kids don’t want me but my son in law offered me 2 stalls in his horse barn...fresh hay every other day...he loves his MIL
Performing their duty through several generations and still going strong.
He lived long enough to see two Japanese cities glow in the dark. Then died 10 years later.
He was NEVER senile, and he drank like a fish, smoked like a chimney, and chewed Beech nut with a slice of Bull of the Woods. He did loose his teeth, and had to have his beef and pork ground for him. Definitely a poster child for Michelle's new food pyramid. Hope I live that long.
OMG I GOT FLASHBACKS to Fairbanks, AK and Goose Bay Labrador! 1968-1969.
I grew up on the approach to west over AFB as a kid. These things flew over my house just about 24x7. They are magnificent machines.
They left years ago, but several years back one came home for an air show. It flew in and hearing that noise made me feel like a kid again.
When these old timers go, we lose an infinite amount of knowledge.
RIP.
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